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Remarks of Bo Hla-Tint

Minister for North and South America Affairs

at

2168-Gold Room, Rayburn House Office Building 339B

U.S. House of Representative

Washington, DC.

March 18, 1999

On behalf of the people of Burma and my fellow elected Members of Parliament, I want to thank you for the opportunity to join with you and to express our solidarity in this conference on bringing democracy to Laos.

Burma and Laos share not only a common border, but also share common tragedies. Both our countries are in the grip of repressive regimes that are anti-democratic and that routinely violate basic human rights. Both our peoples are plagued with criminal networks that produce and traffic most of the world's heroin and we are both burdened with rulers who, at the very least, allow this traffic to continue.

As we share common borders and common problems, we, the democratic people of Laos and Burma must also share our ideas and efforts to solve our problems together while the incumbent regimes in both countries are abetting each other under their so-called "Constructive Engagement Policy". I would like to briefly explain the growth of our movement and then talk about a problem we both face.

Let me start saying that democracy and human rights are not alien to Burmese society. If you look at modern history of Burma, you will find that Burma embraced Parliamentary Democracy since it gained independence from Britain in 1948 and maintained a functioning democratic system until the military coup of 1962.

It was the military dictatorship that rudely uprooted Burma’s growing democratic institutions and destroyed the whole parliamentary system. Since that time, the junta ruthlessly has crushed any voices, efforts or activities for the restoration of democracy.

In 1988, growing public dissatisfaction with the decades-long one-party military rule and increasing poverty due to its mismanagement and corruption, a single instance of simple student unrest turned into a nationwide pro-democracy uprising. Millions of people rose up to demand democratic reforms. However, the military was able to hold on to power, killing thousands in the process and thousands more were forced into exile as the military scattered the democracy movement.

The brutal crackdown on the democracy movement cost the regime international aid and legitimacy, and so it announced permission to form political parties that would contest elections in 1990. In the 1990 elections, the National League for Democracy (NLD) led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, won more than 60 per cent of the vote and 82 per cent of the seats in the Parliament.

The regime's response was to ignore the election results and attempt to smash the NLD and the democracy movement as it usually believed that if it arrested the leaders of the NLD and terrified its members and supporters, it would quickly crush the movement for democracy.

At the beginning, the NLD was a loosely knit, fragile coalition, a newly formed political party of people who had not worked together before and often, had little in common except a desire for a free and democratic Burma. Fortunately, the 1990 election results gave legitimacy and more confidence to the NLD to lead the democracy movement. Instead of crushing the NLD, what has happened since the 1990 election has been a remarkable transformation.

Today, after a decade of intense pressure, the NLD has not been crushed; instead it has been hardened. Remember that it is pressure and time that turns carbon into diamonds. The NLD, although it is still subject to daily attacks and immense pressure, exists throughout Burma and unites the people in a common vision behind an inspiring leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. With her leadership and her inspiring example, the movement for democracy in Burma has spread around the world.

The growth of the democracy movement after the 1990 election was extremely significant. As a result of the blatant refusal to honor the election results by the junta, the elected Members Parliament from the NLD decided to form a legitimate government in accordance with the 1990 election results. After having rounds of discussions with the ethnic nationalities and democratic forces struggling along the Thai-Burma border to secure strong political support, the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB) was emerged on December 18, 1990.

As the primary mandate of the NCGUB is to seek international awareness and support for the restoration of democracy in Burma, we have, slowly and step by step, built up our institutions, international relations, etc. As a result, up to now, 8 consecutive UN General Assembly Resolutions on Burma have been passed by consensus.

In 1993, we began to discover the Internet and by 1996, students at campuses across Europe and America discovered our cause as well, and are working with us to gain international support.

Today, we have opened representative offices in Washington D.C, Germany, Australia, at the United Nations and the European Union. We have been increasingly successful in gathering support from around the world, including the United States which imposed new investment sanctions on Burma in 1997. Canada, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and European Union, are among those who have also joined with us in seeking to force the regime to a negotiated political settlement or political dialogue.

We have not yet brought democracy back to Burma, but we are building the networks of friends, allies and supporters across Burma, across ethnic lines and around the world that will, one day soon, free our country. I believe that both our movements can attain our goals more quickly by sharing our experiences, our ideas and our burdens.

Before I close, I want to speak for just a moment about a common obstacle.

While both our countries reached dictatorship through different paths, the rulers of both offer the same justification for their dictatorships. The repressive governments of Asia argue that human rights are different in different places--that somehow, Burmese, Laotians, Vietnamese and Cambodians do not need the same human rights as Africans, Europeans or Americans. The generals embrace foreign investment, international fashions, Japanese and German luxury cars and Chinese weapons. But they reject human rights, transparency, accountability and democracy as somehow foreign. The so-called "Asian Values" argument advocated by the regimes of Asia is just the values of Asia's Regimes, not the true values of Asia’s peoples. We do not believe that our people deserve only second class rights. We firmly believe that democracy and human rights are universal and that democracy and respect for human dignity must be honored in Laos or in Burma.

Remember that India, the world's largest democracy is in Asia. And remember this too-- the real Asian Miracle has been the spread of democracy across the continent; Japan, Thailand, Taiwan, the Philippines, South Korea. Now it is sweeping away a dictatorship in Indonesia. If we, the democratic peoples in Laos, Burma and other Asia countries share experiences and work together in a united way, I dare to predict that a generation from now, dictatorships in Asia will be as rare as democracies were a generation ago.