Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-05-18-Speech-4-255"
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"en.20000518.11.4-255"2
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"Mr President, it is now ten years since Burma witnessed a political drama. After a period of uncertainty and conflict, open and fair elections were held in 1990 and Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi was voted President with an overwhelming majority. In the parliamentary elections, the NLD won most of the parliamentary seats.
Shortly after this, the military once again seized power. Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi was imprisoned. Parliament was dissolved and many MPs were murdered, imprisoned or driven out of the country. Since then, Burma has been the scene of unprecedented repression. Thousands of people have been killed and hundreds of thousands of people have fled the country and are living in camps in Thailand, Malaysia and India. In the country itself, entire population groups have been displaced in order to break up the minority groups. There is talk of forced labour. According to the Financial Times this week, Burma has more child soldiers than anywhere else in the world.
Burma can be compared with South Africa and Chile in the Eighties. What action would we like the Commission and Council to take? First of all, we would ask you not to accept that the military regime in Burma should represent the Burmese people at the Euro-Asian Summit. We also ask you to take a hard economic line against Burma. We advocate economic isolation and an absolute investment ban by all EU Member States, as proposed several times already by the United States.
Moreover, EU citizens should be dissuaded by their governments from travelling to Burma for their holidays. Many of these new facilities have been built using forced labour. This is the core of our request.
Burma should not receive any better treatment from the international community than South Africa and Chile did back in the Eighties. If it does, then we are using double standards. Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi should at long last receive an effective response to her peaceful protest. What would she otherwise gain from a Nobel Prize and Sakharov Prize if she does not actually receive support in order to free herself and her country from this terrible plight?"@en1
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