"The Two Faces of the U.S. Government".

Editor's Note: On December 15, Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney joined Congressman Sherrod Brown and the National Labor Committee in denouncing the Pentagon's involvement with the Chentex sweatshop in Nicaragua, which has fired employees for their union activity. What follows is an abridged version of her statement at that press conference.

The plight of the workers in the Chentex factory is not an isolated incident. This is happening all over the world. What kind of message is the U.S. sending to developing nations in our trade strategy?

On the one hand, Charlene Barshefsky asked Nicaragua to clean up its act and respect the rights of the workers in the Chentex factory.

On the other hand, the U.S. military is one of the largest purchasers from that very same factory.

So now we have the U.S. Trade Representative saying one thing, and the Pentagon doing another. The U.S. speaks then with forked tongue, and the lives of the poor workers do not improve.

It must make the U.S. look like a hypocrite if we talk about human rights, worker rights, and then have the Army and Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES) buy millions of dollars of goods from Chentex. The message sent is that not only does the U.S. government tolerate sweatshops; it supports sweatshops.

I was not surprised when I learned about the two faces of the U.S. government. How could I be when I see the human rights legacy of the Clinton Administration to the oppressed and indigenous peoples of the world: decreased emphasis on human rights, increased U.S. corporate global penetration, more wretchedness for the already wretched of the Earth, a loss of America's moral soul.

We call upon AAFES to respect and follow its own core values: integrity, trust, accountability, and compassion. I ask AAFES to exercise its conscience, to say that slave labor, sweatshop labor, child labor are abhorrent practices that run counter to everything that we as a nation stand for. The combination of the pitifully low Chentex wage and the paltry amount being asked for by the workers is terrible but illustrative of our point. The Pentagon is willing to spend $500 for a hammer, $60 billion on the Star Wars program, and another $60 billion for deployment of that system, which doesn't work. This same military tells us they can't spare another eight cents more for a pair of jeans.

It seems these companies react to unions like slaveholders reacted to slave revolts, but time is not on the companies' side. These conditions are not sustainable, and the people will fight back, and when they do, they'll have the support of people like us.

If these companies aren't careful, "Workers of the World, Unite" won't be just a hackneyed, out-of-date slogan. It'll mean survival for people of conscience and for the wretched of the Earth.

Cynthia McKinney Democrat from Georgia, is a member of the House Armed Services Committee and is the ranking member on the Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights of the House International Relations Committee.