Press Release
Statement of Philippine Senator Aquilino Pimentel at the Opening Ceremony
of the International Conference of Japanese and ASEAN Members of Parliament
at the House of Representatives, Tokyo, Japan
May 21, 2007

WITH OUR COLLEAGUES FROM THE JAPANESE DIET, THE AIPMC PLEDGES TO ADVANCE THE CAUSE OF THE DEMOCRATIZATION OF BURMA

The Honorable Mr. Tadamori Oshima, Chairperson of the Diet Members League in Support of Democracy in Myanmar; The Honorable Mr. Hatoyama Yukio, Secretary-General of the Democratic Party of Japan; The Honorable Mr. Takagi Tsuyoshi, Chairman of Japan Trade Unions Confederation; The Honorable Dr. Sein Win, Prime Minister of the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma; The Honorable Mr. Maung Maung, General-Secretary of the National Council of the Union of Burma (NCUB); Representatives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB), National Council of the Union of Burma (NCUB), my colleagues from the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC), and Diet Members League in Support of Democracy in Myanmar (GIREN); Your Excellencies; My fellow Parliamentarians; Members of NGOs and civil societies in Japan; My dear Burmese friends; Ladies and Gentlemen:

First and foremost, I would like to thank the Diet Members League in Support of Democracy in Myanmar (GIREN) for spearheading this event. Thank you for making us, the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC), a part of this significant conference appropriately titled Burma: The Way to Democratize.

My heartiest gratitude also goes out to Japans Ministry of Foreign Affairs for allowing this event to take place in this beautiful country of Japan.

To the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB) and the National Council of the Union of Burma (NCUB), our appreciation for their unwavering faith in the democratic ideal. Thank you all for organising and attending this conference.

WE, the members of the Asean Inter Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus, come to this conference to express our support for the aspirations of the Burmese people for democracy and respect for the Rule of Law.

Network needed

As a delegation, we have no personal or professional agenda to advance in our espousal of the cause of the Burmese people.

Our one and only concern is to look for ways to establish a network with similarly minded lawmakers in the Japanese Diet that will speedily and peacefully bring about a democratic government in Burma.

Inspiring example

We see the democratic experiment flourishing in this land of the Rising Sun. We, Asians, are inspired by it and we congratulate the good people of Japan for their unflinching adherence to the democratic ideal. And we tell ourselves that perhaps we can secure the support of the Japanese Diet to quickly end the humanitarian crisis that faces the people of Burma at the hands of the ruling military junta.

Horrible acts

Hundreds of the prodemocracy leaders have been arrested and detained. Others have been killed or forced to go to exile. Villages have been hamletted or their occupants evicted. Rape has been used as an instrument of repression. Slave labor has been employed to compel service to the Junta. These are but some of the undeniable examples of the atrocities that the hapless people of Burma are being subjected to today.

But to their eternal credit, the Burmese people have not given up hope. They have stayed the course in the search for freedom, justice and peace for their land.

Faces in the struggle

Historically, struggles for freedom the world-over give birth to outstanding personalities who offer their lives, their properties, indeed, their everything to enable their people to enjoy that singular virtue freedom that makes human beings precisely human. In Burma today, Aung San Suu Kyi and her colleagues in the National League for Democracy and hundreds of ethnic leaders who have been deprived of their fundamental rights and basic liberties since 1990 without due process of law symbolize the battle being waged by the Burmese people against oppression in their own land by those who rule over them through the barrel of the gun.

In the case of Suu Kyi, she has been placed in house arrest for more than 4 years in addition to being subjected to other acts of harassments since 1990. Many of her colleagues in the NLD, tribal activists of various political persuasions, students and professionals who do not toe the line of the military junta have been and are being held in custody without trial.

In addition, sad statistics attests to the fact that almost half of the children in Burma are under-nourished and more than half of the women who are pregnant are so poorly fed and over-worked that they become anemic, they miscarry or even die during labor. The situation of women and children is so precarious that their life spans do not measure up to those of their counterparts in many of the ASEAN countries.

