[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 147 (Monday, October 1, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12386-S12388]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
EXPRESSING THE SENSE OF THE SENATE ON BURMA
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate
proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 339, submitted
earlier today.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the resolution by title.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
A resolution (S. Res. 339) expressing the sense of the
Senate on the situation in Burma.
There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the
resolution.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I support the resolution offered by
Senator Kerry on the current crisis in Burma.
In his April 16, 1963, letter from a jail cell in Birmingham, AL, Dr.
King wrote that ``freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor,
it must be demanded by the oppressed.''
The people of Burma, are demanding freedom. They are peacefully
marching in the streets to demand freedom from an oppressor that is one
of the world's worst human rights abusers. They are demanding freedom
from a government that restricts the basic freedoms of speech and
assembly, engages in human trafficking, discriminates against women and
ethnic minorities, uses children as soldiers and laborers, imprisons
arbitrarily, abuses prisoners and detainees, and rapes and tortures.
This military junta is now engaged in an attempt to violently
suppress the Burmese people who refuse to be silenced anymore. Those
who have taken to the streets are doing so at great personal risk.
Thousands were killed in a similar uprising in the summer of 1988. This
brutal regime is responsible for the destruction of 3,000 villages and
the displacement of 2 million people. The people of Burma are saying
enough is enough.
Dr. King also wrote from his jail cell that ``injustice anywhere is a
threat to justice everywhere.'' That is why this resolution is so
important and why I am so proud to be a cosponsor. It sends a strong
message to those marching in the streets of Rangoon and Mandalay that
the United States is witness to what is happening. It also says that
the United States is working to rally the international community
behind the Burmese people as they strive for justice after years of
oppression.
This resolution recognizes that we can all play a positive role in
bringing justice and peace to Burma, and that we must work with the
international community to pressure the Burmese Government to lift
restrictions on humanitarian aid. It also calls on the United Nations
to play a unique role in furthering dialogue toward reconciliation and
concurs with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations decision to
demand an end to the violence, the release of all political prisoners,
and a political solution to the crisis. Finally, this resolution
rightly urges that China end its military assistance to the Burmese
regime, and that it no longer block the efforts of the United Nations
Security Council to condemn the oppressive action of the Burmese junta.
I want to end with a quote from the icon of freedom in Burma, Aung
San Suu Kyi: ``We will prevail because our cause is right, because our
cause is just . . . History is on our side. Time is on our side.''
We must continue to stand beside the people of Burma in that cause.
Mr. SMITH. I wish today to denounce the savage actions of Burma's
military government. During this past week, a familiar pageantry of
riot police and soldiers deployed to stop the peaceful demonstrations
of Burmese monks and citizens. These protestors demanded an end to the
dictatorship which has governed Burma for most of the past 4\1/2\
decades. They carried no weapons, incited no violence, and made no
demands beyond those which constitute basic human freedoms.
Their military junta reacted as that government always has: with
silence, with threats, and then at last with violence. I had hoped that
the course of these protests would not conform to Burma's old pattern
of repression. So often in this decade we have seen the forces of
peaceful revolution triumph over the institutional relics of an
earlier, more brutal age. In Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan the old
regime was toppled with barely a hint of violence. Elsewhere, like
Lebanon, strident democratic blows were struck against the ruling
order. I remember not two decades ago, when the Soviet Union peacefully
dissolved, its citizens having had finally enough of communism, misery,
and the KGB.
Sadly, these bloodless successes are not always the norm. Events in
Uzbekistan and Belarus have shown us--as did Tiananmen Square 18 years
ago--that governments which are serious about holding power do not
topple easily. They draw on their full arsenal of modern repression,
from electronic surveillance and torture to indiscriminate beatings and
murder. This is what has happened in Burma. We hoped for a bloodless
success, and we are rewarded with a bloody failure. For me, this is
particularly hard to bear.
I have been involved with Burmese political issues throughout my
tenure in the Senate. I have cosponsored numerous bills and resolutions
condemning Burma's military tyranny and its human rights record.
Congress after Congress, session after session, I have pushed for
stricter sanctions on the Burmese regime. In 2003, I was a cosponsor of
S. 1215, the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act, which cut off all
imports to the United States from Burma and authorized support for
Burmese democratic activists. I likewise supported H.R. 2330, the House
version of that act which was eventually passed into law. Just this
past summer, as I have done repeatedly before, I cosponsored a bill
renewing the sanctions of the Freedom and Democracy Act. In October
2001, I voted for S.A. 1933 to the Foreign Operations bill, denying
Burma outside aid unless Rangoon changed its behavior. And in March
2005, I introduced S. Res. 91, which urged China to stop enabling Burma
with military support.
