Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-05-12-Speech-4-190"
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"en.20050512.26.4-190"2
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".
Mr President, here we are at the end of a week full of anniversaries and memories, for it was 60 years ago that National Socialism was defeated and Europe liberated, and 15 years ago that the Iron Curtain was rent asunder.
These anniversaries shed a very unflattering light on those who, in former times, kept quiet about oppression or did business with those who inflicted it. Let us then give some thought to what judgment future generations will pass on those who, today, do likewise, for the Iron Curtain may well no longer be there, but what has been called the Bamboo Curtain, erected by socialist generals around Burma, is still there, and terrible tragedies are being played out behind it, ranging from brutal violations of the human rights of tens upon thousands of political detainees to the targeted deployment of poison gas against the Karen people. With the use of gas, the attempt is being made to kill off a people or at least to break its spirit. These are terrible things to be going on in the 21st century, and they impose an obligation upon us.
Two things need to be given particular emphasis. The first is the urgent necessity of our ensuring that Burma does not take over the presidency of ASEAN in 2006. ASEAN is in some sense the EU’s offspring, being a federation like the EU, albeit as yet more economic than political, but it is still our most important partner, and it is intolerable that such an important partner organisation should have a murderous regime at its head.
Secondly, we must, by all political, economic and legal means, oppose those who are still unscrupulous enough to do business with such a regime. The question we must of course always ask ourselves is: what harms the people, and what benefits the people? Cutting the country off completely is obviously not the right way to go about it, but allowing those in power to shamelessly accumulate wealth, while presenting them with only flimsy paper protests about human rights violations, wrecks Europe’s credibility. That is why our words must be backed up with deeds.
I appeal to the Commission – and I would say the same thing to the Council – to adopt, once and for all, a tougher approach to dealing with Burma. Protesting from time to time is useless; instead, we must be systematic in bringing pressure to bear until this repugnant regime is no more."@en1
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