Whereas Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy
and affiliated parties won the 1990 elections in a landslide victory, garnering
80 percent of the parliamentary seats;
Whereas before this election, Aung San Suu Kyi was placed
under house arrest and the military proceeded to arrest hundreds of members of
the National League for Democracy;
Whereas Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for
14 of the past 20 years;
Whereas for her nonviolent struggle for democracy and
human rights, Aung San Suu Kyi received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991;
Whereas in April 2008, Congress completed passage of
legislation to award the Congressional Gold Medal, the United States Congress’
highest civilian honor, to Burma’s democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi;
Whereas, on August 19, 2007, prominent student and
democracy leaders peacefully took to the streets in Rangoon and elsewhere to
protest the draconian action of the military junta in Rangoon;
Whereas by mid-September, more than 100,000 democracy
supporters, led by Buddhist monks, were protesting;
Whereas the Burmese regime threatened to “take action”,
and on September 26, 2007, the military opened fire on peaceful protesting
crowds demanding democratic reforms;
Whereas an estimated 200 people were killed, hundreds
injured, and thousands of individuals were arrested, imprisoned, or tortured as
part of this violent crackdown;
Whereas amidst the crisis in parts of the country caused
by Cyclone Nargis, the country’s military junta staged a referendum to force
through a new constitution, drafted without input from the opposition;
Whereas the vote for the referendum did not follow a free
and fair democratic process;
Whereas conditions prior to the referendum consisted of
repression, a lack of a free media, and a lack of an independent referendum
commission and courts to supervise the vote;
Whereas the regime’s constitution, on which it predicates
its upcoming elections in 2010, contains an amnesty provision that exempts
members of the military regime from civilian prosecution;
Whereas the amnesty provision is a blatant attempt to
legitimize the systematic violence in the country for all junta inflicted
crimes;
Whereas the constitution removes any rights for civil
redress for victims of crimes committed by the military and leaders of the
democratic opposition have refused to accept this constitution;
Whereas following the visit of an uninvited man from the
United States to her home in August 2009, Aung San Suu Kyi was sentenced to an
additional 18 months of house arrest for allowing the man to stay briefly in
her home without official permission;
Whereas this trial and the following rejection of an
appeal was decried as a sham by the international community and was widely seen
as a move to prevent Aung San Suu Kyi from participating in the 2010 national
elections;
Whereas since May 2009, the regime has started to disband
and disarm the ethnic opposition groups by issuing orders to reduce their
troops from the current levels of about 50,000 to 7,000, and then transfer them
under the authority of the regime by end of October;
Whereas as a majority of ceasefire groups have refused to
comply, in August, the regime started to attack the smallest group, Kokang, and
defeated it in a week;
Whereas this attack against Kokang and the occupying
Kokang region forced over 40,000 people to flee to China as refugees and sent
the message to other ceasefire groups to obey its order;
Whereas the escalation of civil war and further
destabilizing of the region can be expected anytime soon as the regime is
strengthening its troops in the region for further attack and the ceasefire
groups are preparing to defend their regions;
Whereas in June 2009, the United States tracked a North
Korean ship carrying a suspicious cargo believed to be heading to Burma, but
the ship returned to North Korea without ever reaching Burma;
Whereas North Korea is internationally known to
proliferate nuclear and missile materials and information;
Whereas the United Nations has passed over 30 resolutions
decrying the Burmese military regime’s human rights violations and blatant
system of impunity;
Whereas the regime has dismissed these resolutions by
waging a war against its civilian population and destroying or forcing the
abandonment of over 3,300 villages since 1996;
Whereas these inhumane tactics have caused a serious
refugee crisis numbering more than 1,000,000 between 1996 and 2006, and up to
500,000 internally displaced persons remaining today;
Whereas the ruling military junta in Burma has one of the
worst human rights records in the world and routinely violates the rights of
Burmese citizens, including the systematic use of rape as a weapon of war,
extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests and detention, torture, as well as
slave and child labor, including child soldiers;
Whereas the International Labor Organization (ILO) since
1998 has found that Burma’s state authorities use “widespread” and “systematic”
forced labor, arrest, or dismiss workers affiliated with labor protests, and
murder, imprison, and torture trade unionists;
Whereas the ILO as recently as June 2009, concluded
Burma’s military regime has continuously failed to implement the Convention
since 1996;
Whereas the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary
Detention has stated five times that the detention of Aung San Suu Kyi by the
Burmese military regime violates international law;
Whereas in March 2009, in opinion No. 46/2008 the United
Nations committee announced for the first time that Aung San Suu Kyi’s house
arrest violates, not only international law, but Burmese law as well, further
highlighting the Burmese junta’s utter disregard for the rule of law;
Whereas, on October 11, 2007, the United
Nations Security Council issued a statement condemning the violence in Burma,
urging the release of all political prisoners, and calling on the State Peace
and Development Council (SPDC) to enter into a United Nations-mediated dialogue
with its political opposition;
Whereas in July 2008, the Congress overwhelmingly passed
and President George W. Bush signed into law the Tom Lantos Block Burmese JADE
Act (Public Law 110–286) imposing further financial and travel sanctions on the
Burmese military regime;
Whereas since 2003, Congress has annually renewed import
restrictions affiliated with the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act (Public Law
108–61) which imposes sanctions on the ruling Burmese military junta with the
purpose of strengthening Burma’s democratic forces and supporting and
recognizing the National League of Democracy as the legitimate representative
of the Burmese people;
Whereas this act was once again renewed and signed into
law by President Obama on July 28, 2009;
Whereas in September 2009, the Administration concluded a
seven-month review of United States policy towards Burma, the revised policy
seeks credible democratic reform by maintaining the current sanctions against
the Burmese regime in addition to direct engagement with senior Burmese
officials; and
Whereas the European Union, Canada, and Australia have
imposed their own sanctions against the Burmese regime: Now, therefore, be
it
That the House of
Representatives—
(1)insists that Burma’s military regime begin
a meaningful tripartite political dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi, the National
League for Democracy, and ethnic nationalities toward national reconciliation,
and the full restoration of democracy, freedom of assembly, freedom of
movement, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and internationally
recognized human rights for all Burmese citizens;
(2)demands the
immediate and unconditional release of Aung San Suu Kyi, detained Buddhist
monks, and all other political prisoners and prisoners of conscience;
(3)calls for full
accountability of those responsible for human rights violations;
(4)calls on governments around the world,
including the nations of the European Union and the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN) to strengthen sanction regimes against Burma, with the
goal of denying the Burmese ruling junta hard currency to continue its campaign
of repression;
(5)calls on the
United Nations Security Council to immediately pass a resolution imposing
multilateral sanctions on Burma’s military regime, including a complete arms
embargo, and to take other appropriate action to respond to the growing threat
the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) poses in Burma and the
region;
(6)calls for the
Administration to fully implement the Tom Lantos Block Burmese JADE Act (Public
Law 110–286) to include financial sanctions as well as the appointment of a
United States Special Coordinator for Burma;
(7)calls for the
Administration to support a United Nations Security Council Commission of
Inquiry to investigate the Burmese regime’s war crimes, crimes against
humanity, and system of impunity;
(8)calls on the
Burmese junta to change the current fraudulent constitution by permitting
members of the democratic opposition and ethnic minorities to participate in
government and that these changes are made before the 2010 elections;
(9)calls for countries throughout the world to
unite behind a global arms embargo on the Burmese military regime; and
(10)demands the Burmese ruling junta release
Kyaw Zaw Lwin, a Burmese born American citizen being detained at Insein
Prision.