[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 109 (Tuesday, July 31, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8456-S8457]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           STOP TRADING AND AIDING THE BURMESE MILITARY JUNTA

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, once in awhile, the world is confronted 
with a national government so extreme in its violation of basic human 
rights and

[[Page S8457]]

worker rights and so morally bankrupt that it requires exceptional, 
coordinated action on the part of all civilized nations. A case in 
point is the Burmese military junta that has been in power since 1988 
and which continues to terrorize this nation of 48 million people to 
this day.
  This is a despicable military dictatorship that is quite simply 
beyond the pale.
  It uses forced labor as a normal way of conducting business and 
international trade.
  It uses forced child labor to build roads and dams, to transport 
goods for the military, and to tend the fields.
  It exploits 50,000 child soldiers--the most of any nation on Earth.
  It is a drug trafficker of the first order--the No. 1 source of 
heroin on our streets in America.
  It routinely confiscates and operates apparel and other factories, 
directly and indirectly, to earn foreign exchange to keep its brutal 
grip on power.
  It brazenly ignores the democratic yearnings of its own people who 
overwhelmingly elected the National League for Democracy to power in 
the national elections in 1990.
  It has kept Aung San Suu Kyi, the democratically elected national 
leader of Burma and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, under house arrest and 
cutoff from outside communication for most of the past decade, while 
imprisoning, torturing, and killing tens of thousands of Burmese 
prodemocracy supporters.
  For all of these reasons, I introduced legislation, S. 926, in late 
May to establish a complete U.S. trade ban with Burma. I am greatly 
heartened that Senators Helms, Leahy, McConnell, Hollings, Wellstone, 
Feingold, Schumer, Feinstein, Lieberman, Clinton, Torricelli, Dayton, 
Corzine, and Mikulski have already joined as cosponsors of this bill to 
make more effective the limited sanctions enacted by a bipartisan 
majority in 1997.
  Now we need President Bush to throw his support behind this measure 
as well. I am hopeful that he will follow his words with action because 
he wrote to many of us nearly two months ago pledging that ``we 
strongly support Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's heroic efforts to bring 
democracy to the Burmese people.''
  Now is not the time to hesitate. We already have fresh evidence that 
even the threat of enactment of this legislation is making life much 
more difficult for the Burmese generals in several ways.
  First, the Wall Street Journal on July 9th carried an in-depth story 
under the headline, ``Myanmar Faces Dual Blow from U.S. Proposed Ban.'' 
In this account, a ranking officer of the Myanmar Garment Manufacturing 
Association reports that orders for Burmese apparel have already begun 
to decline in the country's largest quasi-private sector industry. Not 
surprisingly, Burmese government officials and textile industry 
executives are denouncing our legislation, claiming that it will hurt 
tens of thousands of Burmese textile and apparel workers and their 
families. But, in fact, S. 926 enjoys the solid support of the Free 
Trade Union Movement of Burma, FTUB, and it was developed in close 
consultation with Burmese workers at the village and farm level inside 
that besieged nation. Small wonder given that the per capita GDP in 
Burma has now fallen to less than $300 a year and the U.S. Embassy in 
Rangoon last summer cabled home that wages in the textile and apparel 
factories typically start at 8 cents an hour for a 48-hour work week.
  Second, the Burmese military junta for the first time has recently 
announced that it will allow a team of investigators from the 
International Labor Organization (ILO) to visit Burma for three weeks 
in September to follow up the mountain of evidence compiled about the 
widespread use of forced labor. I hope this is not a cynical ploy on 
the part of the Burmese generals whereby ILO officials are carefully 
steered to sanitized work sites, after which the ILO mission issues a 
report stating that they saw little first-hand evidence of forced labor 
or that it is in decline due to the government's efforts to stop it.
  To forestall this possibility, the following important precautions 
need to be taken now to prevent the Burmese generals from 
``whitewashing'' their longstanding use of forced labor:
  There should be regular ILO fact-finding teams sent to Burma every 
six months for the foreseeable future, not a onetime visit.
  Every ILO fact-finding team sent into Burma should include at least 
one of the members of the ILO Commission of Inquiry which compiled the 
body of evidence of widespread use of forced labor in Burma. It was 
that Commission's report which led to the ILO invoking Article 33 
procedures for the first time in history in 1999 and twice, since then, 
calling for the 175 member nations of the ILO to adopt stronger 
sanctions against this outlaw regime.
  Before any ILO inspection team is dispatched, the Burmese generals 
must rescind their decree which prohibits any gathering of more than 5 
Burmese civilians at one time. This will enable Burmese forced laborers 
or witnesses on their behalf to feel more secure in coming forward.
  The ILO must also insist in advance that other UN agencies help 
monitor the whereabouts and safety of any Burmese forced laborers or 
witnesses thereto, once the ILO fact-finding teams leave the country.
  Finally, the embassies of Japan and other ASEAN countries who lobbied 
hard for the dispatch of such ILO fact-finding teams must take on 
special, added responsibilities and function as conscientious monitors 
against forced labor and other egregious worker rights violations 
inside Burma whenever ILO fact-finding teams are not on the ground.
  Third, now that more and more American consumers are learning for the 
first time that U.S. trade with Burma is actually growing, they are 
bringing their own pressure to bear on this sordid business. Last May 
23rd, for example, Wal-Mart executives issued a statement that ``Wal-
Mart Stores, Inc. does not source products from Burma and we do not 
accept merchandise from our suppliers sourced in Burma and Wal-Mart -
Canada will also not accept any merchandise sourced from Burma moving 
forward.'' I hope this claim can be verified soon and that other 
companies that have been doing business in Burma will follow suit.
  Fourth, I am also hopeful that the U.S. Customs Service will move 
promptly to enforce its recent rulings and make certain that no 
products enter the U.S. labeled only ``Made in Myanmar''. Until such 
time that my trade ban legislation is enacted, it is very important 
that all American consumers be able to clearly identify whether a 
garment or other imported product is made in Burma.
  In conclusion, Mr. President, it is unconscionable that apparel and 
textile imports from Burma, for example, have increased by 372 percent 
since supposedly ``tough'' sanctions were enacted in the U.S. in 1997. 
They increased by 118 percent last year alone, providing more than $454 
million in hard currency that flows mostly into coffers of the Burmese 
military dictatorship. By what reasoning, do we currently have quotas 
on textile and apparel imports from virtually every other country in 
the world, but not Burma?
  We need to promptly cut off the hard currency that is helping sustain 
the Burmese gulag.
  We need to demonstrate anew our solidarity with the pro-democracy in 
Burma and its leaders.
  We need to curb the flow of illegal drugs pouring into our country 
from Burma. We need to answer the call of the ILO to disassociate our 
country from the Burmese military junta which routinely uses forced 
labor and the worst forms of child labor, while defying the community 
of civilized nations to do anything about it.
  We can accomplish all of these worthy policy objectives, the sooner 
we enact S. 926.

                          ____________________