Mother Jones Exposes Lobbying Campa

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Mother Jones Exposes Lobbying Campaign Against Human Rights Sanctions

Documents Indicate State Department Officials Conspired With   

Corporate Lobbyists  

SAN FRANCISCO, April 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Internal memos obtained by Mother
Jones magazine -- and released today on the Web at www.motherjones.com/mother-
jones/mj98/silverstein.html -- expose a successful lobbying campaign by the
nation's largest exporters -- including Boeing, Caterpillar, and the oil
industry -- to restrict trade sanctions against countries with poor human
rights records. Insiders with the campaign's front group, USA*Engage, appear
to have actually drafted a bill currently in Congress that would weaken trade
sanctions. 

According to one of the memos, the group received advice from two State
Department officials on how to defeat a sanctions bill, the Freedom from
Religious Persecution Act, which enjoyed support from religious groups and
Republican leaders. State Department officials, according to the memo,
suggested that USA*Engage convince religious leaders to oppose the bill.
USA*Engage then strategized in the memo to approach key leaders, including the
Rev. Billy Graham and a top representative from the Catholic Church -- both of
whom later came out against the bill. 

USA*Engage's campaign is detailed in a six-step guide in the Mother Jones
article, "So You Want to Trade With a Dictator," by contributing writer Ken
Silverstein. The campaign started in early 1997, when the National Foreign
Trade Council hired Democratic lobbyist Anne Wexler's firm, The Wexler Group,
to push the organization's agenda. By April 1997, Wexler had launched
USA*Engage, whose members include Boeing, Unocal, Mobil, Texaco, Caterpillar,
and other corporations that do business with dictatorial regimes with records
of human rights abuses, such as Nigeria, Burma, and Iran. 

Friends on the Hill   

The Enhancement of Trade, Security, and Human Rights through Sanctions Reform
Act was sponsored by Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.) and Sen. Richard Lugar (R-
Ind.). In an interview, Wexler conceded that her staff "worked closely" with
members of Congress who worked on the legislation, but said "That bill was
written on the Hill." But a USA*Engage lobbyist memo obtained by Mother Jones
suggests otherwise. In a September 4, 1997 memo, the Wexler Group's Erika
Moritsugu wrote an IBM lobbyist that he would be receiving more information as
soon as "we work to finalize the bill language." According to the memo,
Wexler's people were also planning "a target date for introducing the bill"
and even drafting the "Dear Colleague" letters that lawmakers send out to
their peers to build support for legislation. Hamilton introduced the bill in
the House on October 23, and Lugar followed suit in the Senate in November. 

The Campaign Against Wolf-Specter   

The Freedom from Religious Persecution Act was introduced last May by Rep.
Frank Wolf (R-Va.) and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.). The bill would place mild
sanctions on nations that persecute religious groups. 

A USA*Engage memo obtained by Mother Jones details a meeting between coalition
member Don Deline and two State Department officials -- Deputy Assistant
Secretary Bill Ramsay and David Moran, the director of the Office of Economic
Sanctions Policy. According to the memo, the State Department officials were
"constrained for obvious reasons" in how active they could be in opposing the
bill but suggested that "religious leaders and organizations should take the
lead for best results." Ultimately, Congress deferred further consideration of
the bill and rewrote it this year, weakening its provisions. A USA*Engage
letter to its members, sent in February, boasted that "USA*Engage is widely
credited for the failure of [Wolf-Specter] to come to a vote in 1997."  

SOURCE  Mother Jones   

CO:  Mother Jones 

ST:  District of Columbia, California 

IN: 

SU: 

04/20/98 12:29 EDT http://www.prnewswire.com