(Fall 1996 issue of COVERT ACTION QUARTERLY
magazine)
State repression and foreign
investment
...In February [1996 ], the UN Commission on Human Rights reported,
as it does every year, that the following violations were commonplace
in Burma: "Torture, summary and arbitrary executions, forced
labor, abuse of women, politically motivated arrests and detention,
forced displacement, important restrictions on the freedoms of
expression and association and oppression of ethnic and religious
minorities. ..." Take at random any of the reports by Amnesty
International and what distinguishes the Burmese junta from other
modern tyrannies is slave labor. "Conditions in the labor
camps," reports one study, "are so harsh that hundreds
of prisoners have died as a result. ... Military Intelligence
personnel regularly interrogate prisoners to the point of unconsciousness.
Even the possession of almost any reading material is punishable.
Elderly, sick, and even handicapped people are placed in leg-irons
and forced to work.
In Britain, tourism to Burma, a former British colony and repository
of much imperial nostalgia, has become a lucrative business. Pick
up a travel brochure these days from any of the famous names in
British tourism British Airways, Orient Express, Kuoni and there
is no problem. Indeed, to British Airways, Burma offers "the
ultimate in luxury" and a "fabulous prize" for
its Executive Club members. "To find an unspoilt country
today may seem impossible,"extols the Orient Express brochure,
"but Burma is such a place. It has retained its charm, its
fascinating traditions ... its easy-going ways are a tonic to
the Western traveler." Moreover, this "truly unique
experience" includes a "free lecture on Burma's history
and culture." I inquired about this lecture. It makes no
mention of the momentous events of 1988.
Slavery and oil / natural gas
..."We overheard we were building a railway so that a French
oil company could run a pipeline through, and foreigners came
to look over the site." The oil company is a partnership
between a US company, Unocal, and Total, which is part-owned by
the French government. They are building a $1 billion pipeline
that will carry Burma's natural gas into Thailand. The deal will
give the Rangoon generals about $400 million a year over 30 years.
Since they put an end to democracy in 1990, it is estimated that
SLORC has received 65 percent of its financial backing from foreign
oil companies, including Britain's Premier Oil and America's Texaco
and ARCO.
In its 1993 report on human rights abuses throughout the world,
the US State Department says SLORC "routinely" uses
slave labor and "will use the new railway to transport soldiers
and construction supplies into the pipeline area." Unocal
says reports of slave labor are a "fabrication" and
both the oil companies deny the railway is linked to the pipeline
project. But more than 5,000 troops have already been shipped
to the pipeline area and army patrols protect Total personnel.
Two - track policy -- talk
about human rights while continuing to invest
...Western entrepreneurs in Burma claim that foreign investment
has multiplied tenfold since 1992. "It's not so much a gradual
pick up," said Pat James, a Texas businessman "as a
skyrocket." This claim is disputed by, among others, a recent
report in The Economist. The World Bank and IMF have yet to lend
the generals a penny. However, what has begun in Burma is a familiar
process in which a dictatorship's crimes against its people are
obscured and "forgotten" as foreign businesspeople seek
to justify what the East Asian governments and the US call "positive
engagement" and the Europeans and Australians call "critical
dialogue." The prize is a cheap labor colony that promises
to undercut even China and Vietnam.
Most Western governments, together with Japan, are running a "two
track policy" on Burma: offering public support for Aung
San Suu Kyi while pursuing, often in secret, long-term business
links with SLORC. Tax havens, such as the British Virgin Islands,
are used to move money to Burma; this is the route used by Unocal,
the US oil company.
In spite of criticism by the Clinton administration and Secretary
of State Warren Christopher's recent description of a "new
tide of repression in Burma," US policy is business as usual:
"not to encourage or discourage trade." After visiting
Rangoon in June and "conferring" with SLORC, President
Clinton's special envoy, William Brown, praised the role of ASEAN,
the Association of South East Asian Nations, which has since offered
SLORC full membership. Calling ASEAN "that noble organization,"
Brown reaffirmed US policy as "constructive engagement"
with Burma. (This was the term used by the Reagan administration
for US support of the apartheid regime in South Africa).
Brown also said that "the issue of forced labor has diminished"
in the week that the International Labor Organization reported
that SLORC was forcing its people into forced labor "on a
massive scale and under the cruellest of conditions." In
a letter to the Far Eastern Economic Review, a State Department
official, John Shattuck, sought to play down Brown's remarks.
