Portland, OR
When the omnibus appropriations bill was signed into law last September by President Clinton, a clear line was drawn defining a new course for U.S. policy toward Burma. Sanctions will be invoked if conditions in Burma deteriorate and the military regime which goes by the acronym SLORC (State Law and Order Restoration Council) has "physically harmed, rearrested for political acts, or exiled Aung San Suu Kyi or has committed large -cale repression of or violence against the democratic opposition."
Since the bill was signed into law, the situation has gone from bad to worse. Hundreds of opposition leaders and activists have been arrested and Aung San Suu Kyi remains virtually imprisoned in her own home and subjected to increasingly severe forms of harassment. Freedom of association is absolutely denied. There are no independent unions inBurma,and all attempts to organize them are brutally suppressed. Only within the past three weeks, SLORC has mounted a new military offensive against the Karen, one of Burma's ethnic minorities, resulting in thousands of new refugees. Refugee camps along the Thai-Burmese border have been attacked and burned.
Furthermore, if anything, the widespread and systematic use of forced labor by the SLORC to rebuild the country's decrepit infrastructure has increased during the past year as SLORC has promoted tourism in a desperate attempt to attract hard currency. The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions has estimated that 800,000 men, women and children have been utilized as forced laborers, many in connection with the construction of an overland gas pipeline by SLORC which is in joint venture with Unocal and its French partner Total.
So great have been the abuses that SLORC has been singled out by the International Labor Organization, the UN Commission on Human Rights, the European Union, and the U.S. Congress as one of the world's most notorious human rights violators. The growing international consensus to isolate Burma has led to the withdrawal of European companies such as Heineken and Carlsberg. Earlier, under pressure from campus and consumer activists, such U.S. companies as Levi Strauss, Eddie Bauer and Liz Claiborne pulled all production out of Burma. Recently, Pepsico announced that it is severing all commercial ties to Burma.
Recognizing that foreign investment contributes directly to the strengthening of the military regime and the continued repression of civilians, Aung San Suu Kyi has repeatedly called on international business to suspend investment until the country is democratic. U.S. corporations that continue to do business in Burma cannot deny their complicity in keeping the
regime in power. This is especially true for U.S.-based oil companies which stubbornly continue to prop up the military regime by providing it with large amounts of desperately needed hard currency. In addition to Unocal, ARCO and Texaco are engaged in exploration that may provide SLORC with significant additional capital. This is occurring at the same time that oil companies are engaged in severe downsizing and cost-cutting which has compromised worker and community safety and is resulting in a significant loss of high-skill, high-wage jobs in the United States.
Beyond revenues provided by major oil companies, the production and sale of heroin is SLORC's largest source of capital. Under SLORC, Burma has become the largest source supplier of heroin in the world and 60 percent of the heroin seized in the United States comes from Burma. There is a growing body of evidence that the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise, Unocal's partner in Burma is serving as a front for drug money laundering.
The AFL-CIO urges the Clinton Administration to implement economic sanctions without further delay in accordance with the law. We call on all U.S. corporations still doing business in Burma, to withdraw all investment, licenses, franchises, contracts, goods and services. We encourage our unions to actively support selective purchasing legislation at the local, state and federal levels which bars contracts or the expenditure of public funds with companies that do business in Burma. And finally, we encourage our unions to mobilize members to exert the necessary political pressure on the Clinton Administration and Congress to take whatever steps necessary to restore democracy and civilian rule in Burma.