[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 23 (Tuesday, February 28, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E203-E204]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    HUMAN RIGHTS IN BURMA: WHERE ARE WE NOW AND WHAT DO WE DO NEXT?

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 28, 2006

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, February 7, I 
chaired a hearing on the current human rights situation in Burma, and 
what the U.S. and the international community can and must do to 
improve that situation.
  After 40 years of brutal military dictatorships, the human rights 
situation in Burma is frightening. That nation's current military 
junta, in power for over 17 years, is an abysmal failure on every 
conceivable level.
  It has ruined a beautiful and naturally rich land. According to the 
State Department's most recent Human Rights Country Report:

       More than 4 decades of economic mismanagement and endemic 
     corruption have resulted in widespread poverty, poor health 
     care, declining education levels, poor infrastructure, and 
     continuously deteriorating economic conditions. During the 
     year, poor economic policymaking, lingering consequences of 
     the 2003 private banking sector collapse, and the economic 
     consequences of international sanctions further weakened the 
     economy. The estimated annual per capita income was 
     approximately $225. Most of the population of more than 50 
     million live in rural areas at subsistence levels.

  The Heritage Foundation ranked Iran and North Korea as the only 
countries with more restrictive economies than that of Burma.
  But economic misery is probably the least of the problems faced by 
Burma's long-suffering people.

       Citizens still did not have the right to criticize or 
     change their government . . . Security forces continued to 
     carry out extrajudicial killings. Disappearances continued, 
     and security forces raped, tortured, beat, and otherwise 
     abused prisoners and detainees. Citizens were subjected to 
     arbitrary arrest without appeal.--2004 State Department 
     Human Rights Report.

  There are more than 1,100 political prisoners in Burma, who are 
abused and tortured. Seven are reported to have died in custody last 
year, and just last month a 38-year-old democratic activist died in 
custody due to inadequate medical attention.

[[Page E204]]

