Statement of Hon. Thomas H. Andrews
House Committee on Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and
the Global Environment
May 20, 2008
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee,
Thank you for holding this public hearing on the horrifying
human tragedy that continues in the cyclone ravaged nation of Burma and thank you for the
opportunity to join you today.
My name is Thomas Andrews, I am
former member of the House of Representatives (D-ME) and president of New
Economy Communications, a not-for-profit organization that provides
consultation, strategic planning and communication services to human rights,
labor rights and democracy promotion organizations in the United States and abroad.
I am also a Senior Advisor to the National Democratic Institute
for International Affairs and provide assistance to the National Coalition
Government of the Union of Burma, led by Prime Minister-in-Exile, Dr. Sein Win, who is here today, as well as an international
network of organizations who advocate for a free and democratic Burma.
Even more horrifying than the ravages of the cyclone that
hit Burma more than two
weeks ago, is the cruel and devastating catastrophe that continues to claim the
lives of many tens of thousands of victims at the hands of the brutal military
dictatorship of Burma.
It is estimated that 2.5 million are in dire need of shelter, clean water, food
and medical treatment. The refusal of the military government of Burma
to allow life-saving relief into the country, while confiscating and reportedly
selling at least a portion of the trickle of aid that has been allowed in, is nothing short of criminal. For growing numbers of
citizens of Burma, many of
whom are children, the reprehensible actions of the military junta of Burma
constitute a death sentence. These acts are clearly a crime against humanity.
While horrifying and reprehensible, the actions of the
military junta of Burma
following Cyclone Nargis come as no surprise to
anyone familiar with the regime. Since the regime violently crushed a mass
uprising in Burma
in 1988, it has brutalized its people. Since 1962, the military run government
of Burma
has decimated its once promising economy, looted its vast natural resources and
destroyed vital service sectors such as health care. Today Burma’s health
sector ranks 190 out of 191 nations. Health
care receives three percent of the regime’s annual budget, compared with the
40% dedicated to the military.
International organizations, including the United Nations,
have documented, year after year, the atrocities of this regime from the forced
labor of its workers, to the destruction of entire villages to the systematic
rape of thousands of women and girls. The brutalization of the people of Burma has been particularly egregious in Eastern Burma where a scorched earth campaign has
destroyed or forced the abandonment of more than 3,000 villages. To put this in
context, this is twice as many villages as have been destroyed in Darfur.
Then, as now, the
international community has sought to take action to defend the defenseless
victims in Burma
largely through the United Nations. Then, as now, the regime has resisted. When
governments felt compelled to respond to the despicable and inexcusable acts of
the military government, the regime would announce a new policy. But, time and
again, it became very clear that these new policies were designed only to give
the appearance of reform so as to reduce international pressure. The regimes
so-called “disciplined democracy” with the sham elections we have witnessed are
a good example. These so-called elections were part of a process that was
initiated after the international outcry over the brutal suppression of the
democracy movement in Burma,
including the incarceration of Nobel Peace Laureate Aung
San Suu Kyi, duly elected
members of parliament and democracy activists.
While the public announcement
that the military junta has agreed to an ASEAN-led task force for
redistributing foreign aid might sound like a breakthrough, there is every
reason to fear that it will be the latest manifestation of the regime’s systematic
use of manipulation and deception to ease mounting pressure from the
international community.
The early signs are not good
as they follow a clear pattern: it appears now that while it has been announced
that the generals ruling Burma
have agreed to accept an ASEAN Emergency Rapid Assessment Team, they are in no
hurry to allow critically needed humanitarian experts to enter the country. In
the very same AP story announcing the breakthrough, the Foreign Minister of
Singapore, which convened the emergency ASEAN meeting, said that the junta had
not agreed to allow any aid experts to arrive “immediately”. “Immediately”, of
course, is exactly what is desperately needed to save tens of thousands of lives.
Even more distressing is the fact that many of the aid workers who have been
allowed into Burma,
have not been allowed to do their job. An official of an ASEAN country told me that emergency
response team members that have been allowed into Burma
from his country have spent precious days sitting in Rangoon waiting for permission to get to
work.
With any agreement with the
ruling generals of Burma,
the devil is in the details. In fact, I cannot think of a situation in which
that phrase is more appropriate. It is imperative that aid workers with
critical experience in dealing with these types of natural disasters, including
those who coordinated and delivered aid to tsunami victims in 2004, be allowed
into Burma immediately and given unfettered access to the Irrawaddy delta
region. It is imperative that the aid and equipment sitting offshore on
American, French and British ships be deployed immediately. And, it is crucial
that all aid entering the country be monitored closely so that it goes to the
people of Burma
who are desperately in need. Unfortunately, none of these desperately needed
steps are part of this agreement and the international aid conference for Burma that has
been announced will not even begin until next week.
