Asean and Burma

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.

http://thomas.loc.gov/