[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 80 (Tuesday, June 3, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7226-S7227]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 BURMA

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, another day has passed in Burma and 
the welfare and whereabouts of Aung San Suu Kyi and man of her 
supporters remain a mystery. The State Peace and Development Council--
the rogue government there--claims that she is in a ``guest house'' in 
Rangoon and is in good health. If this is the case, the government 
should immediately allow foreign diplomats to meet with her.
  The world's condemnation of the most recent murders and detentions in 
Burma has been swift. But words alone will not prevent the junta from 
assassinating more democracy activists in the days to come or detaining 
those whose only crime is calling for freedom and justice.
  The lesson of the past few days is that dialogue has failed in Burma. 
Japan and other countries that advocate engagement with the SPDC as a 
means of political change have nothing to show for their efforts but 
the spilt blood of democrats and the re-arrest of Burma's greatest hope 
for freedom.
  Foreign governments must join in a full court press to determine the 
health and well-being of Suu Kyi and others arrested over the weekend. 
Elected representatives in this body and the world's democracies must 
come together and forge a response to the vicious assault on freedom 
that continues in Burma. Our collective failure to do so will abandon 
the people of Burma in time of their greatest need.
  Burma's regional neighbors--Japan, China, Thailand, and the 
Philippines, in particular--must understand the threats that a 
repressive Burma will continue to pose the region. Among the junta's 
greatest exports are drugs and HIV/AIDS--scourges that know no borders 
or boundaries. With terrorist threats in South Asia and Southeast Asia, 
the junta will continue to pose chronic problems to countries trying to 
close their borders to the trafficking of weapons, people, and 
contraband.
  In conclusion, it is past time to hold the SPDC accountable for the 
many injustices it has inflicted upon the people of Burma. It is time 
for regime change in Burma.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, every so often a clarifying moment in 
international affairs reminds us of the stakes involved in a particular 
conflict, and of our moral obligation to stand with those who risk 
their lives for the principles of freedom. The violent crackdown 
against Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her supporters 
over the weekend underscores the brutal and unreconstructed charter of 
Burma's dictatorship. The assault should remind democrats everywhere 
that we must actively support her struggle to deliver the human rights 
and freedom of a people long denied them by an oppressive military 
regime.
  The arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi following a coordinated, armed attack 
against her and her supporters is a reminder to the world that Burma's 
military junta has neither legitimacy nor limits on its power to crush 
peaceful dissent. The junta insists it stepped in to restore order 
following armed clashes between members of Suu Kyi's National League 
for Democracy and unnamed opponents. In fact, the regime's forces had 
been harassing Suu Kyi and the NLD for months. The Junta's Union 
Solidarity Development Association orchestrated and staged last 
weekend's attack, killing at least 70 of her supporters and injuring 
Suu Kyi herself, perhaps seriously. Credible reports suggest that the 
regime's thugs targeted Suu Kyi personally. She is now being held 
incommunicado by Burmese military intelligence; her party offices have 
been closed; many of its activists are missing; and universities have 
been shut down. After having spent most of the last 14 years under

[[Page S7227]]

house arrest, Ms. Suu Kyi is, once again, a political prisoner.
  Aung San Suu Kyi is one of the world's most courageous champions of 
freedom. I join advocates of a free Burma everywhere in expressing 
outrage at her unwarranted detention and call for her immediate, 
unconditional release, and the freedom to travel and speak throughout 
her country.
  Closing party offices, shuttering universities, and detaining Aung 
San Suu Kyi and senior members of her party in the name of 
``protecting'' her demonstrate how estranged the junta is from its own 
people, and how potent are Suu Kyi's appeals for democratic change in a 
nation that resoundingly endorsed her in democratic elections 13 years 
ago.
  The junta's decision to release her from house arrest a year ago, and 
to permit her to speak and travel within tightly circumscribed limits, 
appeared to reflect the generals' calculation that her popular appeal 
had diminished, and that perhaps her fighting spirit had flagged. They 
could not have been more wrong.
  Aung San Suu Kyi remains the legitimately elected and overwhelmingly 
popular leader of her country. Even though she was under house arrest 
in 1990, her party captured 82 percent of the vote, shocking the 
generals. Neither the huge majority of the Burmese people who voted for 
the NLD nor the international community have forgotten how Burma's 
junta rejected the election results, nor how the regime's forces 
massacred its own people at a democratic rally 2 years earlier. We have 
not forgotten the many political prisoners who remain in Burma's jails, 
or the repression Burma's people have endured for decades. The assault 
on Burma's free political future at the hands of the regime last 
weekend has reminded us of what we already knew: the junta cannot 
oversee the reform and opening of Burma, for it remains the biggest 
obstacle to the freedom and prosperity of the Burmese people. Burma 
cannot change as long as the junta rules, without restraint or remorse.

