Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  We can do that, yes. The clerk has it, and actually Russ has a copy. We were trying to deal with the extra paper. There are about 150 pages to my appendix, and of course, I didn't want you to have to translate them all, so I left it up to the clerk as to what you wanted to do or not do with all this information.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  You're more than welcome to translate it into French. I just didn't know if you wanted 150 pages of French information.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I understand what you're saying, and again here's one of those difficult things, because the military regime was also an armed conflict group before they took off their military garbs and put on the three-piece suits, bought up all the land, and got voted in. You have to understand that out of the 600 seats, probably 550 of those seats are maintained by previous military or military.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Again, at the risk of repeating myself, one will be having to change the constitution to reflect a more homogeneous group of people. We have 135 ethnic groups in the country, so a lot of work is going to have to be done. But when talking to many of the leaders from various ethnic groups, I haven't heard any of them say, “We want to become our own country.”

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes, that's the double side of the constitution again. The double side of the constitution says you have a right to land, you have a right to own, but the other side of the constitutions says that the government has the right to take it way from you at any time for the betterment of the whole country.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I think we have to give the ethnic groups more credit. They are not heathen or ill-educated people, but rather many of the ethnic groups have been the groups that have gotten the Burmese to the place where they are now. Kachin are very highly educated as are many of the ethnic groups.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  But the thing is.... Again, I did not walk these sites personally, but through the documentation, most of it coming from the United States, this is well documented. They've had several people who have come out of the country of Myanmar and have brought plans for the sites and the aerial things.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes. I would say that if Aung San Suu Kyi could be president today, most of these ethnic groups would rally to her side tomorrow afternoon—that fast. The way this thing has been set up, there is no way she can become president. It states very clearly in this constitution that anyone who has had a foreign husband can never be president of the country.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Right, I would say that's the bottom line.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Well, to me a lot of the challenges are a little bit like the way Europe was. I used to travel to Ukraine and other parts of the world. They always take you to the capital city. They show you the good things. They show you the hydro. They show you that everything works nicely and that everybody is living happily ever after, but they never let you outside of the capital.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  There is a sense of that, but the thing is that the valley people aren't able to fight as well in the mountains, where the mountain people are much more aggressive.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Other than that some of the NGO doctors who are in the area—I would prefer not to mention who they are, but you could probably figure out who some of them are—have substantiated that because of the amount of AIDS that has broken out.... The challenge we run into is which comes first, the cart or the horse.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  It is by transfer, and also, the government takes away land from the Kachin and other people and then moves these peoples into those areas.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Again, there are different levels of persecution. One is at all levels of religion. If you are a cleric, which I mentioned, or a pastor, or even a Buddhist monk, you cannot vote, and you cannot hold a position in the government. You cannot form a government party. That is all stated in here.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  They would be more like traffic lights, making sure the general, basic—