It is clear, however, that there is a limit to what my colleagues and
I can effect from our seats in Washington. The regime which rules Burma
is nearly impervious to outside pressure. The true wielders of
influence--such as China and India--have been effectively silent thus
far on the junta's latest brutalities. And so today, the Burmese
protests have ended much the way I feared they would. There has been no
peaceful overthrow of the government. There is now only the sight of
thousands of soldiers patrolling the streets, the monks locked in their
monasteries, Internet and broadcast communication nearly cut off. We
will probably never know how many dissidents were thrown into jail over
the past week. We have only the haziest idea of how many Burmese were
killed. A regime deserter--a government intelligence officer--claims
that thousands were killed. We do know that Japan has confirmed the
death of one of its nationals, a photographer who was caught up in last
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week's events. And we also know that Burma's emblem of democracy, the
activist Aung San Suu Kyi, remains under house arrest. She was allowed
to speak with the U.N.'s special envoy last Sunday, the first foreigner
she has met in 10 months. She has languished under house arrest for the
past 4 years, and under severe travel restrictions before then. Her
father, Aung San, was another famous Burmese leader and revolutionary
who was murdered before his dream of an independent Burma realized. I
can only pray that history does not repeat itself.
I imagine that Aung San Suu Kyi herself, however, would have more
mixed feelings. Her father fell shortly before achieving a free nation.
I imagine that such is her dedication, his daughter might readily
accept the same bargain. Ten years ago, when her husband was dying of
cancer in London, Suu Kyi was offered the opportunity to go visit him.
It was an agonizing choice. On the one hand, she was compelled to be
with her husband in the last days of his life, a man she had been
prevented from seeing for years. On the other, she had absolutely no
doubt that once she left the country the regime would not allow her to
return. It is not inappropriate to acknowledge here that the generals
ruling Burma are clever, having survived many threats to their rule.
But their semblance of cleverness does not detract from their
barbarity. There was much of both in their offer to Suu Kyi. They
dangled her dying husband in front of her as incentive to leave Burma,
possibly the cruelest bait imaginable. She declined.
I cannot begin to imagine how heartrending that decision was. Aung
San Suu Kyi has sacrificed almost everything for her country. I have
little doubt that at some point, perhaps not far in the future, the
regime will decide to take her life as well. As long as the military
junta is in power, Suu Kyi and other brave Burmese who dream of freedom
face a bleak fate. Watching the monks' showdown with police over the
past week, she must have hoped against hope that this time would be
different. It would not be like 1988. Today there is the Internet,
satellite television, and digital cameras to shame the generals into
restraining their response. Sadly, and perhaps predictably, they did
not.
In a few more weeks, the world will go back to its other interests.
The U.N. envoy will make desultory progress in achieving his political
solution, and he will go home. But the Burmese people know, as I do,
that a political solution is unlikely. The military junta has stayed in
power through brute force, though it sought legitimacy from Burma's
monasteries. After last week's beatings and killings of those monks,
that relationship is shattered. Stripped of its last veneer of
legitimacy, the government will fall back on its guns. But for its
weapons, and its will to rule, this regime would long ago have gone the
way of other bunker regimes, and today be little missed.
The one weapon it does not have, however, is time. Sooner or later,
all tyrannies collapse. The effort of repression is ultimately self-
immolating; and then the regime's only lasting historical legacy will
be the misery it has inflicted. For the Burmese people, who suffer
through this misery and resist the best they can, life will be
unbearably harsh. I believe they will continue to resist regardless. My
colleagues and I will assist them however we can, in whatever small way
is open to us. And one day, when the orange robes of the monks line the
streets once more and the troops are nowhere to be found, we shall have
victory, and a new day will break over Burma. They--and I--await that
day.
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution
be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be
laid upon the table, en bloc, and that any statements relating to the
resolution be printed in the Record.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The resolution (S. Res. 339) was agreed to.
The preamble was agreed to.
