Call for Union to tighten policy on Burma

Date: 17/09/1998

By Simon Taylor

PRESSURE for tougher measures against Burma's military junta will be stepped up over the next week in response to the arrest by the regime of more than 100 opposition activists.

The growing clamour for action comes amid criticism of Trade Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan's decision to challenge in the World Trade Organisation a Massachusetts state law penalising companies doing business with Burma.

At this week's plenary session, the European Parliament was due to call for sanctions on the Burmese regime; the third time Parliament has voted in favour of stronger action.

The British government is calling on other EU partners to model their approach on the UK's own package of measures designed to deter trade and investment links with Rangoon's State Peace and Development Council and encourage political talks between the ruling army council and opposition leaders.

The UK is planning to discuss possible measures at the next meeting of foreign ministry political directors due to be held in the margins of a United Nations Security Council meeting next Monday (21 September).

If the plan gets a positive response, it could be taken up at the next meeting of EU foreign ministers on 5-6 October in Luxembourg.

British Foreign Office Minister Derek Fatchett has written to his EU counterparts suggesting that they adopt a package of measures already in place in the UK to limit economic cooperation with Rangoon.

These include sending an EU ministerial 'troika' to Rangoon to visit opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other dissident figures, adding to the list of Burmese officials barred from obtaining visas to travel to the Union, encouraging travel operators not to offer tours in Burma and stopping any government-sponsored promotion of trade with the country.

While the UK's proposals stop short of calling for a ban on new investment in Burma, they stand a better chance of being approved by other member states because European companies, including French petrochemical giant Total and Dutch firm IHC Caland, have major investments there.

The US government imposed a ban on new investments in Burma in May last year, which has been a factor in convincing a range of US firms to drop links with Rangoon, including Levi Strauss, Amoco and Reebok.

Swedish mobile phone company Ericsson and Dutch clothes retailer C&A recently announced that they were no longer dealing with producers or suppliers in Burma.

The World Bank has also cut financial ties with the country after national authorities failed to meet repayments of 13 million ecu on earlier loans.

This week, a leading campaigner against Burma's military regime, Dutch Christian Democrat MEP Hanja Maij-Weggen, criticised the decision by Brittan to challenge Massachusetts' anti-Burma law in the WTO.

"Sir Leon should not attack Massachusetts, but should increase the pressure for EU action," she said. Referring to Brittan's attitude to the law, she added: "He has taken a technical view, but he could take a more political view."

The Clinton administration said last week that it would defend the state law against the WTO challenge by the EU and Japan.