source :news blaze
In a speech timed to coincide with International Human Rights Day, first lady Laura Bush paid tribute to the courage of female dissidents in Burma. She also announced the United States is increasing its assistance to victims of Cyclone Nargis, which devastated parts of the country in May.
Speaking in New York December 10, Bush said the U.S. Agency for International Development will provide another $5 million in disaster-assistance funding to communities that were devastated by the cyclone. This comes in addition to the $75 million of U.S. relief that already has been delivered to cyclone victims and Burmese refugees.
During fiscal year 2008, the United States committed a total of $96 million in aid to the people of Burma.
The new $5 million in disaster assistance "will support the efforts of nongovernmental organizations like the World Food Program and Save the Children to ensure access to clean water, adequate shelter, basic health services, and other essential needs in the most affected areas," the first lady said.
Laura Bush has been a vocal proponent of human rights in Burma and critical of abuses by Burma's ruling military junta against the country's people. She told her New York audience that even though she has visited 75 countries during her husband's presidency, Burma and Afghanistan are "two countries that are of special interest to me."
Because of Burma's isolation, she has used her public role as first lady to publicize its plight.
IN BURMA, STRUGGLE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS CONTINUES
International Human Rights Day, which commemorates the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, helps to call attention to those who are denied the rights enshrined in the document. "Today especially, my thoughts turn to the women of Burma," the first lady said.
Burmese female dissidents are "following in the footsteps" of Nobel laureate and political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi, she said. Suu Kyi was elected democratically as Burma's president in 1990. Instead of being allowed to serve in office, the military junta has kept her under house arrest for much of the time since her election.
In Burma, women and children have been subject to violence and brutality at the hands of the military regime. "Children are conscripted as soldiers, and families are forced to perform life-threatening labor. Human trafficking is pervasive, and rape is used as a 'weapon of war,'" the first lady said, recounting the words of one activist who said she had seen rape victims as young as 8 and as old as 80.
The first lady recognized Burmese refugee and physician Dr. Cynthia Maung, whose Mae Tao clinic on the border between Burma and Thailand provides daily medical service to hundreds of patients, including Burmese migrant workers and refugees.
"The ruling junta has labeled Dr. Cynthia an insurgent and an opium-smuggling terrorist. But she continues her work to give the people of Burma the care their government denies them," Bush said.
She also praised the courage of Charm Tong, who provided information to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights about rape and other abuses being carried out by the Burmese military in Shan state, despite the fact that regime representatives were in the audience when she testified.
Su Su Nway successfully won a case against local officials who had tried to force her and other residents of her village to repair a road. The military retaliated by sentencing her to 18 months in jail for "insulting and disrupting a government official on duty." The first lady said that after her release, Su Su Nway continued her human rights advocacy and is now serving a 12-year sentence for posting fliers near a U.N. official's hotel in November 2007.
"Ruling General Than Shwe has promised a democratic transition for his country. But the junta has engaged in an effort to silence its opponents before the next planned elections in 2010," Bush said. After the crackdown against peaceful pro-democracy activists in 2007, "the number of political prisoners in Burma has increased from around 1,100 to more than 2,100 now."
She said "dozens of dissidents, poets, monks and bloggers have been transferred to prisons far from their families, where their abuses are less likely to be reported," and in November alone, 215 political prisoners were arbitrarily sentenced to prison terms as long as 65 years