October 3, 2007
Is boycotting the 2008 Beijing Olympics enough to persuade the Burmese junta to stop the killing? Indeed, China is not pulling its weight to resolve the conflict in Burma. But neither is the U.S. In response to the shocking images of a violent crackdown on Burma’s monks and pro-democracy protesters, President Bush imposed only weak sanctions, freezing the assets and banning the visas of 14 Burmese officials. Even if China agrees to do the same, this is not enough. The Vice-President of the European Parliament and a growing chorus of activists in the United States who are calling for an Olympic boycott want sanctions with teeth. However, these sanctions also miss the mark. But all is not lost. The Burmese pro-democracy activists have devised a better sanctions strategy.
The world community faced precisely this situation in 1988, when the Burmese junta massacred over 3000 pro-democracy protestors. The U.S. condemned the atrocities. But, within two years, U.S. corporations took full advantage when the junta opened Burma’s natural resources to foreign investment-- especially natural gas beneath the Andaman Sea.
Pro-democracy activists from Burma lobbied successfully for “Burma laws” in the State of Massachusetts and over thirty municipal governments throughout the United States between 1995 and 1999. These laws were tough economic sanctions with the power to end foreign investment in Burma. (Similar laws were passed in the 1980s to hasten the end of apartheid in South Africa.) The laws restricted the government from doing business with any company that also did business with Burma. They forced corporations to make a choice: either seek contracts with the state or local government, or pursue contracts with the military-state in Burma. They worked.
So what happened? Under pressure from the National Foreign Trade Council (an association comprised of 680 transnational corporations who filed suit against Massachusetts) and WTO complaints from the EU and Japan, President Clinton created much weaker federal sanctions against Burma that allowed existing investment there to remain. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal sanctions preempted the state and local Burma laws. In short, the U.S. decided that corporate profits were more important than democracy and human rights in Burma. Tellingly, Unocal was later sued for using slaves provided by the Burmese military to construct its gas pipeline. Unocal eventually settled out-of-court for $32 million. Now Chevron has bought Unocal and represents the largest corporate investor in Burma. This week, Earthrights International has pleaded with Chevron to influence the junta, but the company has not acted.
The United States should impose sanctions with teeth, now, to seize this window of opportunity created by the courageous monks. They have provided us with a blueprint for doing so from the last time that they risked their lives for democracy and human rights. Boycotting Beijing’s Olympics is not enough. There are a variety of models for organizing robust, short-term sanctions to starve the junta of all foreign investment. The President and Congress can lift the federal Burma sanctions currently in place, thereby permitting the reactivation of local Burma laws that apply to foreign and U.S. corporations. If we want to stop the violence in Burma, we ourselves must be willing to stop profiteering from the Burmese junta’s repression.
John G. Dale
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
George Mason University
Fairfax, Virginia