Burma
Floor Speech
BURMA -- (Senate - October 04, 2007)
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I have come to the floor every day this week to highlight the plight of the Burmese citizens who have bravely protested for democratic reform. I have also tried to focus attention on the brutal actions that the ruling military junta, the State Peace and Development Council, or SPDC, has taken to crack down on its own people.
The whole world watched with horror as Buddhist monks, armed with nothing but prayers for peace, met uniformed thugs armed with rifles sent to do their Government's bidding. Untold numbers have been slaughtered, more are unjustly imprisoned, and the Burmese citizens who are left are afraid to step outside of their homes. The SPDC's swift and barbaric punishment of the Burmese people seems like a relic from another era. But what we have seen on our television sets is all too real.
I thank my fellow Senators for shining a spotlight on the actions of the SPDC this week to reveal them for the despots they are.
I was encouraged when, on Monday, my colleagues adopted a sense-of-the-Senate resolution we offered with Senator Kerry condemning the SPDC for its violent crackdown against the peaceful protesters. And yesterday, Senators BOXER and MURKOWSKI held a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs on the atrocities in Burma. I appreciated the opportunity to be over there and testify at that hearing, along with others. Democratic reform in Burma is an issue that has received far too little interest for a very long time. But the strong bipartisan support in Congress is encouraging.
To see significant change in Burma, ultimately the U.N. Security Council will have to enact meaningful sanctions on the SPDC. Only then will the Government be pressured to move toward peaceful reconciliation. And for the U.N. Security Council to move, China must be persuaded to move. Many changes need to happen in Burma, but until they do, I will continue to act and to advocate on behalf of the Burmese people on the Senate floor.
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