Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008--Motion to Proceed--Continued

Floor Speech

RENEWABLE ENERGY AND JOB CREATION ACT OF 2008--MOTION TO PROCEED--Continued -- (Senate - June 17, 2008)

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BURMA

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, yesterday I came to the floor, along with Senators Harkin, Grassley, and others, to talk about the devastating floods the Midwest has experienced, and no one would know more than the Presiding Officer about the tragedies these types of natural disasters can cause for everyone in those communities and for the infrastructure.

But today I am here to talk about something a little different, about how another country, the country of Burma, has dealt with this. I come to the floor today to call attention to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Burma more than 6 weeks after the deadly storm that wreaked widespread death and destruction throughout that region.

When Cyclone Nargis struck the Irrawaddy Delta on May 2, the international community's attention was captivated by the catastrophic loss of life and the ensuing dangerous and deplorable conditions faced by 2.4 million Burmese who survived the storm.

In the days immediately following the storm, the United States, the U.N., and other nations and organizations applied strong pressure on Burma's ruling Government to allow all international aid workers to enter disaster areas and provide medical and humanitarian aid to survivors. The 16 women Senators who are united in the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues on Burma sent a letter to the U.N. Secretary urging him to convince the Burmese Government to allow disaster relief assessment teams into the country and lift restrictions on international humanitarian organizations. When the Burmese Government finally consented and pledged to allow international aid workers to enter the country, I believe many of us hoped the full-scale recovery process had begun and that we could turn our attention elsewhere. Sadly, this was not the case. The situation in Burma remains perilous, and the 2.4 million storm survivors need our attention now more than ever.

I recently met with representatives from the local Burmese community in my State who have been personally impacted by this deadly natural disaster, the most deadly in their country's history. Minnesota is home to thousands of people from Burma, including the largest U.N. concentration of refugees who have been victims of religious and ethnic persecution under Burma's military regime. As with so many immigrant and refugee communities in our Nation, the members of Minnesota's Burmese community maintain extensive ties to their country, and the storm and its aftermath has been a particularly painful period. Too many members of this community are still waiting after 6 weeks to hear from grandparents and cousins and sisters and brothers. They do not know if they are alive.

I met with the leaders of their community in order to listen to the information and reports they were receiving from friends and relatives caught in the middle of an ongoing disaster. The stories I heard were heartbreaking. Over 100,000 people are believed to have lost their lives during and after the storm. Tens of thousands are still missing, and millions are homeless and without adequate food or fresh water. This disaster was nearly of tsunami proportions; however, it affected one small country, which time and time again refused our help.

The local Burmese with whom I met told me how difficult it is to get basic information and stay in contact with their family members in the disaster areas. One woman told me she still has not been able to locate her sisters in Burma. Others expressed their fears that the Burmese regime would never admit the need for outside help or allow the aid that entered the country to reach the areas it was needed the most. They feared that unless the international community remained vigilant and refused to accept the Burmese Government's conditions and control over humanitarian aid, the plight of the people would grow weaker while the regime's grip would grow stronger.

Casualties from the Burma cyclone, as I mentioned, are nearly on the same scale as the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004. But in that instance, the impacted countries accepted and even asked for international aid. With the military regime in Burma, they have tried to shut the world out. While the outpouring of donations, relief supplies, and aid personnel from around the world has been substantial, only a fraction of available international aid is reaching the storm's 2.4 million survivors. U.N. officials have reported that aid groups are unable to provide 1.1 million survivors with sufficient food, clean water, and shelter, while trying to prevent a second wave of deaths from malnutrition and disease. Of the 1.3 million people who have received some form of help, the U.N. found they only have had access to inconsistent levels of assistance. Yet the Burmese regime continues to raise bureaucratic obstructions to the help waiting helplessly offshore.

Those international recovery workers who have been allowed to enter the country, and even Burma's own aid donors and relief organizations, are facing roadblocks in accessing the disaster regions to provide aid, leaving hundreds of thousands of survivors to fend for themselves. We have seen news reports that survivors have been forced to drink from dirty canals and to go for days without food. Many are turning to Burmese monks for help due to the Government's inaction--the same monks who faced a brutal military crackdown last fall for their peaceful prodemocracy demonstrations.

According to aid officials, in a normal recovery effort, 6 weeks after a disaster--and you think about 6 weeks after Katrina in your home State of Louisiana, Madam President--survivors should be on the road to recovery and thinking about what they need to do to restart their lives. In Burma, 6 weeks after the storm, many survivors still didn't know how they were going to find food, water, or shelter on a daily basis.

We are now receiving reports that the Government is forcibly closing aid camps and forcing homeless survivors to return to devastated villages. They are being told to rebuild their homes, but they haven't been given the assistance to do so.

The representatives of the Burmese community I met with in Minnesota understand that the cyclone, and its aftermath, is more than a natural disaster, it is a political disaster. It is a disaster made far worse, far more deadly, because of the repressive military regime that controls the country. The Burmese people have been repressed and impoverished by their own Government for years. The regime's lack of response to the cyclone disaster just highlights how bad the human rights situation is. Rather than focusing on ways to help the millions of Burmese struggling to survive, the regime instead used the chaos of the storm's aftermath to quietly extend another year the detention of Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of Burma's democracy movement, who has been detained at home on and off for 12 of the last 18 years.

What would be an appalling and inexcusable action in any other nation facing similar circumstances comes as little surprise to anyone who has been following the events in Burma over the last few years. But it wasn't always that way. In fact, the current political conditions in Burma are ironic and tragic, especially when we consider that this country produced one of the great statesmen of the modern world--U Thant. As Secretary General of the United Nations from 1961 to 1971, he worked so hard to promote international human rights and to bring peace to troubled regions of the world. In an address to the General Assembly commemorating the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, U Thant said that in the age of jet plane and satellites circling the globe, ``the world is fast becoming a community, a community with common interests and common aspirations. Gone are the days when each nation was an island unto itself. Today, questions of human rights are a matter of international concern.''

Unfortunately, the Government in Burma wants to stay an island unto itself and doesn't think the world should concern itself with the human rights of its people. The military regime's neglect and abuse of its own people challenges our traditional notions of national sovereignty and noninterference. The indifference of Burma's military regime has generated an international debate about humanitarian aid and the need for stronger international law to deal with cases where national governments fail or refuse to provide adequate aid.

In recent years, the international community has come to recognize that a government has a fundamental responsibility to protect its own people and that we have a responsibility to take action with humanitarian intervention when a government fails in that responsibility.

Two weeks ago, U.S. Navy ships loaded with aid supplies and equipment withdrew from Burmese waters after repeated unsuccessful attempts to deliver their vital cargo that could save thousands of lives. U.S. officials have said they will return only when Burma's leaders change their minds and allow them to offload their supplies in Burma's ports. But we cannot simply turn away from the Burmese people and allow the Burmese regime to continue to sacrifice thousands of lives in order to protect its own security. We must use all available means to compel the regime to allow full aid supplies and personnel to enter the disaster areas and to stay there until survivors are ready and able to begin rebuilding their lives.

At the end of the meeting with our local Burmese, I pledged to them that I would take their stories to Washington and do what I can to bring attention to the plight of the people in their country as we use our influence to bring about immediate and long-term constructive change. The rebuilding process in Burma will take years, and it is imperative that in the weeks and the months to come, we don't lose our focus or our commitment or our obligation to assist the Burmese people. So I will continue to work with my colleagues to draw attention to this situation and to continue to provide every available opportunity to call attention to it. This is our moral responsibility.

Madam President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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