WHEREAS, Women, men, and children have been raped in systematic conduct by military forces in the towns and villages of the former Yugoslavia; and

WHEREAS, This terror has been condemned internationally as a crime against humanity; and

WHEREAS, Many of the victims, including many women and children, have died as a result of the rape or other sexual abuse; and

WHEREAS, The rapes and other incidents of sexual abuse are being carried out in particularly sadistic ways so as to inflict the maximum humiliation and terror; and

WHEREAS, The systematic use of rape and other sexual abuse in this pervasive manner demonstrates a pattern of conduct knowingly used by the military as a weapon of war, with the conscious intention of demoralizing and terrorizing communities and driving them from their home regions through demonstration of the terrible power of the invading force, thereby achieving the intended result of providing the invading force with a tactical military advantage; and

WHEREAS, Use of rape and other sexual abuse as a military strategy in this conscious, systematic, and pervasive manner is not akin to the incidental abuses that have been evidenced in prior wars, but must be recognized as the knowing, systematic weapon of terror that it is; and

WHEREAS, An ancillary purpose behind this systematic conduct appears to be a desire to achieve “ethnic cleansing”; and

WHEREAS, The rape and other sexual abuse is a terrible component of an overall pattern of destruction of life, property, and human rights; and

WHEREAS, The United Nations Security Council declared rape when committed in armed conflict and directed against any civilian population, a crime against humanity; and

WHEREAS, The United States has historically taken the lead in the community of nations to identify, condemn, and outlaw weapons of war that rely, for their success, upon the terror they instill in civilian populations, and to condemn wartime conduct that violates human rights and dignities; now, therefore, be it