[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 107 (Friday, July 18, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1539]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               BURMESE FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY ACT OF 2003

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                          HON. SANDER M. LEVIN

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, July 14, 2003

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I support the Burmese Freedom and Democracy 
Act of 2003, H.R. 2330, because I believe that it is essential to 
demonstrate that the United States refuses to help perpetuate the 
brutality of Burma's military junta against the Burmese people. The 
junta, which ironically calls itself the State Peace and Development 
Council (SPDC), has recently stepped up its anti-democracy activities 
by violently cracking down on pro-democracy activists, and re-
imprisoning the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
  Ms. Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace laureate, has already spent much of the 
last 15 years with her movements and speaking restricted under house 
arrest. I understand that a month ago, after spending only one year 
free from 20 months of recent house arrest, Ms. Suu Kyi was again 
detained and is now being held in a Burmese prison notorious for its 
poor conditions and the mistreatment, and even torture, of political 
prisoners. The United States must take every opportunity to be a leader 
in pressuring the SPDC to free Aung San Suu Kyi and her fellow 
opposition leaders.
  The import sanctions created by the Act will hit the military junta 
where it can be hurt worst--by taking strong action against the SPDC-
controlled economy and depriving the military of a source of revenue.
  The slave-like labor conditions in Burma are one indication of the 
extent of the junta's cruelty against the Burmese people. In 2000, 
after reviewing the working conditions in Burma, an International Labor 
Organization (ILO) team of experts found that the junta continued to 
restrict worker rights and to use forced labor on a widespread basis. 
After receiving the report, the ILO took the unprecedented step of 
invoking Article 33 of the ILO Charter and formally urged its 174 
member states to review their relations with Burma. This is as close as 
the ILO can come to urging sanctions upon a country.
  It is likely that more than a million people in Burma are subjected 
to forced labor on construction sites for roads, railways, military 
installations and tourism. The military is particularly notorious for 
imposing forced labor on villagers living near military operations. 
Even more outrageous is that this forced labor is often accompanied by 
brutality, such as torture, arbitrary and extrajudicial execution, 
rape, and population displacements. Non-compliance by one individual 
has been known to bring the junta's wrath upon a whole village. For 
example, the transport of food and other market goods to and from a 
village could be blocked, or a whole village could be faced with the 
threat of relocation. Forced labor has the additional effect of forcing 
villagers to neglect their own fields, making hunger an ever-present 
concern. Sometimes, even during harvesting times, they are forced to 
travel far from their village to work. If and when they return, they 
often do not have the ability to sustain the needs of their own homes 
and communities.
  The current regime's policies of ethnic cleansing, rape as an 
official tool of repression, the growing and producing of heroin, the 
forced labor conditions--they all must end. We have tried other methods 
to encourage the military regime to change its course, to no avail. 
Only if the United States and others in the international community 
come together to impose sanctions and deprive the junta of its economic 
power can the Burmese people hope to have any relief from the long list 
of atrocities being committed upon them.

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