The Real Problem With Stopping Inve

[Rangoonp@xxxxxxx]

Subject: The Real Problem With Stopping Investment in Countries With Human

Rights Abuses
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The Real Problem With Stopping Investment in Countries With Human Rights
Abuses

Rangoon Post - FBC

15 April, 1999

    Activists from around the country and around the world are always
trying stop the U.S.A. or their respective countries  from supporting
countries with Human Rights abuses.    When we demand that sanctions be
made, we eventually get some watered down nearly useless enactment by
congress and / or the President.  Why?

    Many companies have grown into huge multinational conglomerates with
contracts and ties almost everywhere.  They literally have their hands
in the financial cookie jar at every turn.  Also, these companies have a
few to a large team of lobbyists to manipulate the congress's and the
President's decisions and laws.   There is also the NFTC - The National
Foreign Trade Council and their lobby group USA Engage in Washington,
D.C. that has a membership greater than 550 multimational companies.

    When Free Burma activists pushed for federal sanctions against the
Burmese dictatorship, they ended up with a very wishy-washy law stating
in part that since the Burmese regime has been declared a threat to
national security, No New Investment by U.S. companies will be
permitted.   Unocal Oil already had contracts in place for the gas
pipeline and future oil and gas exploration in Burmese waters.  Also
Unocal shares the contract with a Chinese Oil company, Total Oil of
France and MOGE of Burma.   The attempted multi-lateral sanctions on
Nigeria fell short because of Shell Oil companies.

    We must ask the governements and the companies, "Is the economy and
company profits more important than human rights?" , "When did companies
gain an "Individual's" right to free speach"  and "Isn't the U.S.A. 'Of,
For, and By the People of the United States' and not of and for and by
the companies of the United States??"