The resolution, with its preamble, reads as follows:
S. Res. 339
Whereas hundreds of thousands of Burmese citizens,
including thousands of Buddhist monks and students, engaged
in peaceful demonstrations against the policies of the ruling
State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), demanding that
the State Peace and Development Council release all political
prisoners, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Daw Aung San
Suu Kyi, and urging that the government agree to a meaningful
tripartite dialogue with Suu Kyi, the National League for
Democracy (NLD), and the ethnic minorities towards national
reconciliation;
Whereas the State Peace and Development Council violently
dispersed the peaceful demonstrators, killing at least 10
(and reportedly more than 200) unarmed protesters, including
a number of monks and a Japanese journalist, and arrested
hundreds of others, and continues to forcibly suppress
peaceful protests;
Whereas the National League for Democracy won a majority of
seats in the parliamentary elections of 1990, but the State
Peace and Development Council refused to uphold the results
or to negotiate a transition to civilian rule and
subsequently placed Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest;
Whereas Aung San Suu Kyi has spent most of the past 18
years under house arrest or in jail, and is currently being
held in government custody, cut off from her followers and
the international community;
Whereas 59 world leaders, including 3 former presidents of
the United States, have called on the State Peace and
Development Council to release Aung San Suu Kyi and all other
political prisoners;
Whereas the State Peace and Development Council has
destroyed more than 3,000 villages, systematically and
violently repressed ethnic minorities, displaced
approximately 2,000,000 Burmese people, and arrested
approximately 1,300 individuals for expressing critical
opinions;
Whereas the United States Department of State's 2006
Reports on Human Rights Practices found that Burma's junta
routinely restricts its citizens' freedoms of speech, press,
assembly, association, religion, movement, and traffics in
persons, discriminates against women and ethnic minorities,
forcibly recruits child soldiers and child labor, and commits
other serious violations of human rights, including
extrajudicial killings, custodial deaths, disappearances,
rape, torture, abuse of prisoners and detainees, and the
imprisonment of citizens arbitrarily for political motives;
Whereas the Government of Burma relies heavily on the
unconditional military and economic assistance provided by
the People's Republic of China;
Whereas on September 30, 2006, the United Nations Security
Council officially included Burma on its agenda for the first
time;
Whereas on January 13, 2007, China and Russia vetoed a
United Nations Security Council Resolution calling on Burma
to release all political prisoners, allow a more inclusive
political process and unhindered humanitarian access, and end
human rights abuses, and on September 26, 2007, China blocked
a United Nations Security Council Statement from condemning
the State Peace and Development Council crackdown against the
peaceful demonstrators;
Whereas the prevalence of tuberculosis in Burma, with
nearly 97,000 new cases detected annually, is among the
highest in the world, malaria is the leading cause of
mortality in Burma, with 70 percent of the population living
in areas at risk, at least 37,000 died of HIV/AIDS in Burma
in 2005, and over 600,000 are currently infected, and the
World Health Organization has ranked Burma's health sector as
190th out of 191 nations;
Whereas the failure of the State Peace and Development
Council to respect the human rights and meet the most basic
humanitarian needs of the Burmese people has not only caused
enormous suffering inside Burma, but also driven hundreds of
thousands of Burmese citizens to seek refuge in neighboring
countries, creating a threat to regional peace and stability;
and
Whereas the State Peace and Development Council continues
to restrict the access and freedom of movement of
international humanitarian organizations to deliver aid
throughout Burma: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate--
(1) to strongly condemn the use of violence against
peaceful protestors in Burma, and to call on the Government
of Burma to refrain from further violence, release the
demonstrators it has arrested, immediately cease attacks
against ethnic minorities, release Aung Sang Suu Kyi and all
other political prisoners, and begin a meaningful tripartite
political dialogue with Suu Kyi, the National League for
Democracy, and the ethnic minorities;
(2) to call on the People's Republic of China to remove
objections to efforts by the United Nations Security Council
to condemn the actions taken by the Government of Burma
against the peaceful demonstrators;
(3) to call on the People's Republic of China and all other
nations that have provided military assistance to the
Government of Burma to suspend such assistance until civilian
democratic rule is restored to Burma;
(4) that the Government of Burma should engage in a
peaceful dialogue with opposition leaders and ethnic
minorities to implement political, economic, and humanitarian
reforms that will improve the living conditions of the
Burmese people and lead to the restoration of civilian
democratic rule;
(5) to recognize and welcome the many constructive
statements issued by various nations, and particularly the
statement issued by the Association of Southeast Asian
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Nations on September 27, 2007, which demanded an immediate
end to violence in Burma, the release of all political
prisoners, and a political solution to the crisis;
(6) that the United States and the United Nations should
strongly encourage China, India, and Russia to modify their
position on Burma and use their influence to convince the
Government of Burma to engage in dialogue with opposition
leaders and ethnic minorities towards national
reconciliation;
(7) to support the United Nations mission to Burma led by
Ibrahim Gambari, and to call on the Government of Burma to
allow the mission freedom of movement and access to top
government leaders in order to prevent additional violence
and to further peaceful dialogue towards national
reconciliation; and
(8) that the United States should work with the
international community to pressure the Government of Burma
to lift all restrictions on humanitarian aid delivery and
then allow international humanitarian aid organizations to
work to alleviate suffering and improve living conditions for
the most vulnerable populations.
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