It is encouraging that the
Secretary General of the United Nations is willing to travel to Burma and is
being allowed into the country. It has taken weeks for his phone calls to be
answered. But the Secretary General needs the full support of the international
community, including the United
States, to assure that what emerges from
these negotiations is a desperately needed breakthrough that will save lives
and not a ploy that merely gives the appearance of change while taking the
pressure off.
Then, as now, the regime has
sought and has found relief from international pressure from countries who, in
the name of “national sovereignty” become enablers and accomplices to the
regime’s brutality. No nation has played a more powerful role in this regard
than China.
China continues to serve as the military regime’s number
one supplier of weapons and military equipment, enabling the regime to amass
one of the largest armies in the world, now exceeding 400,000 troops – 70,000
of whom are children. These were the weapons that were used last fall to
violently crush the peaceful demonstrations of Burmese monks. China has
consistently protected the regime from international pressure, casting or
threatening to cast vetoes in the United Nations Security Council that would
bring pressure to bear on the military government. In exchange, the generals
supply China
with deeply discounted supplies of natural gas and other natural resources (often,
as documented by the International Labor Organization, extracted and
transported with the use of forced labor). China
is Burma’s
number one supplier of imports with trade revenue in the billions of dollars.
It invests heavily in a large number of companies owned and controlled by the
junta.
Then, as now, China led
opposition to any kind of international action. It has opposed even the
consideration of United Nations Security Council action to confront the
overwhelming evidence that we are watching what amounts to the mass murder of
untold numbers of innocent people living in the Irrawaddy
delta.
There are some important
lessons that the international community needs to be drawn from bitter
experience with the military regime of Burma:
First, the ruling regime in Burma is a ruthless
and treacherous regime that will do anything to maintain its iron grip on power.
Even before it was hit by a massive cyclone, untold numbers of people in Burma have lost
their lives at the hands of the military regime’s brutality.
Second, the regime is
susceptible to international pressure, but, facing such pressure; it will
employ deception and manipulation to give the appearance of change designed not
to bring reform to Burma,
but relief to the ruling generals.
Third, the regime’s greatest
protector and enabler is China.
From supplying vast amounts of military weapons, equipment and training, to its
investments in junta owned enterprises, to its vetoes on the UNSC, China can be
counted on as an accomplice to the general’s treachery. Yes, the ruling generals have been able to
rely on their ASEAN neighbors to go along with its deceptions and hide behind
the banner of “national sovereignty”, but there is no greater enabler of the
ruling military junta of Burma
– and therefore no greater source of influence - than China.
I believe that the United States government needs to make the crises
in Burma
a much higher priority. A high ranking U.S. official must be appointed and
empowered to take the lead in this crises, working tirelessly within the
diplomatic community to muster the necessary support for action. Secretary of
State Powell played a key leading role when the tsunami hit Southeast
Asia in 2004, travelling and communicating directly and often with
his counterparts from nations around the world and leading a robust and
multi-faceted approach. A President’s Special Coordinator for International
Disaster Assistance was established to streamline and coordinate the efforts of
US
government aid and assistance. We did that to confront one major disaster – the
tsunami. With Burma
we are confronting two disasters – the devastation wrought by a powerful
cyclone and the devastation wrought by a murderous regime willing to sacrifice
the lives of many tens of thousands of its citizens in order to keep those who
survive under its brutal thumb. In order to be able to deliver a coordinated
aid effort to save thousands, the United States must pursue an
aggressive and relentless campaign to build international pressure on the
regime and those regimes that protect it.
The single most important
target of that pressure must be China.
While China has joined the
international chorus calling on Burma
to allow aid into the country, it is hardly enough. It is hard for me to
believe that if China were
to put serious and sustained pressure on the military regime of Burma, change
would follow and tens of thousands of lives would be saved. After all, in so
many ways, the regime owes its very existence to its patrons in the Chinese
government.
Relentless international
pressure is needed to save the hundreds of thousands whose lives are hanging in
the balance at this very moment.
We know what to do. An air
bridge of relief that sent aircraft filled with supplies and experts into Aceh
every hour during the 2004 tsunami was set up within 72 hours of that disaster.
But first there must be the
international will to act.
Thank you.