  Despite these obvious truths, of which we have been reminded again 
this week, some countries have chosen to pursue policies of political 
and commercial engagement with the government in Rangoon on the grounds 
that working with and through the junta would have a more significant 
liberalizing effect than isolating and sanctioning it. ASEAN admitted 
Burma in 1997, Beijing has enjoyed warm relations with Rangoon, and 
most countries trade with it: only the United States and Europe impose 
mild sanctions against the regime. Proponents of engagement pointed to 
the nascent dialogue between Aung San Suu Kyi and the regime, and her 
release from house arrest last May, as indicators that perhaps external 
influence was having some beneficial effect on the dictatorship. But 
advocates of engagement have little to show for it following last 
weekend's assault on the democrats.
  Burma's junta must understand quite clearly that it will not enjoy 
business as usual following its brutal attack on Aung San Suu Kyi and 
the NLD. It is time for the international community to acknowledge that 
the status quo serves nobody's interests except those of the regime: 
Burma's people suffer, its neighbors are embrassed, companies cannot do 
the kind of business they would with a free and developing Burma, the 
drug lords flourish in a vacuum of governance, and the situation inside 
the country grows more unstable as the regime's misrule increasingly 
radicalizes and impoverishes its people.
  No country or leader motivated by the Welfare of the Burmese people, 
a desire for regional stability and prosperity, or concern for Burma's 
place among nations can maintain that rule by the junta serves these 
interests. I find it hard to believe that any democratic government 
would stand by the junta as it takes Burma on a forced march back in 
time. Yet this morning, when asked about the weekend's assault, the 
Japanses Foreign Minister denied that the situation in Burma was 
getting worse, said progress is being made toward democratization, and 
announced that Japan has no intention of changing its policy on Burma. 
Shame on the Japanese. Music to the junta's ears, perhaps, but I 
believe friends of the Burmese people must take a radically different, 
and principled, approach to a problem that kind words will only 
exacerbate.
  The world cannot stand by as the ruination of this country continues 
any farther. Free Burma's leaders, and her people, will remember which 
nations stood with them in their struggle against oppression, and which 
nations seemed to side with their oppressors.
  American and international policy towards Burma should reflect our 
conviction that oppression and impunity must come to an end, and that 
the regime must move towards a negotiated settlement with Aung San Suu 
Kyi that grants her a leading and irreversible poticial role 
culminating in free and fair national elections. If it does not, the 
regime will not be able to manage the transition, when it does come, 
for it will come without its consent.
  I believe the United States should immediately expand the visa ban 
against Burmese officials to include all members of the Union 
Solidarity Development Association, which organized the attack against 
Aung San Suu Kyi's delegation last weekend. The administration should 
also immediately issue an executive order freezing the U.S. assets of 
Burmese leaders. U.N. special envoy Razali Ismail should not travel to 
Burma as planned this week unless he has assurances from the regime 
that he will be able to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi.
  Congress should promptly consider legislation banning Burmese imports 
into the United States, and the administration should encourage the 
European Union to back up its commitment to human rights in Burma with 
concrete steps in this direction. The U.S. and the E.U. together 
account for over 50 percent of Burma's exports and therefore enjoy 
considerable leverage against the regime. The United States alone 
absorbs between 20 and 25 percent of Burma's exports. Consideration of 
a U.S. import ban should help focus attention in Rangoon on the 
consequences of flagrantly violating the human rights of the Burmese 
people and their chosen leaders. In coordination with a new U.S. 
initiative, an E.U. move in the direction of punitive trade sanctions 
would make the regime's continuing repression difficult if not 
impossible to sustain.
  The junta's latest actions are a desperate attempt by a decaying 
regime to stall freedom's inevitable progress, in Burma and across 
Asia. They will fail as surely as Aung San Suu Kyi's campaign for a 
free Burma will one day succeed.
  I yield the floor.

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