Caught in The Net U.S. sanctions debate moves to cyberspace By Nigel Holloway in Washington November 28, 1996 Want to find out about Burma without leaving your chair? Easy: Get on the information superhighway and key in "Burma." First stop is a Web site (http://freeburma.org) provided by the Free Burma Coalition: "A collection of software, hardware, documentation and volunteers, all doing what we're best at to hasten the replacement of the current military government." Welcome to the world of Internet activism. In 1989, it was television that brought Beijing's Tiananmen Square protests to the world's living rooms. Now, the Internet is the messenger. And while the Burma-sanctions lobby is probably the first of its kind to take full advantage of the Net, it surely won't be the last. "Cyberspace spawned the movement to restore human rights to Burma," says Mike Jendrzejczyk, Washington director of Human Rights Watch/Asia. "The proliferation of information has put Burma higher on the U.S. policy agenda than it ever would have been otherwise." It might do the same for other such causes. There are already Web sites protesting Chinese actions in Tibet and Indonesian domination of East Timor. They were encouraged by the success of the Burma lobby in Washington. In September, lawmakers passed a bill that would allow the president to ban new U.S. investment in Burma if he determines that the military junta, known as the State Law and Order Restoration Council, or Slorc, "has committed large-scale acts of repression." To be sure, the law isn't as strong as it might have been. It was watered down in July after a last-minute effort by lobbyists representing U.S.businesses in Burma. But the fact that American firms were forced to launch a rear-guard action illustrates the power of the Internet and of the small number of activists dotted around the country who sent a flood of e-mail to their representatives on Capitol Hill. "This is a new form of communication, so if you start bombarding the Net, Congress will pay attention," says Ronald Palmer, a Southeast Asian specialist at George Washington University in the nation's capital. The anti-Slorc campaign shows that, thanks to the Internet,activists don't need lots of money or people to make an impact. Students at more than 100 niversities have organized Free Burma groups or something similar,usually with the help of a handful of volunteers in each place. More than 60 universities held a Free Burma Fast in October to protest against Slorc. And students from as far afield as New Delhi, Sydney, London and Tokyo are communicating with each other on the subject of Burma, via the Internet. At the centre of this network is Zarni, a 32-year-old Burmese exile studying for his doctorate at the University of Wisconsin. He spends 15 hours a day at his computer, weaving together his Free Burma Coalition Web site, complete with colourful logo and photographs of conditions inside Burma. The Internet has facilitated a change in anti-Slorc strategy. In the early 1990s, student activists in America focused their efforts on persuading U.S.companies to withdraw from Burma, with partial success. Firms such as Eddie Bauer and Levi Strauss pulled out, and PepsiCo sold its bottling plant in Burma (although it continues to supply syrup to the plant). In 1994, attention turned to Capitol Hill. At that time only a handful of domestic organizations were active on the Burma trail. But they began to lobby their senators and representatives to support legislation co-sponsored by Senators Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York that would have applied sanctions on Burma for human-rights abuses. Two things favour the activists. First, few U.S. companies do business in Burma, and those that do are mainly oil and gas concerns such as Unocal. These firms wield clout, but not as much as the hundreds of concerns working in China and lobbying against efforts to tie Beijing's trading status to human-rights issues. What's more, the students aren't alone. Also squaring off against U.S. companies over Burma are the American trade-union movement, church groups and one or two wealthy individuals such as billionaire investor George Soros, whose Open Society Institute in New York sponsors a pro-democracy programme on Burma. The second factor working in the activists' favour is that "most people don't know Burma from schmurma," says Larry Dohrs, Seattle coordinator of the Campaign for a Free Burma. "People don't have preconceived ideas, and the arguments are relatively stark." This can be an advantage in Congress, where a small number of committed lawmakers can wield disproportionate influence among the remainder open to persuasion. "Foreign policy is always a back-burner issue," says a human-rights lobbyist on Capitol Hill who asked not to be named. "What people don't realize is that 500 letters to a congressman aren't necessary. If members of Congress get 10-15 letters on a specific issue, it's significant." As the debate on the McConnell-Moynihan sanctions bill neared, the Burmese government was arresting opposition politicians and issuing thinly veiled threats against the leader of the democratic movement, Aung San Suu Kyi. The chances of getting a tough sanctions measure through Congress had never seemed better. Yet when it came to a Senate vote in July, the measure lost by 54 votes to 45. Instead, senators adopted a weaker measure that leaves it to the president to decide whether to impose sanctions on Slorc. The stronger measure would have imposed sanctions as soon as the bill was passed. In the end, it was the Clinton administration's support for the watered-down version that won the day. That, plus lobbying of the old-fashioned kind by influential people representing the oil firms investing in Burma. Of these, none is more powerful than Tom Korologos, president of the Washington lobbying firm Timmons & Co. and an old friend of Bob Dole, the Republican presidential candidate. An assistant for Korologos confirmed that Unocal is a client. In the days before the vote, Korologos was paying personal calls on key senators asking for their support, according to a human-rights activist. But a staffer for one such senator declined to confirm this. "I can't touch it," he says. Now the two sides of the sanctions debate (Burma's government has its own Web site: http://www.myanmar.com) are lobbying the Clinton administration on whether to implement the sanctions law. And the anti-Slorc group has been busy sending e-mail messages to the White House urging the president to raise the issue of Burma on his Asia trip that was to begin on November 19. "The administration will not make a final decision [on sanctions] until after President Clinton comes back" from the region, says a U.S. official. Whatever the outcome, international activism will never be the same. //end text// -------------- When spiders unite they can tie down a lion. (Ethiopian Proverb) The Free Burma Coalition University of Wisconsin 225 North Mills Street, Madison, WI 53706 Tel: (608)-827-7734 Fax: (608)-263-9992 http://wicip.org/fbc/ -------------- When spiders unite they can tie down a lion. (Ethiopian Proverb) The Free Burma Coalition University of Wisconsin 225 North Mills Street, Madison, WI 53706 Tel: (608)-827-7734 Fax: (608)-263-9992 http://wicip.org/fbc/