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Newsweek, WPost, IHT-China, US sanc



Subject: Newsweek, WPost, IHT-China, US sanctions, etc

While i write this from Paris, cries of "fascists", "police partout"
-police everywhere") rise from the street and an angry mob of some 500
anti-govenrment prostestors,  reported at 20-30 000 in front
of the French National Assembly where a three day debate on the
government's anti-immirgration legislation, the lights went out leaving
most of the Paris Left Bank in virtual darkness. On the street hundreds
of heavily armed CRS riot police chased the mostly young demonstrators
through a maze of small streets. After nearly an hour, power was
restored. The French are fighting a foreign war at home, against arabs,
asians, africans, south americans of their own kind, in  a war 
against an illusive, non-existent eternal enemy, a turning against
history, in an attempt to turn the clock back -- to a time that never
was anything but fascist.

>From what I could see and make out as i mingled among the two groups
separated in the
maze before the police found their target, the crowd was french chanting
"Nous sommes francais, premier
generation, seconde generation, troisieme generation" -"We are french,
first generation, second generation, third generation").  

But they are deadly serious about it, and the legislation is certain to
pass, say the elected senators and even many of the demonstrators dans
la rue.

This is the France investing in Burma. 

Regarding the current Albright visit and the emerging China policy of 
Clinton's second administration, Sino-Burmese 
watchers should note the following stories: Jim Hoagland 
("Paramount Leader was no Saint") in the Washington Post and 
the IHT, pro-China's Robert J Samuelson (Don't Make it an Evil Empire")
in Newsweek, reprinted in the IHT, Reginald Dale's anti-sanctions column 
("US sanctions fad Cries for Restraint")
in today's front page of the IHT finance section calling trade sanctions
in Burma and Cuba "counterproductive", and an interview 
("China's Course in the post-Deng Era") with Winston Lord, 
ambassador to China (1985-89), East Asian and Pacific Affairs, US State
Department and "architect of US China policy".
 

As the two great empires, American and Chinese, move towards a new
balance of international order, the issue of sanctions continues, and
the drug anti-narcotics aide decision ought to clarify Clinton's foreign
policy priorities.

The writing is on the wall  for everyone to see on the problem of Burma
*sanctions, and it appears that Burma  risks to get lost in the wash as
the issue of sanctions in general -Cuba, Iran, and China, -- even the
Chinese appeasers bringing up a mute issue of sanctions on China 
enjoy using a genuine issue for political gain at home, when in fact,
not  only condemning Burma but isolating it as a pariah regime exporting
heroin is the fundamental issue at stake.

If Clinton continues to backs down on sanctions,as much of the press
indicates he will, further ignoring the Cohen-Feinstein legislation on
his desk while both Secretary of Defense Cohen and Senator Feinstein are
against sanctions, he will send a clear signal of 
capitulation to the drug junta as if to say everything else has failed, 
forcing him to keep the door open on constructive engagement, when it is
clear that logic is dead and useless to the democratic movement. Suu
Kyi, who once again called for sanctions, is taking all the heat, as are
the Karens and others in the opposition while the US President is safe
and secure, while slowly unveiling his East Asian cards. He has not
backed Suu Kyi on her sanctions call while condescending to
her detractors in Indonesia, and elsewhere. Nor has the US President 
given the slightest hint of doing so even while the business community
is  beginning to feel the heat from anti-Slorc selective puchasing
legislation pass in Massachussettes and cities across the United States.

Now the McCaffrey Mexican DEA fiasco blows up in his face. Did the DEA
brief the four representatives from Congress in December anticipating
anti-narcotics US drug loans to the junta? The jury is still out waiting
for the agenda of their "private visit" there as guests of the military
dictatorship. One has to ask what message did these elected
representatives deliver to Slorc.

If anything to date is "counterproductive", its the absence of any clear
signal of support to Suu Kyi from the Albright-Clinton administration at
a time when both the drug and sanctions issues
calls for solid action now, and not later. Failure to do so will leave
historians bewildered on just how a two-term american 
president sold out to the pro-China hardliners only to become a
lame-duck so early in his career. Let us still hope
while we can that Clinton will not make that mistake.