For Immediate Release: September 16th, 2003
Contact: USCB at (202) 543-8753

NOTE:
THIS HEARING HAS BEEN POSTPONED DUE TO HURRICANE
ISABEL. CHECK BACK LATER FOR INFO.

(Washington, DC) On September 18th, the anniversary
of a brutal military
coup that vaulted Burma’s military regime to
power in 1988, two
subcommittees in the U.S. House International
Relations Committee will hold a joint hearing
on horrific human rights in Burma. Included
in the witnesses is Wunna Maung, a survivor
of a pre-meditated massacre that took place
on May 30th, 2003 and resulted in the murder
of up to 100 pro-democracy activists and the
imprisonment of 1991 Nobel Peace Prize recipient
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

Other witnesses will include Lorne Craner, Assistant
Secretary of State for
Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor; Matthew
Daley, Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific;
Mike Mitchell, former
program officer at the International Republican
Institute, Naw Musi,
Refugees International, Stephen Dunn, World
Aid; and U Bo Hla Tint, MP-elect of the National
League for Democracy and member of the National
Coalition Government of the Union of Burma.

Wunna Maung, 27 years old, is a member of the
youth wing of the National
League for Democracy in Mandalay, Burma’s second
largest city. He worked on the security team
of 1991 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San
Suu Kyi and the leadership of the NLD as they
traveled throughout the country on an organizing
tour in early 2003. During his service, he witnessed
firsthand Burma’s May 30th massacre, when scores
of NLD members were brutally beaten to death
by regime-affiliated thugs, in what the U.S.
State Department called a “pre-meditated
attack”.

Narrowly escaping the massacre, he is one of
the only persons to successfully flee Burma
in order to speak to the world about what happened
on that day.

On July 28th, less than two months after the
massacre, U.S. President George W. Bush signed
into law the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act
of 2003, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives
overwhelmingly by a vote of 418-2 and the U.S.
Senate by a vote of 97-1. The Act significantly
increases political and economic pressure on
the regime, banning all imports from Burma,
freezing the assets of the regime held in the
United States, and codifying the prevention
of World Bank and IMF loans to the country.

“We hope this hearing lays the groundwork
for increased international
pressure on my country’s brutal military regime,
including from the United
Nations Security Council,” says Aung Din,
Policy Director at the U.S.
Campaign for Burma and a former political prisoner
in Burma.

The hearing is scheduled to take place in room
2237 Rayburn House Office
Building at 12:30 pm. It is open to the public.

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