Pepsi-Cola and Other Foreign Investors Face Boycotts and Scorn

by Richard S. Ehrlich

RANGOON, Burma -- Foreigners who do business, or travel, in military-ruled Burma, suffer the wrath of angry pro-democracy dissidents who slap them with boycotts, protests, and guilt-filled condemnation.

Americans and others who do try to profit from Burma's wretched conditions, meanwhile, are justifying their deals by all sorts of defensive rhetoric, including invoking the anguish of the Jewish Holocaust.

The terrible paradox for both sides is: if international investment does not come to this long-suffering Southeast Asian nation, which is yearning to be free from an atrocity-stained regime, then the Burmese who live here will continue to suffer dire poverty and isolation.

Levis Strauss and other multinationals, which refuse to deal with the unelected junta, appear to have more fans than Pepsi-Cola and the companies who are wheeling and dealing here.

"We are not opposed to the selling of natural resources, nor are we against foreign investment," explained Dr. Naing Aung, chairman of the influential, pro-democracy All Burma Students' Democratic Front.

"But my country is ruled by a dictatorship that has no right to conduct any international business contract that sells our natural resources, with no long-term sustainable benefit to the people, or future generations."

For example, the Democratic Front says it objects to multinational oil companies pouring millions of dollars into the hands of a greedy military regime, which enables Rangoon to buy weapons to slaughter innocent Burmese.

The Burmese government, however, insists it is just trying to develop and modernize the nation, to benefit all of its citizens.

The Democratic Front, meanwhile, warned in a 33-page report on foreign investment: "Any agreement undertaken with an illegal regime will not be honored by the Burmese people" when democracy comes to Burma.

They pointed to civilians who are used as mass, unpaid, forced labor to clear jungles, build roads, and improve tourist attractions so foreigners will be tempted to invest.

"Their daily lives have become subject to beatings, back-breaking forced labor, trench digging and building camps for the troops," the front said.

They also cited Burma's frequent military assaults against minority ethnic groups to secure rebel-held regions, so a petroleum pipeline and other projects can be installed.

"The monies paid by the oil companies were used principally to buy those arms from overseas," the front added.

London-based Amnesty International and the US State Department have confirmed allegations of widespread human rights abuses, which the regime repeatedly denies.

A senior Western diplomat however said in an interview, "I personally think their boycott calls are pointless. They are wasting their breath.

"The Burmese people want Pepsi-Cola. They factory is here and people can have jobs.

"And there is no way you are going to get the Chinese to agree to an arms embargo," the diplomat added.

The latest sore point is over wealthy oil companies which hope to benefit from a Burmese petroleum pipeline project and other exploration rights.

The oil companies include Texaco and Unocal from the United States, France's Total, British Premier, Japan's Nippon Oil, and Thailand's Petroleum Authority.

The pipeline would come from the Martaban gas field in the Andaman Sea, and hit land near Kanbaut, between the southern towns of Ye and Tavoy.

The pipeline would then continue east, cutting across Burma, and enter Thailand at Nat Ei Taung where it would veer southeast towards energy-hungry Bangkok.

But international pressure against foreign investment in Burma has resulted in several successes.

The North America-based, pro-democracy, Burma-Tibet Group said in an interview, "As Levi Strauss and Co. noted, 'It is not possible to do business in (Burma) without directly supporting the military government and its pervasive violations of human rights'."

A Bangkok newspaper, The Nation, recently reported, "Amoco, the fifth largest oil company in the world, after spending over 120 million US dollars in Burma, was obliged to pull out (of the pipeline project), for what it called 'economic reasons' earlier in the year."

The Nation said, "Amoco had been under consistent and growing internal shareholder pressure from an expanding coalition of activist and investor groups, and faced regular pickets outside its headquarters in Chicago, as well as a boycott of its products.

"The same pressures are now being applied to Unocal and another US oil company with investments in Burma called Texaco or Caltex," the Nation added.

Foreigners are also building hotels, business centers, factories, and other projects here in the capital Rangoon and other main towns.

Some of the biggest investors in Burma -- which the regime demands be known as Myanmar, despite the refusal of pro-democracy leaders to use that name -- are the US, Japan, Singapore, Thailand and the Netherlands.

Burma is luring them with deals in telecommunications, tourism, mining, wood-based industries, agro-industries, and natural gas resources.

The regime is also offering tax holidays, and other sweeteners.

Foreign businessmen however complain of an unfair, two-track currency exchange rate, corruption, dizzying red tape, primitive infrastructure, and problems repatriating cash profits, which often forces them to engage in barter-trade arrangements.

Some foreign investors go to extreme lengths to publicly justify doing business with the military junta.

Miriam Marshall Segal, chairperson of a Peregrine Investment Holdings group called Peregrine Capital Myanmar, recently defended her cash flow to Burma by telling the US House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific:

"I am a victim of the Holocaust and my father was killed in a struggle to establish the state of Israel.

"I was stateless for 18 years. More so than many others, I know the pain of organized repression and the value of freedom.

"About three years ago, my company formed a joint venture with a Myanmar government enterprise in the area of fisheries," she said.

Peregrine Investment Holdings is an investment bank based in Asia, with subsidiaries in several Asian nations.

Segal painted a glowing portrait of Burma's economy and the regime's altruism -- even when it killed Burmese protestors -- and added, "The military could not wait for a (bloody) Yugoslavia-type situation to develop, it stepped in to forestall yet another round of senseless violence.

"To do so, the leadership had to use force, and inevitably lives were lost."

She was referring to the military killing more than 1,000 pro-democracy demonstrators in Rangoon's streets in 1988.

In a convoluted twist, Segal added, "The savage butchery of thousands of dissidents in so many Latin American countries has been amply documented. But we have not ceased to do business with these countries, or attempted to impose sanctions on them."

US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Hubbard, however, told the same subcommittee, "Burma remains one of the world's worst violators of human rights."

Hubbard lamented that despite US efforts to force the regime to step down, "the international community is not prepared to support sanctions."

Hubbard said China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Australia, France and Britain were happily doing business in Burma.

He said China, Poland, Portugal, Singapore and South Korea were selling weapons to Burma's military.

Thant Myint-U, who recently served with the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia, said treating Burma as an "international pariah" has "failed to bring about any meaningful change in the political or human rights."

Writing in the respected Far Eastern Economic Review, he added, "The answer here is foreign investment and aid.

"Such involvement, conditioned on a demonstrated commitment to genuine economic restructuring, would be acceptable to many in the military, and would push Burma in a more positive direction."

The Western envoy agreed and warned, "We've had no foreign investment in this country for the past 30 years, and look what it got the Burmese people. Let's try and help the Burmese."

Copyright by Richard S. Ehrlich

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