Mr. Speaker, the military leaders of Burma are acknowledged to be among the world's cruellest violators of human rights. The junta has tortured and executed political opponents, exploited forced labour, denied fundamental freedoms of expression, assembly association and movement, and condoned the growing traffic in heroin and amphetamines.
Several months ago there was hopeful speculation that the pervasive repression would be eased; that the country's courageous pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, would be liberated from house arrest; that her party, the National League for Democracy which won more than three-quarters of the seats in the 1990 election, would be permitted to resume its activity; and that political prisoners would be released. That hope now appears to be a mirage.
Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest. Some 1,700 political prisoners, many of whom are students and including 35 people elected to parliament in 1990, remain in detention. The repression of the National League for Democracy has even intensified.
What is needed now and what is still missing is an internationally co-ordinated and coherent political and economic strategy in which Canada can play—