Washington Burma Report, Vol. I, No

[simon_billenness@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

Subject: Washington Burma Report, Vol. I, No. 2

Washington Burma Report, Vol. 1, Number 2

March 5, 1997

STOP UNOCAL FROM BLOCKING SANCTIONS ON BURMA!

WRITE YOUR US SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES

In This Update:

1. Clinton Administration Undecided on Sanctions: Pressure From Congress Needed
2. Sample Letter to Your Senator
3. Washington Post Article on Corporate Lobbying Against Sanctions on Burma
4. How Senators Voted Last Year on Burma Sanctions
5. What is the Washington Burma Report?


1. Clinton Administration Torn on Sanctions: Pressure From Congress Needed

Since the last Washington Burma Report (WBR), the letter circulated by
Senator Moynihan (D, NY) has been sent to President Clinton. The letter
urged President Clinton to impose the ban on new investment outlined in the
Cohen-Feinstein amendment.

The letter was signed by Senators D'Amato (R, NY), Helms (R, NC), Kennedy
(D, MA), Leahy (D, VT), McConnell (R, KY), Moseley-Braun (D, IL), and
Moynihan (D, NY). Senator Wyden (D, OR) wrote a separate similiar letter.

But Unocal and other corporations are striking back. Yesterday's Washington
Post carried prominently an article headlined "Burma Campaign Has Business
Fighting Trend Toward Sanctions."  The article detailed a major new campaign
against economic sanctions led by the National Foreign Trade Council, an
industry group. Unocal and Texaco have also been lobbying specifically
against sanctions on Burma.

We can only counter corporate lobbying through grassroots pressure. The most
effective tactic right now is to press our US senators and representatives
to write President Clinton in support of economic sanctions on Burma
outlined in the Cohen-Feinstein amendment.

WRITE YOUR US SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES!

* Ask your US senators and representatives to write President Clinton,
urging him to implement economic sanctions on Burma.  (A sample letter is
below.)

* Remember that letters, either mailed or faxed, will have much more impact
than phone calls, emails or postcards.

* Follow up your letter by calling your senator or representative's office
and asking to speak to his/her "foreign policy aide." Call toll-free using
(800) 972-3524 or (800) 962-3524.

* Encourage your friends, family and co-workers to write similar letters and
make similar phone calls.

========================================
2. Sample Letter to Your Senator

U.S. Senator ____________
U.S. Senate
Washington, D.C.  20510

Dear Senator __________, 

As your constituent from __________, I am writing to contact you about an
urgent foreign policy issue that I feel strongly about.   This issue is the
deteriorating human rights situation in Burma, where the Burmese democracy
movement led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is under greater pressure
than ever before.  Amnesty International recently announced that 1996 was the
worst year in a decade for human rights in Burma, Suu Kyi remains under de
facto house arrest by the military junta, SLORC, and thousands of political
prisoners languish in the jails. 

[Feel free to add a paragraph here describing yourself, your long history in
the local community and your interest in Burma.]

I believe that the conditions of the Cohen-Feinstein Amendment passed into
law last year, which would ban new investment in Burma by U.S. companies,
have been met.  Accordingly, I strongly urge you to support the immediate
implementation of this Amendment by President Clinton.   Aung San Suu Kyi and
the National League for Democracy Party (NLD) that she leads have repeatedly
and publicly called for such sanctions to be imposed by the U.S. and the
international community.  Unlike other countries in the region ruled by
dictatorial regimes, Burma held a free and fair election in 1990 in which the
NLD won 392 out of 485 Parliamentary seats and then were prevented by the
SLORC from taking power.   That electoral legitimacy makes the situation in
Burma unique and particularly compelling.   Since the NLD is composed of the
legitimate leaders of Burma, I believe that we should their call should be
heeded by America, the world's most influential democracy.  

As you may know, the matter of implementing Cohen-Feinstein is under
consideration by top levels in the Administration.   Time is of the essence
to weigh in on this issue.  I strongly urge you to write to the President and
the Secretary of State to urge them to follow the letter of this US law, and
immediately implement the Cohen-Feinstein sanctions against Burma.   In the
past two weeks, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the
Washington Post has all publicly called on the Clinton Administration to
implement Cohen- Feinstein.  Please support this call of the grass-roots, and
write to the President now! 

As your constitutent, I look forward to hearing from you on this matter very
soon.   