  Over 15 years ago the National League for Democracy, led by Nobel 
laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and other democratic forces, won an 
overwhelming victory in free elections, 82 percent. The junta refused 
to accept the results or to call Parliament into session. Instead it 
imprisoned many activists, including Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent 10 
years under house arrest. Her current house arrest is tantamount to 
solitary confinement. She has been cruelly kept away from her children, 
and her husband, who died abroad. For 15 years the junta has cynically 
proclaimed its intention to draft a new constitution via a national 
convention, with no participation by the people's democratic 
representatives. That national convention has again been adjourned, 
with no constitution, and no freedom, in sight.
  Since 1999, the U.S. Secretary of State has designated Burma as a 
``Country of Particular Concern'' under the International Religious 
Freedom Act for particularly severe violations of religious freedom.
  According to the U.S. Department of State, Burma continues to be a 
Tier 3 Country for human trafficking, and ``the junta's policy of using 
forced labor is a driving factor behind Burma's large trafficking 
problem.'' The ILO has condemned Burma's use of forced labor, and the 
ILO representative in Burma has received death threats. Burma has 
threatened to quit the ILO. Burma regularly prosecutes those who 
complain about forced labor. Last October, Burma sentenced a 34-year-
old woman to 20 months in prison for ``criminal intimidation'' of local 
officials. Her offense? She had the temerity to initiate the first 
successful prosecution for use of forced labor in Burma. She had lodged 
a complaint in 2004 against local government officials over their use 
of forced labor on a road construction project. She exercised her right 
to do this under new regulations introduced by the government to 
appease the International Labor Organization, ILO. She is now in 
prison, and her appeal was summarily denied.
  Burma is high on the list of uncooperative drug-producing or 
transiting countries, and there is evidence of military and government 
involvement in the narcotics traffic. Burma produces about 80 percent 
of Southeast Asia's heroin, and is one of the largest producers of 
methamphetamines in the world. It exports its illicit narcotics 
throughout China and Southeast and Central Asia.
  And as Burma's heroin circulates through Asia, so does HIV/AIDS, 
which Burma refuses to take seriously as a domestic problem, although 
the U.N. estimated in 1999 that over half a million adults had HIV. 
According to one estimate, Burma spent only $22,000 in 2004 to help 
AIDS victims. In 2005, the regime tightened restrictions on NGOs and 
U.N. agency staff providing humanitarian assistance in Burma. The 
Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced in August 
that it was terminating its $98 million program on the ground that 
``its grants to the country cannot be managed in a way that ensures 
effective program implementation.'' The French contingent of medical 
aid group Medecin Sans Frontieres reportedly plans to withdraw from 
Burma because of restrictions imposed on access to villagers.
  The military's self-justification for its decades of arbitrary rule 
is to protect Burma from ``instability.'' Yet for 40 years it has waged 
endless war on the nation's ethnic minorities, killing tens of 
thousands, driving hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of others 
into exile as refugees or within Burma as displaced persons. It has 
destroyed over 2,500 villages, and uses rape as an instrument of 
policy. And to wage these wars, it has resorted to conscription of 
children: more than 70,000 child soldiers may be serving, in horrible 
circumstances, in Burma's bloated army.
  The U.N. Special Rapporteur for Human Rights, Sergio Pinheiro, has 
not been allowed into Burma for 2 years. In January 2006, U.N. Special 
Envoy to Burma Razali Ismail resigned his post after nearly 5 years, 
since the junta has not allowed him into the country for 2 years.
  With such a record, it is no wonder that the U.S. has a wide array of 
sanctions in place against Burma, many of which must be renewed this 
year. And many wonder, can any progress be made? Yet in the midst of so 
much darkness, there has been light this year.
  In September 2005, Nobel Laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former 
Czech President Vaclav Havel released a major report documenting 
Burma's human rights problems as a threat to regional peace and 
security.
  In December, with the strong support of the United States, U.N. 
Undersecretary for Political Affairs Ibrahim Gambari, in the unusual 
but significant presence of Secretary General Kofi Annan, personally 
gave the Security Council its first-ever briefing on the situation in 
Burma, a possible first step towards tougher international action. He 
went on record that the Burmese junta imprisons dissidents, ignores 
basic human rights, and is steering the country ``towards a 
humanitarian crisis.''
  The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN, which Burma joined 
in 1997, has finally moved from a posture of ``constructive 
engagement,'' without sanctions or diplomatic pressure, to a more 
proactive approach to promote change.
  But most of all, we owe this progress to this administration. 
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Assistant Secretary of State 
Christopher Hill, and even more importantly, President George Bush, 
have been relentless in making the world face up to the appalling 
disaster in Burma. We have just begun, and we have a long way to go, 
but we in Congress are determined to support these efforts to bring 
peace and freedom to the heroic Burmese people, who, in the face of so 
much persecution and suffering, still persist in their resolute 
struggle for justice.
  The next logical step to take is for the U.S., which is currently 
President of the Security Council, to introduce a Security Council 
Resolution calling on Burma, in the strongest possible terms: to 
release Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners; implement a 
program for national reconciliation that includes the National League 
for Democracy; and grant immediate and unhindered access to all parts 
of Burma for U.N. relief agencies and other international humanitarian 
organizations.
  Such a resolution should include a timeline for compliance and 
punitive sanctions if the SPDC fails to comply.
  We heard testimony from Assistant Secretary of State Barry Lowenkron, 
of the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. It was Mr. 
Lowenkron's first time before this House, and we look forward to a very 
fruitful collaboration on the vital issues he promotes. His Bureau has 
kept attention focused on Burma when most have forgotten it. We also 
heard testimony from Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, who 
is the chief executor of our President's policy to change Burma. 
Additional witnesses included: Mr. Bo Kyi, of the Assistance 
Association of Political Prisoners, a former political prisoner 
himself, who described his own torments, and the ongoing struggles of 
democracy activists in Burma and in exile; Naw Win Yee, a leading 
member of the Shan Women's Action Network, an organization comprised of 
refugee women living in Thailand that works for human rights, freedom 
and democracy in Burma and also works to elevate the roles of women in 
Burmese politics and society. SWAN produced a ground breaking report on 
the military regime's use of rape as a weapon of war in Burma that was 
subsequently corroborated by the U.S. State Department; Mr. Tom 
Malinowski, the Washington Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch, 
who urged the U.S. to keep the pressure on the Burmese regime; and Ms. 
Anastasia Brown, the Director of Refugee Programs, Migration and 
Refugee Services for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 
USCCB, who had just returned from a visit to the Burmese refugee camps 
in Thailand, and made an urgent and eloquent plea for quick action to 
resolve the problems of the resettlement of Burmese refugees. All the 
witnesses provided strong confirmation that Congress needs to stay 
closely involved in the ongoing human rights tragedy in Burma.

                          ____________________