22 April 1997
The New York Times
By Steven Erlanger

Clinton Approves New Steps by U.S. Against Burmese

WASHINGTON -- After weeks of internal debate, President Clinton has approved a ban on new American investment in Burma because of human-rights abuses by the Burmese military government, a senior administration official said Monday.

Clinton acted under the terms of a law signed last fall that mandates sanctions if the Burmese military commits "large scale repression" against the democratic opposition or if it again detains the opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate who has been back under effective house arrest since November.

The details of when the sanctions would go into effect and their exact nature are being worked out. The sanctions are not retroactive, allowing previous contracts to stand, the official said. The one major American investment in Burma is in a billion-dollar energy partnership with a French company.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was expected to announce the ban on Tuesday.

Some State Department officials have felt that the administration was dragging its feet on ordering sanctions because to do so would open Clinton to further criticism of his China policy because of the contrast it would present.

On China, Clinton has divorced trade from human rights considerations, arguing that Washington's relationship with Beijing is too complicated and strategically important to be held hostage to any one issue.

Burma is small and of considerably less strategic importance. It is, therefore, easier for administration officials to criticize the Burmese military government for its repressive acts.

The Burmese military refused to recognize elections won by Mrs. Suu Kyi and her party in 1988, instead seizing all power and putting her under house arrest for six years. During and after that internment, efforts to promote a dialogue between the military rulers and Mrs. Suu Kyi failed. She has now been put back under effective house arrest, and she herself has called for the imposition of sanctions.

Last year, the Burmese military made more than 2,000 political arrests and about 260 party activists are now in prison. In January, the military government attacked the ethnic Karens near Thailand, driving some 18,000 refugees across the border in what American officials have testified was an assault on part of the democratic opposition.

The United States is the fourth-largest investor in Burma, after France, Singapore and Thailand. Most French and American investment is in the energy sector. The largest American investor is Unocal Corp., which is in a $1.2 billion partnership with the French company, Total, to explore and develop fields of natural gas off the coast and is building a pipeline to pump the gas to Thailand.

At the end of January, Unocal signed a deal to expand its exploration and development rights. The signing came the same day that the State Department, in its annual review of human rights around the world, condemned the killing and torture of dissidents and ethnic minorities in Burma, and officials spoke about imminent sanctions. At the time, Unocal spokesmen denied any connection and said the company opposed sanctions.

One reason for the administration's delay was a similar argument, that unilateral sanctions would not produce an improvement in human rights in Burma, but have the reverse effect because it might stir resentment on the part of the Burmese military.

The threat of sanctions is sometimes a better instrument than the sanctions themselves, some officials have argued, and unilateral sanctions can have more symbolic impact than real force.

"But our efforts to make this pressure multilateral hasn't worked all that well," an official admitted, "and it was the president's judgment that doing it now fulfulls the law, which he is obligated to do, and may stimulate further action by others."

The administration has been trying to persuade Japan and the Southeast Asian countries to join in any sanctions, but with little success. Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto comes to Washington to meet Clinton on Friday, and the Japanese have been pressing Clinton not to go ahead with sanctions. Tokyo has been trying to promote dialogue between the military and Mrs. Suu Kyi.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations has also warned against unilateral sanctions. The Association holds its 30th anniversary meeting in Kuala Lumpur this July, and the Malaysians would like to invite Laos, Cambodia and Burma to join the organization then, arguing that engagement is a better inducement to improved behavior than isolation.

Clinton is acting under the Cohen-Feinstein law, named after its sponsors, William Cohen, now secretary of defense, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. That bill, negotiated with the White House and signed last autumn, was a softer version of language offered by Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., which demanded immediate sanctions.

Another reason for the White House to act now may be new legislation drafted by McConnell and Moynihan, now being passed around both the House and Senate for co-sponors, that would demand tougher sanctions that would affect Unocal's current investment and restrict royalties from existing investments and shareholdings. The senators plan to introduce the bill by the end of next week.

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