BUSINESS INTERESTS VS RIGHTS & VALU

[moe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Subject: BUSINESS INTERESTS VS RIGHTS & VALUES



                  13/3              US businessmen against Yangon sanctions 



IN the face of growing domestic pressure in the United States to isolate
Myanmar, American business
leaders with trade and investment links with Asean yesterday rejected
unilateral economic sanctions on
Yangon. 

Their opposition to such sanctions being used to advance democracy and human
rights came at a time
when moves are also afoot in the US to impose similar sanctions on Indonesia
over the East Timor
issue, diplomats said. 

US President Bill Clinton signed legislation last year barring US companies
from doing business in
Myanmar if the human rights situation there worsens. 

An Asean diplomat said the state of Massachussetts had recently passed
similar legislation aimed at
Jakarta. 

The American business leaders were in Singapore as part of a tour to
Singapore, Malaysia and
Indonesia by the Asean-US Business Council. They are concerned that growing
domestic pressure to
impose sanctions on Myanmar and Indonesia would affect overall US trade and
investment with Asean. 

They said a policy of constructive engagement, as currently pursued by
Asean, would be a better
strategy to bring change to Myanmar. 

"The US-Asean Business Council opposes unilateral sanctions. We feel that
the policy of engagement
is a better way to produce change," said George David, chairman of the
council. He is also chairman
and chief executive officer of United Technologies Inc. 

"We're better off having engagement, participation and investments," he told
a press conference after a
one-day annual general meeting of the council in Singapore. 

Asked if this would mean pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's call for
Western sanctions would
go unsupported, the US business leaders said such unilateral actions would
be short-sighted and would
not work. 

"It's arrogant, it's wrong-headed and it misreads the lessons of history,"
said former secretary of state
Alexander Haig, president of consultants Worldwide Associates Inc. 

"Every analysis I have seen suggests that not only do sanctions not work,
but they frequently, especially
in democratic societies, create obstacles for the incumbent leaders of those
societies to make the
changes we want," he said. 

Gen Haig dismissed some of the international pressure for sanctions against
Myanmar as motivated by
"knee-jerk populism". "The real issue is how do you make things better, not
how to make those at home
feel good or how to keep the press happy."