RIGHTS: Burma Getting a Lot of Attention in United States

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Analysis - By Tim Shorrock

WASHINGTON, Mar 30 2004 (IPS) - For a country barred by law from doing business with U.S. companies, Burma is receiving a lot of attention in the United States these days.

On Mar. 30, the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in a landmark case in which Burma’s military government, called the the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), plays a central role. The court will hear a business challenge to an obscure federal law that human rights groups have used to sue Unocal, the California oil company, for building a pipeline in Burma that allegedly used slave labour provided by the SPDC.

On Mar. 25, the Bush administration, joined by lawmakers from both the Democratic and Republican parties, took advantage of a rare congressional hearing on Burma to sharply criticise Burma’s government for its human rights record and demand the renewal of economic sanctions imposed after opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was detained in May 2003.

And a few days before the hearing, the Bush presidential campaign admitted that its principal merchandiser had illegally sold clothing made in Burma, and promised not to repeat the mistake. The story was embarrassing because President George W Bush himself signed the bill banning Burmese imports in September, citing the continued repression in the country also known as Myanmar.

The administration remains committed to the sanctions, Lorne Craner, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labour, told the House International Relations Committee.

”The junta suppresses political dissent through persecution, censorship, imprisonment, beatings and disappearances,” he said. ”Security forces continue to commit extra judicial killings and rape. They also sharply curtail religious freedom, and security forces systematically monitor citizens’ movements and communications.”

In the midst of these controversies, a group of scholars and researchers held a forum in Washington the day of the congressional hearing to challenge U.S. sanctions policy and promote engagement with the Burmese government.

The forum on ‘Re-examining U.S. Relations with Burma’ was sponsored by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA, the National Bureau of Asian Research and the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of Johns Hopkins University.

All of the speakers had contributed to a new study, published by the National Bureau, which concludes that U.S. policy ”is not achieving its worthy objective – progress toward constitutional change and democratisation in Burma – and may be harming other U.S. strategic interests in Southeast Asia”.

The thrust of the seminar was that sanctions are driving Burma into an alliance with China and hurting innocent Burmese citizens, particularly women. Speakers said the Burmese government was making significant progress by signing ceasefires with rebel groups and drawing a seven-point ‘road map for democracy’.

”Burma is in danger of being drawn into China’s sphere of influence,” said Robert Taylor, who was introduced as a retired professor from the University of London. A Burma allied with China, he said, would be ”bad for U.S. interests” and damaging as well to the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN) and India, both of which he said have opened constructive dialogues with Burma’s military rulers.

Taylor also accused U.S. officials of generating ”misinformation” about Burma ”for political purposes,” including spreading rumours that Burma may be developing a military alliance with North Korea – a charge that was made by the State Department during the House hearing. Taylor said these charges are false.

Overall, he said, the U.S. media and the government present a distorted picture of the reality of Burma. ”It’s a much more open society than the impression you get from the outside,” he said.

Taylor may have a reason for his optimism, however. He is a consultant to Britain’s Premier Oil Co, which until recently had more than 200 million dollars invested in Burma. The organisers of the seminar did not disclose that information, however. They also failed to mention that Unocal, one of the defendants in the Supreme Court case on Burma and an opponent of sanctions, has a seat on the board of directors of the National Bureau, which sponsored the sanctions study.

According to the National Bureau’s website, Thomas E Fisher, Unocal’s senior vice president of commercial affairs, is a member of the organisation’s 19-member board of directors.

Fisher’s responsibilities ”include commercial counselling and services for Unocal’s oil, gas, and electric activities worldwide,” the website states. His involvement with the National Bureau may have accounted for the presence at the seminar of J William Ichord, the vice president of Unocal’s Washington office.

Frederick Z Brown, a SAIS professor who moderated the discussion, said he was unaware of the corporate affiliations. ”Maybe it should have been disclosed,” he said, when asked if the ties to Unocal and Premier Oil should have been made clear by the organisers.

In any case, he said, the intent of the seminar was to ”expose the problem and have a discussion”.

Taylor admitted he was a consultant to Premier, which was once the largest British investor in Burma and was deeply involved in a project to pipe gas to Thailand from Burma’s Yetagun offshore oil fields. He would not say why he did not disclose the connection.

During the seminar, David Steinberg, a Georgetown University professor who once worked in Rangoon, Burma’s capital, for the U.S. Agency for International Development, said the real intent of U.S. sanctions policy is regime change.

”What we are asking for is in fact unconditional surrender,” he said. ”We’re trying to isolate a government that should be opened up to the world.” He urged U.S. officials not to work solely with Aung San Suu Kyi. ”We need to be more circumspect,” he said. ”Her tactical goals may be different than U.S. strategic goals.”

Kyaw Yin Hlaing, a Burmese citizen who works for the National University of Singapore, described research he had recently conducted in Burma. Over the past five months, he said he had visited Burma ”six or seven times” to study the effect of the sanctions.

From his interviews with young women, he concluded that U.S. sanctions are forcing many workers out of the textile industry and into prostitution. ”We need to take account of the spillover from the sanctions.”

The forum did not have any speakers from the Burmese opposition or anyone who approved of the sanctions policy.

This drew an objection from Kyi May Kaung, a research associate with the Burma Fund, a Washington-based group that promotes democratic change in Burma and supports sanctions as a way to pressure the military government.

Kyi May Kaung, who was in the audience, said the real aim of the seminar was to influence public opinion ahead of that day’s hearings. ”If you have a political agenda, don’t hide it in academic garb,” she said.

John Badgley, a retired professor who edited the National Bureau’s report on Burma and introduced the panel, did not argue with Kaung. ”In a sense, there’s a truth to that,” he said. ”We think the timing is right to modify our policy.” The relationship of Unocal and Premier Oil to the seminar was not discussed during the open forum.

According to the National Bureau’s study of Burma, 70 percent of its 50 million people are engaged in subsistence farming, while industry accounts for about 10 percent of its Gross Domestic Product.

Win Min, a Burmese activist in the audience, said those numbers show that the sanctions have limited affects. ”Most factory owners are military cronies,” said Win Min. He said the Burmese military rulers ”don’t like the sanctions because its hurting their cronies”.