Mr. Speaker, as chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Burma that has over 35 members of Parliament and senators from all parties and the people of Burma, we are very happy and thank the government for picking up our agenda item from last May to make Daw Aung San Suu Kyi an honorary Canadian citizen.
We are especially pleased that this occurs at this particular time of crisis and great need for the people of Burma. The Liberal opposition has long supported the bestowing of the title “Honorary Canadian Citizen” on Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, so that the people of Canada may demonstrate their friendship and solidarity through her to the people of Burma.
It is our sincerest honour and privilege to see that this symbol of unity of our two peoples has finally come to pass. We hope it will be followed by many more actions of support for the Burmese people.
Aung San Suu Kyi's courage is the courage to sacrifice her life in order to give life to an entire nation. She continues to inspire people throughout the world and to strive to attain democracy, human rights and ethnic unity through peaceful means and for this she won the Nobel Peace Prize.
There are unspeakable human rights abuses by totalitarian governments in many countries of today's world. For the freedom fighters in these struggles, Aung San Suu Kyi is an international symbol of heroic and peaceful resistance in the face of oppression.
To quote the chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize committee, “She is an outstanding example of the power of the powerless”.
Think of the incredible personal sacrifices Aung San Suu Kyi has made to lead the peaceful struggle of her people. She lived through the assassination of Burma's martyred independence leader, General Aung San, her father. She escaped an assassination attempt on May 30, 2003 by thugs of the USDA supported by the regime who beat 100 of her supporters to death in the failed assassination attempt.
Imagine what government in the world would arrest a Nobel Peace Prize winner. She has now spent over 4,000 days under house arrest. She is isolated and allowed no visitors. Her phone line has been cut and her mail is intercepted.
However, Aung San Suu Kyi herself says “The only real prison is fear”. When her husband was dying of cancer, the military junta dictatorship would not let him pay one last visit to his wife, even after a request by the Pope and the Secretary General of the UN.
In 1988, the brutal military dictatorship murdered 3,000 peaceful students and human rights protestors. Imagine soldiers going into Burmese houses, forcing the young children into labour, raping wives and torturing and murdering Burmese citizens who disagreed or objected, except for the hundreds of thousands who have fled to refugee camps across the border.
What kind of government anywhere in the world would murder and torture peaceful monks? It is this outrageous regime that the peaceful human rights protestors and the rest of the world under UN responsibility to protect are up against.
For this, the Burmese people need a leader to lead them to freedom. They have one, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who will soon be a Canadian citizen.