Mitch McConnell: I’m continuing my work to strengthen democracy in Burma

Burma has been back in the news lately, and for all the wrong reasons. Last February, the country’s military seized power from the democratically-elected government and launched a brutal crackdown against its people. Many of my constituents – including some of Kentucky’s roughly 10,000 residents from Burma – have reached out to me to express their dismay at this assault on the country’s young democracy. As a longstanding advocate for the people of Burma, I want to take this opportunity to provide an update on my efforts in Washington to support the country’s fight for democracy.

For more than three decades, I have used my role in the United States Senate to prioritize efforts to promote freedom and democracy around the world. This is especially true in Burma, which has long suffered under the rule of a violent, repressive military junta. I authored strict sanctions against the country’s authoritarian leaders and worked across party lines with multiple administrations to keep up pressure on their illegitimate regime. In fact, one of my Democratic partners in this fight was then-Senator Joe Biden, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

I also cultivated a close personal friendship with Burma’s leading democracy advocate and Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. We first corresponded in 2002 through letters secretly delivered while she was under house arrest and barely able to communicate with the outside world. When I was finally able to travel to Burma in 2012, I had the unique privilege of visiting Suu Kyi in the home where she had been imprisoned for a total of 15 years. Later that year, I welcomed her to Kentucky to speak at the McConnell Center at the University of Louisville. Aung San Suu Kyi has been a guiding light in the long fight for democracy in Burma and I have been proud to stand by her and call her my friend.

Sadly, democratic progress is rarely linear or easy. Burma’s people sent a clear, pro-democracy message when they gave Aung San Suu Kyi’s political party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), a sweeping victory in the country’s free and fair elections in 2015. But Burma’s military continued to frustrate democratic development. And after witnessing another decisive NLD victory in the 2020 elections, the junta chose to sweep aside Burma’s legitimate government through military force.

Since then, the situation in Burma has only deteriorated. The military junta has continued its arbitrary detention of political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi, who have endured sham trials and unjustified prison sentences. Their brutal crackdown on civilians and Burma’s ethnic and religious minorities has only escalated, leading to an appalling Christmas Eve massacre that killed 35 people, including women and children. The junta’s indiscriminate violence is strengthening its democratic opponents and uniting Burma’s disparate ethnic groups around the common cause of liberty. The United States and the world must do all we can to reinforce this momentum.

Continuing my decades-long involvement, I am working closely with President Biden and his administration to ensure our country is taking all appropriate steps to advance these objectives. I introduced a bipartisan amendment to the Fiscal Year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) focused on mobilizing the administration to articulate and advance a strategy to hold Burma’s regime accountable and move the country back toward the path of democracy. It will help lay the groundwork to push back against the junta, support democratic actors like the National Unity Government, and encourage the restoration of democracy, and I was proud to see it included in the final NDAA that was signed into law by President Biden last month.

The amendment received support from both sides of the aisle, including Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin, Senator Ben Cardin, and Indiana Senator Todd Young, among others. We expect the administration to act on the authorities Congress gave them in this legislation and help restore Burma’s democracy.

While I am working in Washington, I am also listening to the vibrant communities of Burmese refugees and immigrants in Kentucky who are working toward a democratic future for Burma. Just recently, I met with a group of constituents from Burma in Bowling Green to discuss the ongoing issues facing their home country. As I told them in that meeting, my commitment to freedom and democracy in Burma remains steadfast and I will continue working with them to prioritize this issue at the highest level.

As we approach the one-year anniversary of the junta’s takeover, we must stand united in our efforts to move Burma back onto the path toward democracy.

Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, is the Senate Republican Leader.