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Burma & U.S. Congress on June 19 -



Subject: Burma & U.S. Congress on June 19 - 23, 1995

Attn: Burma Newsreaders
Re: Burma & U.S. Congress on June 19 - 23, 1995
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AUNG SAN SUU KYI (House - June 19, 1995) 

(Mr. RICHARDSON asked and was given permission to address the House for 1
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. RICHARDSON. Mr. Speaker, today is the 50th birthday of Burma 's Nobel
Peace Prize Laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi who is being held under house
arrest for the sixth year by the Burmese military regime known as the SLORC.
She was imprisoned 6 years ago after her party won overwhelming victories in
elections in Burma.

While today is this remarkable woman's birthday, sadly, there is not much to
celebrate as the Burmese military regime continues her imprisonment and the
repression of the Burmese people. Last year I met with this remarkable
individual and witnessed the heroic stature of her crusade to restore
democracy to her native land.

My efforts to visit her again last month were rebuffed. There is a
retrogression of human rights and democracy in Burma. Just this week the
Burmese military regime expected to allow the Red Cross to inspect prisons in
that country. They have refused the Red Cross to inspect those prisons as
they originally stated.

Mr. Speaker, let us rejoice in this remarkable woman's 50th birthday and
stand with her in her struggle.
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WOMEN'S RIGHTS (House - June 19, 1995)

(Mrs. SCHROEDER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1
minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, I join the gentleman from New Mexico in sending
greetings, if that is what you could call it, to Aung San Suu Kyi who is
still imprisoned in Burma. And I think when we look at this, if we look at
many other issues affecting women all over this globe, we see that they are
still not in very good shape.

It is amazing because she was the daughter of a very prominent Burmese
leader. Her people elected her to lead them and yet even though she has
received the Nobel Prize, she has done all sorts of things, no one in that
country has been able to break this incredible lock they have on her as they
hold her under house arrest.

But we can also look at China and the fact that they are not very happy about
having this International Women's Symposium there. They seem to have thought
it was a craft fair and did not have any idea that women were really going to
come and talk about women's rights.

And we saw a very interesting article in this morning's paper pointing out
that for every courageous male raising a family alone in America, there are
seven women doing the same thing, and child care and all of those issues that
have impacted on single parents are not being dealt with.
Things do not look very good, and we need to roll up our shirt sleeves and
work on all of these issues.
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PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 1868, FOREIGN OPERATIONS, EXPORT
FINANCING, AND RELATED PROGRAMS APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1996 (House - June 22,
1995)

Mr. RICHARDSON. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the majority and minority
of the Committee on Rules for allowing three amendments that I will be
offering on a bipartisan basis. I also wish to thank Mr.Callahan and Mr.Obey
and their staffs for their assistance in helping me deal with these
amendments.

Mr. Speaker, the open rule that we will be debating allows an open debate on
the harsh realities that exist today in Burma. My most recent trip to that
country was extremely disappointing on account of the Burmese regime's
entrenchment on human rights and democratization efforts. As a result of this
entrenchment I will be offering two amendments with the gentleman from
California [Mr. Rohrabacher] intended to further isolate this repressive
regime by cutting all counternarcotics assistance and providing additional
funds for the refugee crisis along both sides of the Thai-Burma  border.

Burma's ruling military government has established itself as unquestionably
the heavyweight champion of repressive governments by violating human rights
and detaining the leader of Burma's Democrat movement, Aung San Suu Kyi, for
the past 6 years. She courageously is in house arrest without any kind of
prospects for being released. Recent efforts to obtain visas by the authors
of this amendment have either been denied or granted only after preconditions
were met. Leading opposition members of the National League for Democracy in
Burma were arrested after I met with them last month.

Perhaps as the most egregious of all human rights violations, Dr. Michael
Aris, Aung San Suu Kyi's husband, has been denied access to his imprisoned
wife. Just last week the International Committee for the Red Cross abandoned
efforts to work with the Burmese Government because of unacceptable
conditions imposed by the SLORC on the activities of the Red Cross. So, after
permitting the Red Cross to come in to inspect prisons in Burma, they were
thrown out.

What we have here is a case of a policy that right now is moving in the
direction of dealing with the heroin crisis. That is important. But it does
not mean that this administration or any administration should reward a
repressive regime with counternarcotics assistance. The amendment that I will
be offering with the support of many Members of the majority and minority
hopefully will make sure that this does not happen.

Mr. Speaker, let me conclude with a discussion of the refugee crisis from
both sides of the Thai-Burma border that is worsening. The launching of an
offensive against the Karen refugees this spring resulted in an outflow of an
estimated additional 20,000 refugees to Thailand, bringing the population
there to over 90,000.


Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to my distinguished colleague and
friend, the gentlewoman from the State of Florida, Ms.Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the gentleman for
yielding.

Mr. Speaker, first I would like to thank the gentleman from Alabama, Chairman
Callahan, and especially Bill Englee from the chairman's staff, for their
great help on this very important bill. The Menendez amendment which was
granted a waiver from the Committee on Rules is a correct one and not a
narrow interest amendment, because I believe that we must use all of the
instruments at our disposal to pressure the Russian Government to immediately
halt their intentions of aiding the Communist regime of Fidel Castro in
finishing construction of the Juragua nuclear powerplant in Cienfuegos, Cuba.
If completed, this nuclear plant will pose a serious threat to the safety of
the United States, Central America, and the Caribbean.

Construction of the Juragua nuclear plant was halted in 1992 after the Castro
regime was not able to obtain the foreign exchange necessary to finish
construction. However, this past May, Russia and Cuba announced their
intention to finish construction of this plant.

Completion of this nuclear powerplant could constitute the introduction of a
real and permanent threat to the health and safety of our hemisphere.
Numerous experts, including former technicians at the plant now living in the
United States, have denounced its inadequate construction, as well as
inferior equipment that was used in its construction.
 
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