LIZ CLAIBORNE TO END COMMERCIAL TIE (r)

[tun@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Subject: Re: LIZ CLAIBORNE TO END COMMERCIAL TIES TO MYANMAR

On Mon, 14 Nov 1994, Coban Tun wrote:
 
> Mail*Link(r) SMTP               Liz Claiborne sews out of Burma
> 
>   LIZ CLAIBORNE TO END COMMERCIAL TIES TO MYANMAR
>   (th)
>   By ANDREA ADELSON
>   c.1994 N.Y. Times News Service
                    [...text deleted...]
>      Liz Claiborne buys goods from 40 countries, and knits and woven
>   apparel from Myanmar represented less than 1 percent of its volume,
>   a company spokeswoman said. Its announcement would thus seem to be
>   largely symbolic.
                    [...text deleted...]
>      Other American companies have withdrawn from Myanmar. Levi
>   Strauss & Co. stopped buying clothes made there in 1992 after
>   learning that the military junta owned an interest in the
>   factories. Amoco Corp. pulled out last April, citing economic
>   reasons.
 
:ZZ
Comment: This is not the first time multinational corporations insist 
that they have a human rights agenda when conducting business in 
"third world" countries that are deemed to have a human rights 
problem.  The last time we saw a major, concerted campaign in this nature 
was regarding South Africa during its aparteid of the 1970s - or more 
precisely, when Jimmy Carter said that his administration would make 
human rights a top ...
 
             [.text deleted...]
 
 :Multinational corporations do indeed have a role to play in 
 :fostering better human rights worldwide.  Two questions beg for answers 
 :when they announce their so-called human rights based (de)investment 
 :decisions.  One, if a multinational corporation is that concerned about 
 :human rights, why does it relocate overseas in the first place? Doesn't 
 :it know a better economy does help legitimatize a repressive government 
 :at least for the 
 :time being?  Two, if a multinational corporation is that concerned about 
 :human rights, why would it resist calls for enforcing codes of conduct in 
 :guaranteeing labor rights for cheap, "third world" laborers?  
 
The very same subject was addressed by Norm Chomsky when he was at 
UMD, (Baltimore Campus) earlier this month. He said there is a new experiment 
being conducted on a global scale where large corporation are having women 
and children work under harsh condition at slave-labor wages without
benefits to supplies products cheaply for developed nations (the West).
 
 :      For multinational corporations, the bottom line is quite simple: 
 :profits measured in dollar terms.  And that is it.  I have yet to be 
 :convinced that they are out there to promote human rights. In this 
 :connection, there is nothing to be excited about when we read news such 
 :as the ones that were posted to this net. 
 
No, I am not excited about posting although it would be nice to be
excited about such thing. I wholeheartly agree with you that dead-presidents
on paper made far more impact on coporate-decision than live women, children
and political prisoners in prisons. Money is the bottom line. That is why
SLORC has lasted as long as they had. Neigboring ASEAN nations under the
cloak of "constructive engagement" has supported this military regime not
to mention Pepsico, Unocal, Kodak and others. Now they are "talking" to ASSK
to unfroze money from Worldbank and other Asean banks. If SLORC is
really sincere than they would have talked to her a long time ago and 
released other members of her party who won the election by landslide.
 
I know of one american man,married to a burmese woman, who really
belived that releasing ASSK will cause havoc in the country. Later I learn
that he has a bussiness venture with SLORC in Mandalay. Belive it or not,
he is a member of Amnesty International.
 
Ct