We submit that the acts of the military junta in running Burma with an iron hand and in violating the human rights of their own people are simply abominable and should cease immediately.

We need your support

At the 116th Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Assembly in Bali last month the AIPMC and NCGUB actively lobbied Parliamentarians from all over the world, and pushed for a bigger effort for democratization in Burma. It is our hope that this convention will lead to a greater understanding of the cause of the people of Burma for democratization and pave the way for our regional and international partners to undertake more pragmatic steps to attain it.

We, therefore, come to ask our colleagues in the parliament of Japan to kindly help cause the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and her NLD colleagues who have been arbitrarily detained over the years and the prodemocracy activists who up to this very hour are being arrested even for participating in prayer rallies. We also ask our colleagues in Japan to help peacefully restore the practices of parliamentary democracy that were forcibly dismantled by the military junta after the elections in 1990 that saw the NLD garner at least 85% of the seats in parliament.

Meaningful dialogue

We respectfully suggest that at this point it looks like there is no other way to achieve the peaceful resolution that we seek but to engage the military junta in a meaningful dialogue that should include all the key players needed to establish a democratic government for Burma. And if that effort should fail, we seek the support of our friends in the Diet to get the problem of Burma into the agenda of the forthcoming meeting of the Security Council of the United Nations in November of this year.

Dissuade the Russians

May we also make an appeal to our friends in the Parliament and the government of Japan to help dissuade the authorities of Russia from proceeding with their plans to help the military junta in Burma build a 10 mega watt nuclear reactor (Financial Times of London, May 16, 2007).

While the overt intention is to help the government produce electric power, it is not without reason that we in ASEAN are apprehensive that given the technology, it would be fairly easy for the Burmese military junta to develop the expertise to build nuclear weapons and in the process become an even more oppressive regime.

Further, may we beg your indulgence to suggest that perhaps we could also ask our friends from the Japanese Diet to review the kind of aid that the Japanese government is extending to the military junta government of Burma. It is important, I guess, that in extending aid for the Burmese people, care should be exercised that the assistance does not primarily benefit the military rulers rather than the people.

Ladies and Gentlemen, on behalf of my fellow members of AIPMC present here today, Mr Lim Kit Siang MP from Malaysia, Mr Charles Chong MP from Singapore, Mr Son Chhay MP from Cambodia, Ms Nursyahbani Katjasungkana MP from Indonesia and Mr Buranaj Smutharaks former MP from Thailand, I would like to thank you for identifying with the cause of the Burmese people.

For the record, AIPMC has embarked on numerous endeavors to highlight and find a solution to Burmas debacle. Following our establishment in November 2004, AIPMC joined the collective call for Myanmar to be barred from chairing ASEAN. We lobbied very strongly in the Philippines to attain that objective. The effort was a success when in 2006 Myanmar was withdrawn as ASEAN chair. AIPMC also resolutely supported a global campaign for the United Nation Security Council (UNSC) to pass a resolution on Burma. Despite the failure of the UNSC to issue even a mild warning against the military junta, AIPMC continues to hope that in the near future, such a resolution would be adopted.

Summing up

May I sum up the things for which we would like to ask the support of our colleagues from the Diet. Kindly extend your helping hand to the AIPMC and work for:

1. The release soonest of Aung San Syu Kyi and her NLD colleagues who are still in prison and the activists for democracy for Burma who are being harassed by the military junta; 2. The convening of a peaceful dialogue among the peoples of Burma with the ruling junta to the end that a democratic government can be created soonest, and 3. The placing of the Burma problem in the agenda of the Security Council of the United Nations in its sessions scheduled in November of this year. Dear friends of Burma, thank you for being here today and for throwing your support for the cause of the democratization of Burma. Democracy is a universal value that gives meaning to the lives of people anywhere in the world, including Burma. I submit that it is time for us, free citizens in our respective countries, to share the freedoms that we enjoy with the people of Burma so that they will once again live and enjoy the fullness of life as human beings.

Thank you.

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