Human Rights in Burma: Where are we now and What Do We Next?

HUMAN RIGHTS IN BURMA: WHERE ARE WE NOW AND WHAT DO WE DO NEXT? -- (Extensions of Remarks - February 28, 2006)
SPEECH OF HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2006

* Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, February 7, I chaired a hearing on the current human rights situation in Burma, and what the U.S. and the international community can and must do to improve that situation.

* After 40 years of brutal military dictatorships, the human rights situation in Burma is frightening. That nation's current military junta, in power for over 17 years, is an abysmal failure on every conceivable level.

* It has ruined a beautiful and naturally rich land. According to the State Department's most recent Human Rights Country Report:

More than 4 decades of economic mismanagement and endemic corruption have resulted in widespread poverty, poor health care, declining education levels, poor infrastructure, and continuously deteriorating economic conditions. During the year, poor economic policymaking, lingering consequences of the 2003 private banking sector collapse, and the economic consequences of international sanctions further weakened the economy. The estimated annual per capita income was approximately $225. Most of the population of more than 50 million live in rural areas at subsistence levels.

Citizens still did not have the right to criticize or change their government ..... Security forces continued to carry out extrajudicial killings. Disappearances continued, and security forces raped, tortured, beat, and otherwise abused prisoners and detainees. Citizens were subjected to arbitrary arrest without appeal.--2004 STATE DEPARTMENT HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT.

* Burma is high on the list of uncooperative drug-producing or transiting countries, and there is evidence of military and government involvement in the narcotics traffic. Burma produces about 80 percent of Southeast Asia's heroin, and is one of the largest producers of methamphetamines in the world. It exports its illicit narcotics throughout China and Southeast and Central Asia.

* And as Burma's heroin circulates through Asia, so does HIV/AIDS, which Burma refuses to take seriously as a domestic problem, although the U.N. estimated in 1999 that over half a million adults had HIV. According to one estimate, Burma spent only $22,000 in 2004 to help AIDS victims. In 2005, the regime tightened restrictions on NGOs and U.N. agency staff providing humanitarian assistance in Burma. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced in August that it was terminating its $98 million program on the ground that ``its grants to the country cannot be managed in a way that ensures effective program implementation.'' The French contingent of medical aid group Medecin Sans Frontieres reportedly plans to withdraw from Burma because of restrictions imposed on access to villagers.

* The military's self-justification for its decades of arbitrary rule is to protect Burma from ``instability.'' Yet for 40 years it has waged endless war on the nation's ethnic minorities, killing tens of thousands, driving hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of others into exile as refugees or within Burma as displaced persons. It has destroyed over 2,500 villages, and uses rape as an instrument of policy. And to wage these wars, it has resorted to conscription of children: more than 70,000 child soldiers may be serving, in horrible circumstances, in Burma's bloated army.

* The U.N. Special Rapporteur for Human Rights, Sergio Pinheiro, has not been allowed into Burma for 2 years. In January 2006, U.N. Special Envoy to Burma Razali Ismail resigned his post after nearly 5 years, since the junta has not allowed him into the country for 2 years.

* With such a record, it is no wonder that the U.S. has a wide array of sanctions in place against Burma, many of which must be renewed this year. And many wonder, can any progress be made? Yet in the midst of so much darkness, there has been light this year.

* In September 2005, Nobel Laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former Czech President Vaclav Havel released a major report documenting Burma's human rights problems as a threat to regional peace and security.

* In December, with the strong support of the United States, U.N. Undersecretary for Political Affairs Ibrahim Gambari, in the unusual but significant presence of Secretary General Kofi Annan, personally gave the Security Council its first-ever briefing on the situation in Burma, a possible first step towards tougher international action. He went on record that the Burmese junta imprisons dissidents, ignores basic human rights, and is steering the country ``towards a humanitarian crisis.''

* The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN, which Burma joined in 1997, has finally moved from a posture of ``constructive engagement,'' without sanctions or diplomatic pressure, to a more proactive approach to promote change.

* But most of all, we owe this progress to this administration. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, and even more importantly, President George Bush, have been relentless in making the world face up to the appalling disaster in Burma. We have just begun, and we have a long way to go, but we in Congress are determined to support these efforts to bring peace and freedom to the heroic Burmese people, who, in the face of so much persecution and suffering, still persist in their resolute struggle for justice.

* The next logical step to take is for the U.S., which is currently President of the Security Council, to introduce a Security Council Resolution calling on Burma, in the strongest possible terms: to release Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners; implement a program for national reconciliation that includes the National League for Democracy; and grant immediate and unhindered access to all parts of Burma for U.N. relief agencies and other international humanitarian organizations.

* Such a resolution should include a timeline for compliance and punitive sanctions if the SPDC fails to comply.

* We heard testimony from Assistant Secretary of State Barry Lowenkron, of the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. It was Mr. Lowenkron's first time before this House, and we look forward to a very fruitful collaboration on the vital issues he promotes. His Bureau has kept attention focused on Burma when most have forgotten it. We also heard testimony from Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, who is the chief executor of our President's policy to change Burma. Additional witnesses included: Mr. Bo Kyi, of the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners, a former political prisoner himself, who described his own torments, and the ongoing struggles of democracy activists in Burma and in exile; Naw Win Yee, a leading member of the Shan Women's Action Network, an organization comprised of refugee women living in Thailand that works for human rights, freedom and democracy in Burma and also works to elevate the roles of women in Burmese politics and society. SWAN produced a ground breaking report on the military regime's use of rape as a weapon of war in Burma that was subsequently corroborated by the U.S. State Department; Mr. Tom Malinowski, the Washington Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch, who urged the U.S. to keep the pressure on the Burmese regime; and Ms. Anastasia Brown, the Director of Refugee Programs, Migration and Refugee Services for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, USCCB, who had just returned from a visit to the Burmese refugee camps in Thailand, and made an urgent and eloquent plea for quick action to resolve the problems of the resettlement of Burmese refugees. All the witnesses provided strong confirmation that Congress needs to stay closely involved in the ongoing human rights tragedy in Burma.

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