"While there are undoubtedly fluctuations in the use of forced
and compulsory labor within Burma," he wrote, "the fact
remains that such serious violations of internationally recognized
worker rights are widespread and remain a matter of grave concern
to the United States."
The "two-track" policy is exemplified by the role of
Britain. While Nelson Mandela was in London last July, feted by
a British establishment that once did everything in its power
to undercut him, his fellow Nobel Peace Laureate, Aung San Suu
Kyi "Asia's Mandela" was being quietly abandoned, with
the British now undercutting her. On June 12, a day Suu Kyi appealed
to the world not to do business with SLORC, a senior official
of Britain's Department of Trade and Industry arrived in Rangoon
to "evaluate the commercial prospects" of British support
for the regime.
Mike Cohen, head of export sales to Asia, met an official of the
SLORC's investment agency in the week the junta decreed a 20-year
prison sentence for anyone attending meetings outside Suu Kyi's
home. On the day Cohen flew into Rangoon, Jeremy Hanley, the British
Foreign Office minister, told Parliament that the British Government
supported "democratic reform and human rights" in Burma.
"We have made it clear to SLORC," he said, "that
the resumption of normal relations is conditional on progress
in those key areas. He added that the Department of Trade had
"pulled the plug" on future British trade missions to
Rangoon.
What the minister neglected to say was that, even as he rose to
address Parliament, Cohen was flying into Rangoon to "evaluate"
the next trade mission. In fact, the British government has funded
two recent trade missions to Burma and an international seminar
in London called, "An introduction to Burma the latest Tiger
Cub," at which speakers described "the real visionaries"
in SLORC.
For all the European Union's pretensions on human rights, European
companies, backed by their governments, are among SLORC's biggest
underwriters. The Total oil company, building the oil and gas
pipeline for the regime, is part-owned by the French Government.
Germany is SLORC's longtime supplier of weapons-grade machinetools.
On July 15, a meeting of European foreign ministers in Brussels
formally blocked a call by the European Parliament for sanctions
against Burma. At the same time, the EU Council of Ministers "welcomed"
Burma's membership of ASEAN's Regional Forum.
So it is with Japan, another of SLORC's major underwriters. Although
Japanese foreign minister Ikeda Yukihiko is said to have privately
criticized SLORC, Tokyo continues to hand the junta $48.7 million
in "aid." The great zaibatsu, Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Honda,
and Nippon Steel are in Rangoon. NHK, the Japanese national broadcaster,
has issued a remarkable directive that the video footage it owns
showing the Burmese army shooting down demonstrators "is
prohibited for use by anybody in the world, even by NHK in Japan,
because it's too delicate and might threaten Myanmar's (Burma's)
stability. ... Please erase the material in your library."
And so it is with Australia. On July 22, Foreign Affairs Minister
Alexander Downer was reported in the Australian press to have
taken "a tough line" on human rights abuses in Burma.
He immediately contradicted this by declaring that Australia "would
not stand in the way of Burmese membership of the ASEAN Regional
Forum." In the last year, the number of Australian business
delegations visiting Rangoon has doubled. The largest fence in
Burma, advertising the Australian beer, Foster's, shields an army
watchtower from the gaze of tourists.
By far Burma's biggest backer is China,which has armed SLORC on
a barter system that has seen many of Burma's natural riches,
such as its gemstones and teak, go to China. Chinese business
interests are now so well ensconced that Mandalay is often referred
to as "a Chinese city." Leading the "tiger"
investors is Singapore, whose state arms company came to SLORC's
rescue in 1988 at the height of the pro-democracy demonstrations
when troops were running out of ammunition.
The collaboration of Thailand has been critical to SLORC's survival.
The Thai Petroleum Authority will be the sole importer and consumer
of the gas that comes through the French/US-built pipeline. The
deal is little different from the logging, mining, and fishing
concessions which Thai interests have negotiated with Rangoon
since "development" in their own country has all but
destroyed its principal natural resources.
Part of the unstated deal is that the Thai military sends back
Burmese refugees who manage to cross the border. In April 1993,
Thai troops burned down two refugee camps in an operation, reported
the Bangkok Nation, "probably related to the gas pipeline."
