[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 14462-14463]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         BURMESE MILITARY RAPES

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, the military junta in Burma must be 
judged not by what it says, but rather by what it does.
  The recent editorial in the Washington Post on the rape of ethnic 
minority women and girls by Burmese military officials is heartbreaking 
and horrific. It is by no means a stretch to characterize the junta's 
mismanagement and oppression of the people of Burma as a ``reign of 
terror.''
  I join my colleagues in both the Senate and House who have called for 
justice for these heinous crimes, and for continued pressure on the 
illegitimate regime in Burma to relinquish power to the sole legitimate 
representative of the people of Burma, the National League for 
Democracy. As the editorial rightly states ``Burma's leaders cannot 
bring the criminals to justice because they are the criminals.''
  I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the editorial ``The Rape of 
Burma'' be printed in the Record following my remarks.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, July 23, 2002]

                           The Rape of Burma

       Recent events have led some people to predict that one of 
     the world's most repressive regimes may be growing a bit less 
     so. The generals who rule, or misrule, the Southeast Asian 
     nation of Burma, which they call Myanmar, released from house 
     arrest the woman who should in fact be the nation's prime 
     minister, Aung San Suu Kyi. They have allowed her to travel a 
     bit, and they have released from unspeakable prisons a few of 
     her supporters. Grounds for hope, you might think.
       Then came release of a report, documented in horrifying 
     detail, of how Burma's army uses rape as a weapon of war. The 
     rapes take place as part of the junta's perpetual--and, 
     outside Burma, little-noticed--war against ethnic 
     nationalities, in this case in Shan state. The Shan Human 
     Rights Foundation and Shan Women's Action Network documented 
     173 incidents involving 625 girls and women, some as young as 
     five years old, taking place mostly between 1996 and 2001. 
     Most of the rapes were perpetrated by officers, in front of 
     their men, and with utmost brutality; one-quarter of the 
     victims died.
       What is telling is the response of the regime to the 
     report. Rather than seeking to bring the criminals to 
     justice, it has unleashed vitriol against the human rights 
     organizations, accusing them of drug-running and the like. 
     This is the junta's usual pattern, whenever it is found to be 
     scraping the bottom of the morality barrel: child labor, 
     forced labor, torture. It denies all and attacks the truth-
     tellers. Yet, over the years the evidence of barbarity has 
     been so inescapable that even the junta's would-be friends 
     have found it impossible to overlook it. Burma's leaders 
     cannot bring the criminals to justice because they are the 
     criminals.

[[Page 14463]]

       Later this month Secretary of State Colin Powell will 
     travel to the region for meetings with senior officials. 
     Earlier this month he instructed his diplomats to express 
     outrage over the reported use of rape as a tactic of war; he 
     should personally express the same outrage. He also should 
     make clear that Aung San Suu Kyi--whose democratic party won 
     an overwhelming victory in 1990 elections that the junta 
     nullified--should be permitted more room to maneuver: 
     permission to publish a newspaper, for starters. The Burmese 
     regime should not receive rewards for cosmetic 
     liberalization.

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