Sincerely yours,

======================================================
3. Washington Post Article on Corporate Lobbying Against Sanctions on Burma

Burma Campaign Has Business Fighting Trend Toward Sanctions
By Paul Blustein
Washington Post Staff Writer

As a place to do business, there are few countries lousier than Burma. The
average Burmese earns less than $300 a year, and the military regime keeps
its heavy bureaucratic hand on an economy so poor its entire output is
roughly equal to that of Eastman Kodak Co.

But despite Burma's lack of appeal as an overseas market, the U.S. corporate
community is up in arms over a potent drive to sever U.S.-Burma economic ties
on human rights grounds.

Burma's junta (which calls the country Myanmar) is the latest of several
regimes to be targeted for U.S. economic sanctions - Cuba, Iran and Libya
were hit last year -- and corporate lobbyists are fuming that such penalties
are getting out of hand.

Restricting U.S. trade and investment with Burma, they fear, will make it
much more difficult to stop similar measures from being imposed on other
countries with human rights problems -- and much greater economic
significance as markets for U.S. goods.

 "It's not just Burma; people are talking now about sanctions on Indonesia,"
said Howard Lewis, vice president for trade and technology at the National
Association of Manufacturers. "They're talking about Nigeria, Pakistan,
Turkey. So companies view this not just as a matter of Burma, but a
continuation of a really unfortunate trend that has mushroomed over the last
couple of years."

In a report to be issued by the NAM today, the business community is
launching a campaign aimed at convincing Congress, the Clinton administration
and the public that the United States is wielding sanctions far too often
against objectionable regimes such as Burma's and that the main victims are
usually U.S. companies and workers.

The campaign is being led by the National Foreign Trade Council, an industry
group that has retained two top lobbyists with ties to both major parties:
former Reagan administration trade representative Clayton Yeutter and former
Carter administration official Anne Wexler.

The report lists 35 countries that have, in one way or another, been hit by
U.S. sanctions over the past four years, reversing a previous approach of
"relative restraint" in the use of such measures. Although the report
acknowledges that embargoes can work when many countries join in isolating a
rogue nation -- the multilateral sanctions against South Africa's apartheid
regime being a prime example -- it argues that Washington is increasingly
resorting to futile gestures by acting unilaterally.

Burma is shaping up as a particularly troubling test case for the corporate
community. The nation's ruling clique, the State Law and Order Restoration
Council (SLORC), is among the most widely reviled in the world; it refused to
accept the democratic opposition's overwhelming victory in a 1990 election
and continues to crush dissent. The Nobel Prize-winning opposition leader,
Aung San Suu Kyi, recently called on other nations to block investment in her
country.

Senior administration officials met last month to consider invoking an
investment ban on Burma under a law passed last year.  Meanwhile, a number of
local U.S. jurisdictions, including Massachusetts and San Francisco, have
enacted legislation to penalize multinational companies doing business in
Burma by making them ineligible for state and city contracts.

The laws are starting to exert an effect; Apple Computer Inc., for example,
withdrew from Burma last October in order to maintain its business supplying
Massachusetts with educational computers. PepsiCo Inc. announced in January
that it would pull all of its business out of Burma in recognition of
toughened U.S. policy toward the country and in deference to the wishes of
many shareholders and customers.

All this is disturbing for business -- and awkward for the administration --
because it raises serious questions of double standards: Can Burma be
sanctioned for human rights violations without the same being done to richer
countries?

Especially ticklish is the issue of China, because President Clinton bases
much of his case for "engagement" there on the contention that the best way
to promote democracy is through economic growth and the development of a
middle class.

The administration, one U.S. official said, may have to resort to the
argument that applying sanctions to Burma makes sense because, unlike China,
"it doesn't have the world's fastest-growing economy, doesn't have a billion
people, and doesn't have a military that can destabilize the whole Pacific
Rim." Drawing a distinction between Burma and Indonesia -- a country with a
thriving economy and the world's fourth-largest population, though not as big
or important as China's -- will be even trickier, administration officials
admit.

The corporate community was upset last year when Congress enacted laws
penalizing foreign companies doing business in Cuba, Iran and Libya because
the actions raised the prospect that other governments would retaliate. But
those laws were aimed at countries that were perceived as having taken some
hostile action toward the United States. Now, the threat of sanctions is
spreading to all sorts of regimes viewed as odious for one reason or another.

Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy (D-R.I.) has introduced a bill that would restrict
investment in Indonesia as punishment for the Jakarta regime's repression in
East Timor. Other lawmakers are pressing the State Department to invoke
sanctions against Turkey for expanding its economic ties with Iran.

