We Beat Pepsi -- What Now?

The Battle for Burma Shifts Gears

By Dan Orzech

Boycott Quarterly, Summer 1997

On January 28th, PepsiCo, the 30-billion-dollar-a-year corporation, surrendered to the Free Burma movement. In response to a growing boycott, Pepsi announced that it was withdrawing from Burma. For Pepsi, it was not a moment too soon. The boycott was spreading from college campuses in the U.S. to high schools and even grade schools. It was spreading to colleges in England-Third World First, a British group, had begun handing out some 90,000 Boycott Pepsi brochures on British campuses. And Pepsi had begun to lose millions of dollars in contracts with Stanford, Harvard, U.C. Berkeley, and other colleges where the students refused to allow Pepsi on campus until the company pulled out of Burma.

There are other companies which are the targets of boycotts by the Free Burma movement, most notably the oil companies Unocal, Texaco and Total, who are propping up the regime in Burma with petrodollars, and travel-related companies like Northwest Airlines, which offers a stay in a Rangoon hotel as a reward for frequent flyers. But with the victory over the highest-profile American company in Burma, much of the focus of the Burma campaign is now shifting to other tactics.

For the Free Burma movement, the tactic of choice is selective purchasing. A selective purchasing ordinance says simply that if a corporation does business in Burma, it cannot bid on contracts with an American city or state.

When these laws begin to pass in number, they can have enormous financial impact. "Selective purchasing laws," says Simon Billenness of the socially responsible investment firm Franklin Research and Development, "are just boycotts on steroids."

The first Burma selective purchasing law was passed in Berkeley, California, in February, 1995. Several other cities, including San Francisco, followed suit over the course of the next year, and in June, 1996, Massachusetts became the first state to pass a Burma selective purchasing law.

The impact of these laws was felt almost immediately. Motorola, Inc., which found itself barred from a $40 million dollar communications contract with the city of San Francisco, pulled out of Burma within months. Hewlett-Packard, Apple Computer, Phillips Electronics and Eastman Kodak, all fearing the loss of multimillion dollar contracts with the Massachusetts state government, withdrew from Burma shortly after the Massachusetts bill was signed.

One plus with selective purchasing: it does not discriminate be tween American and foreign companies. Any company doing business in Burma, no matter where it is headquartered, can be affected. The big losers in San Francisco were: the Swedish company Ericsson, which remained in Burma and therefore lost out to Motorola; and Japan's Mitsubishi, which lost a $137 million contract at San Francisco Airport, in part due to its involvement in Burma.

NO TRICKLE DOWN

Selective purchasing laws show particular promise in the campaign to bring democracy to Burma be cause the generals who run Burma are heavily dependent on foreign investment. The Burmese currency is essentially worthless on foreign exchange markets, and the regime spends far more than it earns- much of it on arms to keep its own people in line. Foreign investment is also key to the laundering of drug profits.

Very little of the money brought in by foreign investment actually reaches the people. While economic sanctions have been criticized be cause they can hurt the "little guy", this is clearly not the case in Burma. Foreign companies wanting to invest in Burma can not freely choose their business partners. All foreign investment goes through the military, or the generals' friends or families. According to Levi Strauss & Co., which pulled out of Burma in 1992, "It is not possible to do business in Burma without directly supporting the military government and its pervasive violations of human rights." Adds Burma's democratically elected leader Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi: Until we have a system that guarantees rule of law and basic democratic intitutions, no amount of aid or investment will benefit our people. Profits from business enterprises will merely go toward enriching a small, already very privileged elite."

STRANGE BED FELLOWS

One reason for the successoftheFreeBurmamovement so farhasbeen an unusual coalition of the American political left and right.

The generals in Burma have made no secret of their contempt for the democratic process. Unlike many other countries where human rights abuses are rampant, Burma has a democratically elected government. Although the government led by Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi won 82% of the seats in parliament, the generals never allowed it to take office.

To people who believe in the right to choose one's leaders at the ballot box, this is deeply offensive.

In the United States, not only the city councils of generally liberal towns like Berkeley, California, Ann Arbor, Michigan and Madison, Wisconsin -all of which have passed Burma purchasing laws-share this belief, but so do such conservative Republican U.S. Senators as Jesse Helms of North Carolina, Alphonse D'Amato of New York, and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky-all of whom have been major supporters of the Free Burma movement. Even generally conservative business papers such as the Wall Street Journal have come out strongly in favor of the Free Burma movement. Said Business Week: "Burma should not be open for business until it grants its citizens the most basic human freedoms."

Support from all sides has also resulted from the Burmese generals' interest in exporting a certain white powder to the United States. According to the U.S. State Depart ment, 60% of the heroin found in America comes from Burma. The U.S. has requested the extradition of Burma's biggest drug lord, Khun Sa, who was indicted in a U.S. Federal Court in New York on charges of trying to bring more than a ton of heroin into the U.S. Khun Sa lives today in a Rangoon villa, openly collaborating with the generals on business deals. Every year since the generals took power, the U.S. government has "decertified" Burma, placing it on the list of countries not cooperating with narcotics control efforts.

THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG

While Burma selective purchasing laws have already shown their power, the laws passed so far are just the tip of the iceberg. Burma bills have been introduced in the state legislatures of California, Connecticut and Vermont, and activists in dozens of cities and counies across the U.S. are working on laws. There are active campaigns in Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington, to name just a few. The idea has caught on abroad, too-look for Burma purchasing laws to appear soon in Belgium, Holland, Australia and even South Africa.

If you would like to help bring democracy to Burma, chances are good there is already an active campaign in your area. For more information on the Free Burma campaign, visit the Free Burma Coalition Web page: http://www. freeburma.org. For information on selective purchasing laws in your area, contact Dan Orzech at orzech@well.com, or (510) 528 0653, or Simon Billenness at (800) 548-5684.

Dan Orzech is a member of the Bay Area Burma Roundtable.

Boycotts page