Problems with Current U.S. Policy.

Key Problems

* Current U.S. sanctions are inadequate, because they only ban new investments--allowing most existing projects to continue unimpeded--and do not address imports into the United States.

* The Clinton administration has opposed state- and local-level sanctions as barriers to trade.

* U.S. policy has failed to respond sufficiently to SPDC complicity in heroin trafficking networks.

In 1995, after her release from six years of house arrest, Aung San Suu Kyi challenged the military regime to enter into a dialogue--with no preconditions--to craft a final political settlement in Burma. This call, repeated hundreds of times by NLD leaders since then, has been consistently ignored by the junta. The SPDC has instead mounted an intensifying campaign to dismantle the NLD through arrests of its elected parliamentarians and members, seizures of property, and junta-organized "no-confidence" rallies against NLD parliamentarians in their constituencies. An SPDC-appointed constitutional drafting convention waits in the wings, at work on a document that most observers believe will permanently enshrine military rule.

With their backs to the wall, Suu Kyi and the NLD have called for international economic sanctions against the SPDC, an international tourism boycott, and no new foreign investment in Burma. Following a strategy reminiscent of the African National Congress during its struggle against apartheid in South Africa, the NLD believes that international sanctions will deprive the SPDC and its cronies of opportunities to enrich themselves and will contribute to pressure for an unconditional, tripartite dialogue between the SPDC, the NLD, and the leaders of the ethnic nationalities.

In May 1997, a concerted grassroots campaign in the U.S. finally persuaded the Clinton administration to impose economic sanctions to ban future U.S. investment. The measure takes aim both at actions to facilitate investment (including those by foreign nationals) and attempts to evade the investment prohibitions. But all investment contracts signed by U.S. companies before that date are considered legal. In a test case to hold U.S. corporations accountable, Burmese directly affected by forced labor in the building of the Yadana Gas pipeline have joined forces with two U.S. NGOs to use the Alien Torts Claims Act to sue the Unocal oil company for human rights abuses stemming from its partnership with the SPDC.

Unfortunately, Washington balks at the next logical step--banning all Burmese imports into the United States, which are not covered by the May 1997 sanctions. In fact, the National Labor Committee found that between 1995 and 1999, apparel imports from Burma soared 272%. In the year 2000, U.S. companies will import more than $340 million worth of garments from Burma, including those produced in factories owned by drug traffickers. U.S. activists have vowed that selective purchasing and corporate accountability campaigns will continue, despite opposition from free trade acolytes in the current administration, who played a critical role in persuading the Justice Department to side with U.S. businesses in arguments before the Supreme Court.

Washington's reluctance to ban Burmese imports is even harder to understand, now that it is clear that the SPDC is profiting from collaboration with narcotraffickers. The Drug Enforcement Agency estimated in 1998 that 14% of heroin entering the U.S. is from Southeast Asia and Burma ranks as the world's second largest producer of heroin. Burma's banks can accept foreign currency deposits of any size with no questions asked, as long as a 30% tax is paid. Cheap amphetamines produced by ethnic groups like the Wa, who have a close relationship with a top SPDC official, Gen. Khin Nyunt, are flooding into Thailand. Yet the U.S. only responds with the same old drug war interdiction efforts, treating the symptoms rather than taking concerted political action against the SPDC regime, which condones these activities.

SPDC intransigence has scuttled good faith international efforts to create a road map for political reform that would revolve guarantees of aid in exchange for reform. Meanwhile the Clinton administration, while taking commendable steps to unilaterally stop new U.S. investments in Burma, has failed to use its leadership to lobby Australia, Canada, and key European countries to deepen Burma's diplomatic and economic isolation. As a result, the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) policy of constructive engagement toward the SPDC, primarily composed of forging commercial links and defending the SPDC from external criticism, continues largely unchallenged. Moreover, Japan is now moving to resume partial overseas development assistance to the SPDC.

Another problem is the lack of adequate humanitarian assistance from the U.S. and other nations. The intensifying military campaign against ethnic nationalities along Burma's borders has created a humanitarian crisis that continues to be largely ignored by the international community. Hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Burmese remain trapped, hiding in the jungles. Yet only a pittance of international assistance reaches them. Meanwhile, Thailand continues to insist on an overly narrow definition of a refugee as someone who is "fleeing from fighting," has declined to accede to the 1951 UN Convention on the Status of Refugees, and refuses to consider setting up refugee camps for ethnic Shans. Between 700,000 and 1.5 million illegal migrant workers--many of whom could qualify as refugees--work in the underground economy in Thailand.

Phil Robertson <[e-mail]> is the Mainland Southeast Asia Representative of the American Center for International Labor Solidarity, based in Bangkok, Thailand These are the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of either the American Center for International Labor Solidarity or the AFL-CIO.