Thousands of ethnic Mon refugees have since been forced back into
Burma, many straight into the hands of the SLORC military. On
the border, where the pipeline will enter Thailand, SLORC troops
display pens distributed by the French oil company, Total, in
their uniform pockets. "Total is coming," said one of
them with a broad smile.
Burma's most profitable export is illegal. More than half the
heroin reaching the streets of US and Australian cities originates
in the "golden triangle" where the borders of Burma,
Laos, and Thailand meet. Under SLORC, heroin production has doubled.
In a study, Out of Control, two researchers, Dr. Chris Beyrer
and Faith Doherty, conclude from a long investigation for the
South-East Asian Information Network that SLORC has allowed heroin
to circulate freely and cheaply in Burma in the hope that it "pacifies"
the rebellious young. According to his son, the infamous drug
lord Kuhn
Sa is living comfortably on Inya Lake in the center of Rangoon
with the support of military intelligence.
While drugs bring in quick cash, it is tourism on which SLORC
pins its hopes for foreign exchange and, above all, international
respectability. "At last the doors to Myanmar, the magic
golden land, are open," waxes Dr. Naw Angelene, the director
of tourism, in an official handout. "Roads will be wider,
lights will be brighter, tours will be cleaner, grass will be
greener, and with more job opportunities, people will be happier."
One of the biggest foreign tour operators in Burma is the Orient
Express Group, which operates "The Road To Mandalay,"
a "champagne-style cruise" between Mandalay and Pagan
in a converted Rhine cruiser. The cabins, says the brochure, "are
not simply luxurious"; there is a Kipling Bar and a swimming
pool.
When I found it at anchor in the heat and mosquitoes, The Road
To Mandalay looked squat and sturdy rather than luxurious. Once
on board, however, it seemed the perfect vehicle for pampering
tourists in one of the world's 10 poorest countries. Like an air-conditioned
bubble, it is constantly cleansed of the smells and noise and
dust of the land through which it glides. In the "staterooms"
the television rises at the foot of the bed and, presto, there
is Rupert Murdoch's satellite TV. In February, the captain of
The Road To Mandalay welcomed his inaugural guests. "They
might have been, the cast from an Edwardian novel" wrote
London Times travel writer Peter Hughes,"a prince
and two princesses from the Endsleigh League of European Royalty,
our own Princess Michael of Kent among them; a duke; a marche
and marchese; a film star, Helena Bonham-Carter; and assorted
lords and ladies whose names tended to be the same as their addresses.
Those without titles merely had money." The actual road to
Mandalay has recently been converted into an expressway for tourists.
For the local people forced to work on it, it is known as "the
road of no return." According to Amnesty International, two
workers who tried to escape were executed on the spot by soldiers.
Another eight were beaten until they were severely injured; one
was hacked to death with a hoe.
When I interviewed James Sherwood, the American chair of Sea Containers,
which runs the Road to Mandalay tours, he described the Burmese
generals as "rather bright, well educated, dedicated men
who are trying to improve the country." He said he had contacted
the CIA about the "allegations" of human rights violations
and it was "confirmed to me these allegations were untrue."
Sanctions, not discussions
...Desmond Tutu said recently, "International pressure can
change the situation in Burma. Tough sanctions, not constructive
engagement, finally brought about a new South Africa. This is
the only language that tyrants understand." What is hopeful
is that there is the promise of sanctions in a remarkable disinvestment
campaign already well underway in America. Based on the boycott
of apartheid South Africa, selective purchasing laws have been
enacted by a growing number of US cities, including San Francisco
and Madison, Wisconsin. Massachusetts has passed its own selective
purchasing law, which has brought pressure on corporations based
in the state, such as Gillette although Gillette says it is no
longer in Burma. These make municipal contracts with companies
that trade with or invest in Burma illegal. New York state is
considering similar legislation; and one of the biggest investors
in Burma, Pepsi Cola, with its headquarters in upstate New York,
has partially withdrawn.
Rep. Byron Rushing, who wrote Massachusetts' selective purchasing
law, told me: "In the case of South Africa, we were able
to put pressure on a whole range of companies, like General Motors,
Coca-Cola, Pepsi Cola, and most eventually withdrew. And that
really added to the pressure on the white government. That was
a victory. As for Burma, it's not going to happen overnight, but
we have started. The civilized world should follow."
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