In Massachusetts, the legislature is considering a bill that would bar the
state from dealing with companies that do business in Indonesia; state
officials already maintain a long list of U.S. and foreign firms that are
barred because of their Burma ties. In neighboring Connecticut and in New
York City, anti-Burma bills are under consideration.

Human rights advocates assert that U.S. sanctions against Burma, even if not
followed by other countries, would at least encourage other countries into
taking a harder line with the Rangoon regime.

And Burma can be singled out for punishment without affecting the argument
about China, contended Mike Jendrzejczyk, the Washington director of Human
Rights Watch/Asia.

"In China, at least there's some possibility that over the long term, if
economic engagement is accompanied by sustained political pressure, then
economic reform could lead to political reform,"  Jendrzejczyk said. "In
Burma, I don't think you can make that case with any credibility. You have a
military government that controls the economy and uses economic investment to
keep itself in power."

But Unocal Corp., a Los Angeles-based oil company that is one of the few
U.S. firms with a sizable stake in Burma, argues that a dangerous precedent
may be set. Officials of the company deride suggestions that a prohibition on
U.S. business dealings would help the cause of human rights there; they point
out that the United States accounts for just 3 percent of Burma's trade and 8
percent of its foreign investments.

Imposing sanctions on Burma, said Jack Rafuse, manager of Unocal's Washington
office, would be no more effective than "stamping your foot and turning your
back."

======================================
4. How Senators Voted Last Year on Burma Sanctions

 Elimination of Cohen Amendment from the Foreign 
 Operations Appropriation Act - 1997 (HR3540) -- 

By a close vote of 54-45, the Cohen Amendment (weaker sanctions amendment,
making sanctions conditional upon injury to Suu Kyi, rearrest of Suu Kyi, or
continued high levels of repression) replaced to the McConnell Amendment
(tougher sanction amendment, would have imposed sanctions immediately) in the
Foreign Operations Appropriation Act - 1997 (HR.3540).

Those who voted "Yes" wanted to keep the McConnell amendment.   These are the
Senators who are more sympathetic to the argument to implement sanctions
immediately.   Those who voted "No" wanted to have the weaker sanctions, as
requested by the White House and outlined in the Cohen-Feinstein amendment.

* indicates that this Senator has retired or lost his/her race in 1996.   In
each case, the new Senators is indicated.  Since the new Senators have never
voted on the Burma sanctions issue, it is important to reach out and educate
them. 


                          Yes --45

Sen.Spencer Abraham  (R - Michigan)
Sen.Robert Bennett  (R - Utah)
Sen.Joseph R. Biden  (D - Delware)
Sen.Barbara Boxer  (D - California)
*Sen.Bill Bradley  (D - New Jersey) -- now contact Sen. Robert Torricelli
(D-NJ)
*Sen.Hank Brown  (R - Colorado) -- now contact Sen. Wayne Allard (R-CO)
Sen.Richard H. Bryan (D-Nevada)
Sen.Dale Bumpers  (D - Arkansas)
Sen.Robert C. Byrd  (D - West Virgina)
Sen.Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R - Colorado)
Sen.Paul Coverdell  (R - Georgia)
Sen.Alfonse M. D'Amato  (R - New York)
Sen.Mike DeWine  (R - Ohio)
Sen.Lauch Faircloth  (R - North Carolina)
Sen.Russ Feingold  (D - Wisconsin)
*Sen.Sheila Frahm (R - Kansas) -- now contact Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS)
Sen.Bill Frist  (R - Tennessee)
Sen.Slade Gorton  (R - Washington) 
Sen.Phil Gramm  (R - Texas)
Sen.Charles E. Grassley  (R - Iowa)
Sen.Judd Gregg  (R - New Hampshire)
Sen.Tom Harkin  (D - Iowa)
Sen.Orrin G. Hatch  (R - Utah)
Sen.Mark O. Hatfield (R - Oregon) -- now contact Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR)
Sen.Jesse Helms (R - North Carolina)
Sen.James M. Jeffords  (R - Vermont)
*Sen.Nancy Kassebaum  (R - Kansas) -- now contact Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS)
Sen.Edward M. Kennedy  (D - Massachusetts)
Sen.John Kerry (D - Massachusetts)
Sen.Herbert H. Kohl  (D - Wisconsin)
Sen.Frank R. Lautenberg  (D - New Jersey)
Sen.Patrick J. Leahy  (D - Vermont)
Sen.Carl Levin (D - Michigan)
Sen.Richard G. Lugar  (R - Indiana)
Sen.Connie Mack  (R - Florida)
Sen.Mitch McConnell  (R - Kentucky)
Sen.Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D - New York)
*Sen.Claiborne Pell  (D - Rhode Island) -- now contact Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI)
*Sen.Larry Pressler  (R - South Dakota) -- now contact Sen. Tim Johnson
(D-SD)
Sen.Charles Robb  (D - Virgina)
Sen. Paul Sarbanes  (D - Maryland)
Sen.Richard C .Shelby  (R - Alabama)
Sen.Robert C. Smith  (R - New Hampshire)
Sen.Arlen Specter  (R - Pennsylvania)
Sen.Paul Wellstone  (D - Minnesota)


