Editorial: Invoke Myanmar Sanction

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Subject: Editorial:  Invoke Myanmar Sanctions


Wednesday, March 26, 1997

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER

A Hearst Newspaper


INVOKE MYANMAR SANCTIONS
	
	In the matter of whether to invoke economic sanctions against Myanmar -
the former Burma - for human rights abuses, President Clinton faces one of
the easiest calls he'll ever be asked to make.
	If he can't bring himself to impose sanctions on Myanmar, it's
hard to know where he would impose them, given his reluctance to adopt a
tough human rights policy toward China.
	After all, what other nation's military is running opium farms
with slave labor?  That's what's happening in Myanmar, according to a
London Observer report published in this newspaper Monday.
	Even the European Union stripped Myanmar of special trading
priveleges Monday, citing the use of forced labor to boost exports.  An
estimated two million civilians are said to have been forced to work with
no pay in appalling conditions, sometimes at gunpoint, to build the
country's infrastructure and to attract foreign investment and tourists,
according to Human Rights Watch.
	Congress last year enacted a ban on U.S. investment in Burma if
that nation's government re-arrests democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi,
recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, or if it cracks down on the democracy
movement that seeks to seat the government that was legally elected in
1990 but prevented by the present repressive military regime from taking
power.  
	The State Department's annual report on human rights abuses
indicates that Myanmar has worked hard to earn the sanctions.  In what
seems a calculated action, it has defied Congress and detained hundreds of
students and political activists and held Aung San Suu Kyi under house
arrest last December.
	The U.S.'s total investment in the country is small, about $220
million, mostly in oil and gas projects.  But as Myanmar's largest
investor, the U.S. has an important leadership role to play in bringing
international pressure to bear on this outlaw regime.
	Clinton should seize this uncomplicated opportunity to do the
right thing.


END