Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-04-11-Speech-4-130"
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"en.20020411.7.4-130"2
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"Mr President, Burma, since the sixties, has isolated itself from the world at large, at great cost to its own people. Burma is poor, under-developed and its population increasingly remote from the socialist military government, which refused, in 1990, to accept the result of the last free election in that country and placed the victor of those elections, Aung San Suu Kyi, under house arrest.
According to the findings of the Asian Development Bank, quoted by the UN's own rapporteur in his report, the country spends only 0.17 percent of its GDP on health care and a comparable amount on education. Burma is now the world's largest producer of heroin and significant parts of the country are controlled by drug lords, and I am concerned at China's role in facilitating this process. There are over 1 000 political prisoners in the country, including 15 elected MPs and a 74-year-old professor – as mentioned by my colleague, Mr Van Orden – Dr Salai Tun Than, whose only crime is to call for free multi-party elections- a man who bears no hatred towards his jailers but who symbolises, poignantly, the plight of his country.
Burma's rulers have driven themselves and their people into a cul-de-sac.
I support the principle of targeted sanctions, including travel bans on the military leadership, but I am sceptical about the consequences of their indiscriminate application, as this may only hurt the people themselves rather than the military leadership, although it makes sense to make new investment dependent on improvements in human rights on a case-by-case basis. Certainly, we recognise that some political prisoners have been recently released and that 25 of the offices of the National League for Democracy in Rangoon have recently been allowed to re-open. This is great progress and we should encourage it.
That said, we need to ensure that aid is channelled through trusted organisations and we need to offer the leadership a road map for reform.
Lastly, I say to the military leaders, that by imprisoning a 74-year-old man, they show not their strength but their weakness. A country that tolerates freedom of expression is a stronger country with better hope for the future. I urge them to free Dr Than and Aung San Suu Kyi, and all other political prisoners immediately and to give their people hope for the future."@en1
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substitute; Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy (2002-01-17--2004-07-19)3
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