[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Page 17395]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            ASEAN AND BURMA

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I welcome the good news from Southeast 
Asia this morning that the illegitimate Burmese junta--the misnamed 
State Peace and Development Council, SPDC--has deferred its 2006 
chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN.
  I appreciate and recognize the individual and collective efforts of 
certain ASEAN member states for their support of substantive political 
reform in Burma.
  This deferral serves as evidence that the illegitimate military junta 
does indeed respond to international pressure, particularly from its 
neighbors. In the wake of this news, I renew my calls for countries in 
the region to pressure the junta to immediately and unconditionally 
release Aung San Suu Kyi and all prisoners of conscience in Burma and 
to continue their calls for political reform in that country; the 
United Nations Security Council to discuss and debate the threat the 
junta poses to its own people and the entire region; and the community 
of democracies to continue to keep freedom in Burma a top priority.
  The assertion by the SPDC that the deferral will allow the generals 
to focus on the ``democratization process'' in Burma is as hollow as it 
is false.
  The international community--especially the United States and the 
United Kingdom--must be clear that the junta will be judged not by what 
it says but by what it does. So long as Suu Kyi and other innocent 
Burmese remain imprisoned and without a voice in the political 
deliberations in Burma, there simply can be no credible democratization 
process in Rangoon.
  (At the request of Mr. Reid, the following statement was ordered to 
be printed in the Record.)

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