Max Baucus: “I rise today to echo the condemnations of the military rulers of Burma that my colleagues have so forcefully offered.…”

“I rise today to echo the condemnations of the military rulers of Burma that my colleagues have so forcefully offered. Burma should by all rights be a prosperous country. It has over 50 million people, abundant natural resources, and a population hungry for democracy. Instead, it is an international outcast, ruled by a few military men who finance their country through drug trafficking and forced labor. Perhaps most egregious is the failure of the military rulers to recognize the results of a free and fair election in which the Burmese people overwhelmingly chose Aung San Suu Kyi as their leader. Rather than sitting at the head of a democratic Burmese Government, she is sitting in a Burmese jail, a prisoner of the military rulers. The existence of a democratically elected government-in-waiting makes Burma unique, but that is not all that makes Burma unique. Suu Kyi has consistently supported sanctions against the military rulers of Burma, and 3 years ago, the International Labor Organization, for the first time in its 82-year history, urged the world to impose sanctions against those rulers. The bill we consider today will send a strong message to the illegitimate military regime in Burma that their recent actions in attacking Suu Kyi and her followers and imprisoning Suu Kyi are intolerable. A unanimous passage would send that signal loud and clear. These sanctions would be most effective if the whole world joined us.”