[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 19]
[Senate]
[Pages 26037-26039]
[From the U.S. 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

[[Page 26038]]

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 
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

[[Page 26039]]

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 
     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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