JUNE 1998 · VOLUME 19· NUMBER 6
THEIR MASTERS' VOICE
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The Burma Lobby
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It's not an easy job, as one might infer from recent news stories concerning Burma. The State Department calls the government there -- known as the State Law and Order Council, or SLORC, until a recent name change -- "a highly authoritarian military regime" whose security forces are guilty of crimes ranging from extrajudicial killings to torture to rape. The SLORC keeps Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi under a state of virtual house arrest and severely restricts her National League for Democracy (NLD). This is necessary since the opposition swept national elections in 1990 with more than 80 percent of the vote, thereby forcing the SLORC to annul the balloting. None of this has stopped Jefferson Waterman lobbyists -- including firm president, Ann Wrobleski, who served as assistance secretary of state under Ronald Reagan -- from shilling for the generals. Among the firm's tasks for the junta is putting out the Myanmar Monitor, a newsletter whose stated purpose "is to provide a broad and balanced view" of Burma. In reality, the publication whitewashes the SLORC's crimes, portrays the opposition as terrorists and attacks the U.S. government for sanctioning the generals. Consider political and social developments in Burma from May 1997, when the Myanmar Monitor -- a different "MM" -- was inaugurated, until early this year and how they contrast with the newsletter's coverage.
Events in Burma: In early June, opposition leader U Tin Shwe dies in Rangoon's notorious Insein prison, where prisoners are routinely subjected to prolonged solitary confinement and otherwise kept in what are called "doggie cells." The International Labor Organization cites Burma for failing to honor internationally recognized worker rights. No surprise here since the SLORC bans free trade unions, tolerates child labor and utilizes forced labor to build and maintain infrastructure projects -- what the junta calls people's "contributions."
The following month, the MM claims that a cousin of Aung San Suu Kyi had planned to assassinate government leaders and blow up foreign embassies, all with the help of U.S. groups such as the American Refugee Committee and the Center for International Private Enterprise. The SLORC's Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt is quoted as saying that the U.S. government is providing "assistance to underground, armed groups and terrorists groups." MM spends much of the period promoting tourism to Burma, which provides
the SLORC badly needed foreign reserves. One story asserts that tourists
will encounter a country where "Loving, kindness, sympathy, tolerance,
benevolence, mutual regard, respect and humanitarianism evolve out of
Buddha's teachings." August-October 1997 Events in Burma: On the world stage, Burma remains an international pariah. British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook announces that the country will be banned from the 1998 Asia-Europe meeting in London because top Burmese officials are "prepared to profit out of the drug trade." Images Asia, a human rights group, issues a detailed report charging that Burmese children as young as 14 are forced to join the army after attending a military-style school called "Brave Young Leaves." Burma's ambassador to Thailand confirms the school's existence but says that the government established it so that orphans and the rural poor might grow up with "good ambitions."
The MM continues to zealously promote tourism to Burma. One issue touts "eco-tourism" in Burma: "Myanmar tourism development will be undertaken with environmental conscientiousness to avoid negative impacts on the natural wilderness." November 1997-February 1998 Events in Burma: Meanwhile, the human rights situation in the country continues to deteriorate. A report from Danish Doctors for Human Rights says that two-thirds of the 125,000 Burmese refugees living in refugee camps in Thailand had been tortured or mistreated by SLORC forces. Coverage in the Myanmar Monitor: In early January, the MM quotes an unnamed foreign diplomat as saying, "Political dialogue is possible if the opposition party gets weaker." Though the MM has repeatedly asserted that U.S. sanctions on Burma have
no real impact, it suggests that they be lifted nonetheless. "I would
like to tell my American friends that sanctions will hurt you more than
us," the newsletter quotes a government official as saying. |