Asia Times: Southeast Asia


	May 11, 2002	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

Pressure remains on Myanmar despite Suu Kyi's release
By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - Foreign activists leading the economic pressure campaign against the military regime in Myanmar will continue their efforts despite this week's release from house arrest of 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

While the activists and Western governments welcomed the opposition leader's release and the government's statement on Thursday that it will soon resume talks with her and other dissidents, they insist it is too soon to ease up on the ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). The junta has ruled the country, which it renamed Myanmar from Burma, with an iron fist for 14 years.

"We see no reason to stop putting pressure on the Burmese military regime," said Jeremy Woodrum, director of the Washington, DC, office of the Free Burma Coalition (FBC), which has led the fight here for a range of sanctions that have been imposed against Myanmar and companies that do business there.

"Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest, and we are optimistic that there will be changes in Burma, but until those changes come, our campaign will remain in place," said Woodrum. He added that two large US apparel retailers, whose identities he declined to disclose, are expected to announce the decision to cut ties with Myanmese manufacturers within the next few weeks.

The administration of US President George W Bush, which hailed the pro-democracy leader's release as a "very important first step towards real political dialogue", also said it has no plans to lift US trade and diplomatic sanctions - including a five-year-old freeze on new US investment in Myanmar. "Much more remains to be done to achieve political reform and national reconciliation," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher this week. "We're looking to see concrete steps that do that."

Nonetheless, Washington reportedly decided to permit a senior Myanmese official, Colonel Kyaw Thein, to visit the United States to attend an international anti-drug conference next week. The State Department said the trip, which requires authorities to waive a ban on visas for top junta leaders and their families, was not related to Suu Kyi's release.

The senior Democrat on the International Relations Committee of the House of Representatives, Tom Lantos, denounced the visit as a "profound mistake". Lantos and the Republican committee chairman, Henry Hyde, released a joint statement on Wednesday calling for sanctions to be maintained until further progress is made. "It is our hope that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's release represents the dawn of a new era in Burmese history," it said. "However, first the junta must demonstrate through concrete actions a serious and consistent commitment to national reconciliation. Until then, the international community must remain vigilant, maintain pressure on the regime, and not waver in its determination to restore democracy to Burma."

The message was similar on the Senate side of the Capitol. Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, said it was too early to celebrate. "This is an example of where international sanctions are working," he said. "'This regime needs to step aside and honor the elections that were held over a decade ago, which they have refused to go along with," he said. Aides to Democratic Senator Tom Harkin said their boss will attach an amendment to the "fast-track" trade bill to be considered by the Senate this month that would ban all textile imports from Myanmar.

Such unanimity of views reflects both the high esteem in which Suu Kyi is held here - immediately after her release she too called for the international community to maintain pressure on the junta - and the degree to which the military regime has made itself a pariah. In addition to imprisoning as many as 2,000 opposition activists, the regime has been accused of massive corruption, looting Myanmar's tropical forests, drug trafficking, and using forced labor, especially for large infrastructure projects. Two years ago, the International Labor Organization (ILO) took the unprecedented step of urging its members to "review their relations with Burma [to ensure that they] do not perpetuate the system of forced or compulsory labor in that country".

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) swept national elections in 1990 with more than 70 percent of the vote, despite her confinement under house arrest. After the vote, hundreds of NLD, labor-union, and other opposition leaders were thrown in prison. She was granted limited freedom in 1995 but was again put under house arrest in September 2000. Her release on Monday followed seven months of quiet United Nations-mediated negotiations between her and the regime.

Analysts here agree that the decisive factor in forcing the junta to negotiate with Suu Kyi was the dismal state of the economy, due in roughly equal parts to the 1997-98 economic crash and to the overseas pro-democracy campaign. That movement brought together an extraordinarily large number of unions and human-rights, environmental, and church groups. Under their pressure, more than two dozen states and municipalities - including some of the largest in the United States - enacted "selective purchasing" laws that made it much more difficult for companies doing business in Myanmar to win procurement or service contracts. They also threatened consumer boycotts against companies that contracted with Myanmese plants to produce apparel or other products for export to the United States. Both tactics have been remarkably effective in getting major US companies, including PepsiCo, Walmart, Kodak, and oil giants Arco and Texaco, to sever ties with Myanmar.

In just the past several months, several companies announced that they were cutting all business ties with Myanmar, including: Ames Department Stores, the United States' largest regional discount retailer; America's second-largest sporting goods retailer, Gart Sports Co; German-owned mail-order giant the Spiegel Group; and the world's largest hotel chain, Marriott, which manages two hotels in Myanmar.

(Inter Press Service)