For Immediate Release: June 14th, 2004
Contact: (202) 223-0300

ACTIVISTS
PRAISE “STALWART” SUPPORT FOR NOBEL
PEACE PRIZE RECIPIENT, DEMOCRACY STRUGGLE

(Washington, DC) The United States
Campaign for Burma today praised Congressional
leaders for continuing their tough stance against
Burma’s ruling military regime. In a landslide
vote of 373-2, the US House of Representatives
passed a resolution renewing a one-year ban
on all imports from the Southeast Asian country.

“This vote shows stalwart support for Aung
San Suu Kyi and the democracy movement in Burma,”
said Aung Din, co-founder of USCB and a torture
survivor and former political prisoner of Burma’s
regime.

The resolution was led in the House by Tom Lantos
(D-CA) and Peter King (R-NY), members of the
International Relations Committee. Mitch McConnell(R-KY),
the US Senate Majority Whip, and Dianne Feinstein
(D-CA) have introduced an identical resolution
in the Senate. Secretary of State Colin Powell
has called for passage of the resolution.

The vote comes amid a growing international
chorus of condemnation of the regime, which
is reneging on promises of reform made publicly
and to the United Nations Secretary General.
The regime, led by Senior General Than Shwe,
had publicly promised to form a “national
convention” resulting in a transition to
democracy. However, instead of permitting the
democracy movement to participate openly and
freely in the convention, Than Shwe’s regime
hand-selected cronies as convention participants
and pledged to enforce an order sentencing critics
of the convention to 20 years in prison.

The move was criticized by the US and European
Union. In a June 1st press conference, the UN
Human Rights Commission’s special rapporteur
on Burma, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, described the
convention as, “a meaningless and undemocratic
exercise.” He stated, “This political
transition will not work. It will not work on
the moon. It will not work on Mars.”

The US and EU have imposed a broad range of
economic and political sanctions on Burma’s
regime, and actors in Southeast Asia are increasingly
hesitant to defend the regime’s behavior. US
sanctions include a freeze on the regime’s assets,
a ban on the granting of travel visas to top
members of the regime, a ban on new US investment
inside Burma, and a ban on all imports from
the country. Under the terms of the Burmese
Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003, the ban on
imports must be renewed every year with a joint
Congressional resolution.

The regime’s brutality is well-documented. According
to credible nongovernmental organizations, it
has imprisoned over 1,500 political prisoners,
conscripted up to 70,000 child soldiers, carries
out a modern form of slavery, and uses rape
as a weapon of war. 1991 Nobel Peace Prize and
Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Aung
San Suu Kyi led the National League for Democracy
(NLD) to an 82% victory in Burma’s last democratic
election, in 1990, but the military regime has
refused to allow the party to take power. Aung
San Suu Kyi and the NLD have called for the
international community to impose sanctions
to pressure the regime into talks.

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