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timbaly
12th December 2003, 00:52
Source - Miami Herald website (http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/7453960.htm)

Wed, Dec. 10, 2003

Myanmar, corporate relations and human rights at a glance
Associated Press

A glance at Myanmar and its corporate relations and human rights record:

_ Sept. 1988: The military junta State Law and Order Restoration Council assumes power in Burma after crushing a pro-democracy uprising and the country is renamed Myanmar.

_ May 1990: Elections are held and Aung San Suu Kyi of the National League for Democracy records a landslide win, but the military regime refuses to hand over power. Suu Kyi, winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, is kept under varying periods of house arrest with her latest detention occurring in May 2003.

_ May 1997: President Clinton forbids new U.S. investment in Myanmar, which has been ruled by a military regime since 1962, due to the country's human rights record. Unocal Corp. and other companies are allowed to continue operations previously in place.

_ June 2000: Delegates of the International Labour Organization adopt resolution calling on Myanmar to "take concrete action" to end "widespread and systematic" forced labor in the country.

_ July 2003: President Bush signs the Burma Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003, which bans the import of products from Myanmar and requires the United States to vote against any loans proposed by the World Bank or International Monetary Fund to Myanmar's military regime. He also issues an executive order freezing the U.S. assets of senior Myanmar officials and prohibiting virtually all remittances to the country.

_ Sept. 2003: California Treasurer Phil Angelides and New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi call on Unocal to either pull its operations out of Myanmar or justify to shareholders why it should continue to operate there.


In the Practice section of this board there is a thread about corporations who are involved in shady business practices. The thread is a sticky in Practice if anyone cares to check it out. In the thread it accuses several businesses, most notably Pepsi of 'supporting the government. How can that be true if Pepsi is a US based corporation? Wouldn't it be illegal for Pepsi to do business there? According to the artivle Unocal is the only US comapny left doing business there. Is the act from the US gov't soley restricting imports from myanamr to the US or is it preventing US companies to export things from Myanmar no matter where they are destined to be imported to?

timbaly
13th December 2003, 16:40
blacklist (http://www.che-lives.com/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=7&t=6864)

It says Pepsi supports brutal regime in Burma, yet the link talks about other corporations, not Pepsi. Can someone give me a better source?

bayano
20th May 2006, 16:43
Can anyone offer up any analysis of Aung San Suu Kyi? Does anyone know anything in particular about her or her National League for Democracy?

All that is ever said is that they are pacifist and pro-democracy, that the United States and a bunch of rock stars love her and do things for the NLD, and that Myanmar is a military tyranny, the last of which is clearly true at least. But there is never any mention of what democracy means to her, what their politics are on the corporations that exploit the Myanmar situation. There are several posts on it in this board, each pretty old and each is just reposted articles without any analysis. Example 1 (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=29996&hl="Aung+San+Suu+Kyi"), Example 2 (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=30591&hl="Aung+San+Suu+Kyi")

meanwhile, i have never heard her position on international politics, or much at all on politics in her own country (pro-democracy doesn't really mean much, since commie, pan-africanist and socialist revolutionaries get called that as do CIA agents, as do others who are neither). there have been many insurgencies in the country and i have no clue the NLD's positions on them, or the marxist parties in the country. can anyone offer anything?

RedKnight
20th May 2006, 18:14
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_Burma http://www.cpburma.org/NatlIntrsteng.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_polit...ties_in_Myanmar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_Myanmar)

Janus
20th May 2006, 19:02
Can anyone offer up any analysis of Aung San Suu Kyi?
She's not really an international figure. She is currently on house arrest right now for her criticism of the Burmese government. She mainly focuses on the plight of her country rather than international politics.

Janus
20th May 2006, 19:13
Here's a recent article on Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD

UN official meets Burma's Suu Kyi (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/5000306.stm)