Choppers grounded by sanctions

The economic sanctions against Burma are hurting US business such as the maker of the Bell helicopters which are used by the junta to fight druglords, reports Richard Ehrlich.

Bangkok, Thailand

Burmese generals have Texas made Bell helicopters for use against opponents and druglords, but Bell and others in the helicopter industry are losing US$5 million a year because of US sanctions against the unelected military regime.

A US helicopter manufacturing representative, who asked not to be identified, said Bell officials are "not too comfortable about associating Bell with Burma".

"It's got very political in the US," he added.

It is unfair, the representative said because "people have indicated that the helicopter and fixed-wing planes [Bell] had up there, were doing a job".

The US-led sanctions against Burma have been in response to alleged widespread extrajudicial killings, torture, imprisonment and other abuses of human rights.

The US and others have also called for Burma's Nobel Peace Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, to be allowed to head an elected government.

London-based Amnesty International, the US State Department, and other groups insist the Burmese military has, in the past decade, killed thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators, ethnic minorities and others, while continuing to torture opponents.

Burma consistently denies all such charges.

The helicopter representative, however, praised Bell's role in helping to torch Burma's vast fields of illicit opium, which produce most of the world's heroin.

In the past, thanks to Bell, Washington was "able to monitor it, the US government was in there, monitoring it".

But the sanctions knocked out the US anti-opium efforts in Burma, he said. "It's a shame."

Today, Bell has "around 25 helicopters in Burma, sitting there basically".

But Bell officials back in Texas "are not complaining".

They predict the Burmese will eventually spruce up all the Bell choppers and use them.

"One of these days, they are going to do something. But it will cost them more, the longer you let this stuff sit"

The helicopter representative was speaking at the Defense Asia '97 exhibition in Bangkok, where Bradley tanks, Greek missile systems, F-16 warplanes, bombs from India, and other international weaponry were on display for regional customers.

In addition to Bell Helicopter, which is a subsidiary of Fort Worth-based Textron Inc. US participants included the Association of the United States Army, Booz-Allen and Hamilton, Caterpillar, ITT, Litton Laser Systems, Northrop Grumman, Smith and Wesson, Boeing, Pratt and Whitney and others.

Bell and Burma, however, remained distant.

When Burma's self-styled State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) seized power by trashing an election which gave Suu Kyi's party a landslide victory, Bell's business with the junta came to a halt.

Bell had been "delivering stuff there in the 1970s to mid-1980s. They're older Hueys. Type 205-Als. Civilian Hueys," the representative said.

"After the 1988 military takeover, basically it's not been clear. There has been an indication: 'You wouldn't be well-received to be selling there'."

That indication was not expressed by Burma's miffed military - but "by the US".

Up to then, American taxpayers funded the Bells-to-Burma deals.

"The US government was paying for the spare parts and the procurement of [Bell] aircraft, purchasing the aircraft. They terminated the programme."

The Bells were billed as part of Washington's International Narcotics Matters, usually known by its acronym INM, "to suppress the drug business", he said.

Washington "withdrew that support."

Today, the helicopters remain in Burma.

"I don't think they're flying now. They're all in hangars. It's tit for tat. They say, 'You guys stopped the programme', so they pretty much stayed away from us, and will continue the way it is, until there has to be a political solution acceptable to the Western countries before it will be business as usual."