For Immediate Release, September 16, 2003
Contact: Jeremy Woodrum, 202-543-8753 Aung Din, 301-602-0077

=============================================
U.S. Congress to Hold Hearing with Burma Massacre Witness

Survivor of May 30th witnessed attack on Nobel Laureate, Democracy Activists

(Washington, DC) - On September 18th, the anniversary of a brutal military coup that vaulted Burma's military regime to power in 1988, two subcommittees in the U.S. House International Relations Committee will hold a joint hearing on horrific human rights in Burma. Included in the witnesses is Wunna Maung, a survivor of a pre-meditated massacre that took place on May 30th, 2003 and resulted in the murder of up to 100 pro-democracy activists and the imprisonment of 1991 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

Other witnesses will include Lorne Craner, Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor; Matthew Daley, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific; Mike Mitchell, former program officer at the International Republican Institute, Naw Musi, Refugees International, Stephen Dunn, World Aid; and U Bo Hla Tint, MP-elect of the National League for Democracy and member of the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma.

Wunna Maung, 27 years old, is a member of the youth wing of the National League for Democracy in Mandalay, Burma's second largest city. He worked on the security team of 1991 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi and the leadership of the NLD as they traveled throughout the country on an organizing tour in early 2003. During his service, he witnessed firsthand Burma's May 30th massacre, when scores of NLD members were brutally beaten to death by regime-affiliated thugs, in what the U.S. State Department called a "pre-meditated attack".

Narrowly escaping the massacre, he is one of the only persons to successfully flee Burma in order to speak to the world about what happened on that day.

On July 28th, less than two months after the massacre, U.S. President George W. Bush signed into law the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly by a vote of 418-2 and the U.S. Senate by a vote of 97-1. The Act significantly increases political and economic pressure on the regime, banning all imports from Burma, freezing the assets of the regime held in the United States, and codifying the prevention of World Bank and IMF loans to the country.

"We hope this hearing lays the groundwork for increased international pressure on my country's brutal military regime, including from the United Nations Security Council," says Aung Din, Policy Director at the U.S. Campaign for Burma and a former political prisoner in Burma.

The hearing is scheduled to take place in room 2237 Rayburn House Office Building at 12:30 pm. It is open to the public.