22 April 1997
The Washington Post
By Peter Baker
U.S. to Impose Sanctions On Burma for Repression
Clinton Decision Defies Business Community
President Clinton plans to impose new economic sanctions on Burma to further isolate its military dictatorship, which has become a pariah in the world community because of its flagrant and persistent human rights abuses, administration officials said yesterday.
The move by the president, which will be announced today by the State Department, will prohibit U.S. companies from making new investments in the Asian nation but will not affect existing business ventures, the officials said.
"We want to make certain that American dollars aren't going to the" ruling regime, known as the State Law and Order Restoration Council, said a senior White House official who asked not to be named.
By itself, breaking off most economic ties with the rogue state may not cripple the government because the United States, while one of Burma's five largest foreign investors, still represents a small share of its overall trade. But the Clinton administration hopes the decision will further undermine Burma's international credibility and put more pressure on other nations to choke off foreign investment.
In taking action, Clinton defied U.S. business leaders, who recently launched a lobbying campaign to block sanctions against Burma because they see it as the latest example of the administration hurting domestic companies to make a political point. At the same time, the crackdown on Burma provides ammunition to Clinton critics from the opposite side of the spectrum, who have berated the president for not linking trade and investment policies to human rights when it comes to China, a far more important trading partner for the United States.
Administration officials said that is a false comparison because of the distinct factors involved in the different nations. Among them, one official pointed out, is Burma's heavy involvement in international drug trafficking.
Clinton is using the authority provided him last year by legislation passed by Congress and aimed at the Burmese junta, which refers to its country as Myanmar and which is widely considered among the most corrupt and intransigent in the world. Among the sponsors of the law was then-Sen. William S. Cohen, a Maine Republican who since has left the Senate and became Clinton's defense secretary.
The exact nature and timing of the sanctions, first reported in today's editions of the New York Times, remained unclear last night. The United States has cut off direct financial assistance and blocked much multinational aid, such as international loans, since the current regime seized power in 1988.
The world community has been escalating its condemnation of the Rangoon regime in recent months. Last month the European Union suspended favorable trading benefits for Burma because of its pattern of forced labor, and last week the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva unanimously condemned the government for continued violations.
The United States hopes that adding its voice will force other Asian nations to back off plans to improve their ties to Burma this summer. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations is scheduled to invite Burma to join in July, a move U.S. officials would like to forestall.
"It has a potential ripple effect because it will impact other countries," said Mike Jendrzejczyk, the Washington director of Human Rights Watch/Asia. "The administration, though belatedly, is doing the right thing."
Unlike some other countries targeted by the United States, Burma has virtually no defenders in Washington, and the Clinton administration has been under increasing pressure to retaliate for months from human rights groups and some members of Congress, including Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
Even as the president and his advisers debated the wisdom of the move, some local U.S. jurisdictions moved on their own. The state of Massachusetts and the city of San Francisco, for example, enacted laws penalizing multinational companies doing business in Burma by making them ineligible for government contracts.
As a result, Apple Computer Inc. pulled out of Burma in October so that it could keep supplying educational computers to Massachusetts. Partly because of pressure from its shareholders, PepsiCo Inc. announced in January that it likewise would leave Burma.
Burma's history of repression dates back years. The ruling government refused to accept the democratic opposition's overwhelming victory in a 1990 election and continues to crush dissent. In recent months, student demonstrations and protests by Buddhist monks were followed by a brutal military offensive against the Karen ethnic minority, which is fighting a counter-insurgency against the government.
At least 10,000 civilian refugees were forced across the border into Thailand earlier this year and Burmese military units followed and burned three villages housing those who fled, according to human rights groups. Tensions have grown with Bangkok as the neighboring country has tried to force refugees to return home.
In February, Nobel Prize-winning opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi called on the rest of the world to block investment in her country.
One of the few U.S. firms with a large share of business in Burma is Unocal Corp., a California-based oil company that has a $1.2 billion partnership with a French company to develop natural gas fields off the coast. Scoffing at the idea that trade restrictions would prod Rangoon into more civilized behavior, one Unocal official recently said such sanctions would amount to "stamping your foot and turning your back."
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