[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 144 (Wednesday, September 26, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12078-S12079]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            MORNING BUSINESS

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, there 
will now be a period for the transaction of morning business for 60 
minutes, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes 
each, with the time equally divided between the two leaders or their 
designees, with the majority controlling the first half and the 
Republicans controlling the second half.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, against all odds, the long-suffering people 
of Burma have risen against one of the world's most repressive regimes. 
What began a month ago as modest, impromptu protests has now mushroomed 
into a nationwide peaceful democratic groundswell. Tens of thousands of 
students have joined Buddhist monks in the streets, marching and 
chanting in unison against Burma's brutal military rulers. I met with 
some of those rulers a number of years ago when I went to Burma. I also 
had a chance to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi in her home where she has 
been under house arrest.
  It is an extraordinary division that is growing and growing in Burma, 
where the military junta, unbelievably unpopular, nevertheless clings 
to power through the force of the military which it controls. The 
riches of the country are exclusively being diverted to their spoils, 
while Burma remains now and increasingly becomes poorer and poorer.
  The Burmese people need to know that the courage they are 
demonstrating today and what they are fighting for is being watched by 
people all over the world, that we admire what they are attempting to 
achieve, and that we stand in awe of their commitment, of their 
courage. Their actions follow in the venerable footsteps of Mahatma 
Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Lech Walesa, and all of those heroes who 
understand that nonviolent resistance is humanity's greatest weapon 
against tyranny and injustice. We, with all of the tools available to 
us, need to make certain the people of Burma understand that their 
courage is breaking through and that this moment is one we share with 
them.
  What is happening today in the streets of Rangoon is, however, as 
tenuous as it is unexpected. Just this morning, we learned that warning 
shots were fired and tensions are escalating. I do not know how many 
people realize it, but the Government of Burma, the junta, moved to its 
own sort of private capital and has created this almost surreal exiled 
government where they feel safe, as if living in a bunker within the 
isolation of Burma itself. Just this morning, we also learned that the 
cabal of generals that is pillaging Burma under the guise of governing 
it could easily meet these nonviolent protests with a bloodbath, just 
as they did in 1988. So it is important that none of us allow the 
scrutiny on Burma to be diminished. This could conceivably become 
another Tiananmen Square moment, if it does.
  No one should doubt the Burmese junta's potential for brutality and 
large-scale violence. Since taking power, they have killed tens of 
thousands of Burmese, and they have razed more villages than have been 
destroyed in Darfur. Over half a million people have been internally 
displaced, and an additional 1 million refugees have fled the country. 
The tyrannical thugs who run the country are engaged in the systematic 
use of forced labor, human trafficking, forcible recruitment of child 
soldiers, torture and rape--an appalling laundry list of human rights 
violations. Yet, despite such grave danger, the people of Burma have 
stood strong in the face of this extraordinary evil. They demand 
Democratic reforms and basic human rights, and they have done so with 
dignity, and they have done so peacefully.
  The United States and the rest of the free world must find more ways 
to make it clear that we stand with the people of Burma. The 
President's decision yesterday to target the top general for financial 
sanctions is a step in the right direction, but it will not solve the 
problem, and it is not enough.
  The massive prodemocracy demonstrations in Burma represent the best 
opportunity for genuine political change in nearly years. Burma's 
Saffron Revolution is also an excellent chance for America to finally 
show greater diplomatic leadership on the world stage.
  The United States needs to lead the international community in 
pressuring the military junta to release all political prisoners, 
starting with the venerable Nobel Prize laureate and opposition leader, 
Aung San Suu Kyi, and take steps down the path from there to more 
thorough political change.
  This week's gathering of world leaders at the United Nations General 
Assembly is ready made. It is a forum waiting to be utilized properly. 
My hope is that the United Nations will take the necessary steps to 
make even more clear the world's condemnation but, more importantly, to 
create real pressure, and that includes pressure from places such as 
China, which has been playing a clearly duplicitous game because of 
their deep investments, their proximity, and other occasional 
similarities in the way in which they have dealt with democracy 
uprisings. From the halls of the United Nations to the headquarters of 
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the message to the Burmese 
military needs to be clear: The world is united behind the people 
marching in your streets. Do not meet peaceful protest with still more 
butchering. We are prepared, all of us--and we must make this clear--to 
act in concert against you unless you immediately embark on serious 
negotiations toward sharing power with the people of Burma.
  Showing diplomatic leadership on Burma also requires that we demand 
better from those countries that have propped up this brutal regime and 
are thus the best equipped to help pressure it. India and, in 
particular, China can make a significant difference in this outcome. 
The President and the United Nations must engage in strenuous diplomacy 
with Beijing, which carries the most sway with Burma's generals, and 
urge the Chinese to press for reform. China has in its grasp a 
momentous opportunity to demonstrate leadership commensurate with its 
growing power and status. Beijing can host the 2008 Olympics as an 
enabler of cruelty and repression or it can do so as a responsible 
stakeholder in the world community. The Olympics will not

[[Page S12079]]

masquerade or cover up for its absence from this challenge. This is an 
important test. The world is watching.
  As the international community exerts greater pressure on the 
military junta, it must also reach out more aggressively with 
humanitarian assistance for the Burmese people. The people of Burma 
have suffered not only the bullets and bayonets of the current regime 
but also from decades of misrule that have transformed their resource-
rich nation into one of the poorest in Asia. All you have to do is go 
to YouTube, and you can watch footage of the wedding of the general's 
daughter, one of the junta general's daughters, laden in diamonds the 
size of pebbles, an example of the excesses of their coercion of power 
while the country gets poorer and poorer and people suffer as a 
consequence.
  Many of Burma's 52 million people live in abject misery. About one-
third are mired in poverty. Nearly half of all the children never get 
to go to school. Malaria and tuberculosis are widespread. Mortality 
rates in Burma are among the highest in Asia. At least 37,000 died of 
HIV/AIDS in 2005 and over 600,000 are infected with HIV. Burma's 
suffering destabilizes southeast Asia--heroin and methamphetamines, 
HIV/AIDs, and other infectious diseases, as well as hordes of refugees 
spilling across Burma's borders into neighboring countries. The 
international community must respond to this ongoing tragedy by 
providing humanitarian aid to a desperate and deserving people.
  Current levels of international assistance are simply woefully 
insufficient. We need a network of public and private donors to fund 
health, education, and infrastructure projects. The resilient and brave 
Burmese people have shown that they are more than worthy of our support 
and compassion. They are fighting for democracy. We need to join that 
fight.
  I close by offering a final word of warning. We dare not forget 
Burma's last great democratic uprising. It occurred in 1988. It was 
brutally crushed by the military at the cost of over 3,000 innocent 
lives. That day and the repression that followed show the horrible 
human toll of our collective failure to act. A peaceful prodemocratic 
outcome in Burma is actually within reach, if the international 
community were to seize this moment. The United Nations, ASEAN, India, 
and especially China must stand with the United States in solidarity 
with the Burmese people. All of us must not fail the people of Burma 
again.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Arkansas.

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