                          No--54

Sen.Daniel Akaka  (D - Hawii)
Sen.John Ashcroft  (R - Missouri)
Sen.Max Baucus  (D - Montana)
Sen.Jeff Bingaman  (D - New Mexico)
Sen.Christopher S. Bond  (R - Missouri)
Sen.John Breaux  (D - Louisiana)
Sen.Conrad Burns  (R - Montana)
Sen.John H. Chafee  (R - Rhode Island)
Sen.Dan Coats  (R - Indiana)
Sen.Thad Cochran (R - Mississipp)
*Sen.Williams S. Cohen  (R - Maine) -- now contact Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME)
Sen.Kent Conrad  (D - North Dakota)
Sen.Larry E. Craig  (R - Idaho)
Sen.Thomas A. Daschle  (D - South Dakota)
Sen.Christopher J. Dodd  (D - Connecticut)
Sen.Pete V. Domenici  (R - New Mexico)
Sen.Byron L. Dorgan  (D - North Dakota)
Sen.Dianne Feinstein  (D - California)
Sen.Wendell H. Ford  (D - Kentucky)
Sen.John Glenn  (D - Ohio)
Sen.Bob Graham  (D - Florida)
Sen.Rod Grams  (R - Minnesota)
*Sen.Howell Heflin  (D - Alabama) -- now contact Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)
Sen.Ernest F. Hollings  (D - South Carolina)
Sen.Kay Bailey Hutchison  (R - Texas)
Sen.James Inhofe  (R - Oklahoma)
Sen.Daniel K. Inouye  (D - Hawii)
*Sen.Bennett Johnston  (D - Louisiana) -- now contact Sen. Mary Landrieu
(D- LA)
Sen.Dirk Kempthorne  (R - Idaho)
Sen.Robert Kerrey  (D - Nebraska)
Sen.Jon L. Kyl  (R - Arizona)
Sen.Joseph I. Lieberman  (D - Connecticut)
Sen.Trent Lott  (R - Mississippi)
Sen.John McCain  (R - Arizona)
Sen.Barbara A. Mikulski  (D - Maryland)
Sen.Carol Moseley-Braun  (D - Illinois)
Sen.Frank H. Murkowski  (R - Alaska)
Sen.Patty Murray  (D - Washington)
Sen.Don Nickles  (R - Oklahoma)
*Sen.Sam Nunn  (D - Georgia) -- now contact Sen. Max Cleland (D-GA)
*Sen.David Pryor  (D - Arkansas) -- now contact Sen. Tim Hutchinson (R-AR)
Sen.Harry Reid  (D - Nevada)
Sen.Jay Rockefeller  (D - West Virgina)
Sen.William V. Roth, Jr. (R - Delware)
Sen.Rick Santorum  (R - Pennsylvania)
*Sen.Paul Simon  (D - Illinois) -- now contact Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL)
Sen.Alan K. Simpson  (R - Wyoming) -- now contact Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY)
Sen.Olympia Snowe  (R - Maine)
Sen.Ted Stevens  (R - Alaska)
Sen.Craig Thomas  (R -Wyoming)
Sen.Fred Thompson  (R - Tennessee)
Sen.Strom Thurmond  (R - South Carolina)
Sen.John W. Warner  (R - Virginia)
Sen.Ron Wyden  (D - Oregon)

                          NOT VOTING--1

Sen.J. James Exon  (D - Nebraska)


=================
5. What is the Washington Burma Report?

The Washington Burma Report is a non-profit, non- partisan update on action
on Burma issues at the federal U.S. Government level in Washington, D.C.
WBR is committed to an agenda that supports the Burma democracy movement,
led by Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy.  

Written by activists for activists, WBR will appear as needed, and will
focus on recent actions, strategy, and what grassroots activists can do to
make their voices heard in Washington on these issues.   Additional
information and links to Congress, federal agencies (like the State
Department) and, in the future, past issues can be found at:
http://www.clark.net/pub/burmaus/   Feedback on this issue can be sent to the
editors at Reaproy@xxxxxxx or steele@xxxxxxxx
=================