US Divided on Burma Right

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/* Written  6:13 am  Feb 19, 1994 by Wov.Central@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx in igc:soc.cult.burma */
/* ---------- "US Divided on Burma Right" ---------- */
WP   02/18 Subject : US Divided on Burma Rights Policy
By Thomas W. Lippman
Washington Post Staff Writer

   Seven months after President Clinton ordered an interagency review of
U.S. policy toward the pariah government in Burma, his foreign policy
advisers are still looking for ways to increase pressure on the Rangoon
regime to improve its human rights performance.
   The challenge they face, according to administration officials, is to
muster more international efforts to isolate the Burmese junta over
human rights issues without undermining parallel efforts to persuade the
junta to crack down on heroin trafficking in what the junta calls
Myanmar.
   Clinton openly has supported Burma's most prominent political
dissident, Aung San Suu Kyi, but several members of Congress have been
agitating for more a more decisive confrontation with the Rangoon
government.
   The policy review has been prolonged, an administration official
said, because several agencies involved have differed over tactics. But
the official said those in Congress and in human rights groups who think
the administration is wavering are wrong.
   "There is no sentiment in the upper reaches of the foreign policy
leadership that we should be backing off on Burma," one official said.
"The issue is, are there ways we can be better engaged in the effort to
support human rights and democracy?"
   The junta's decision to allow a U.S. congressional visit to Aung San
Suu Kyi this week apparently was intended to influence the
administration policy review and a forthcoming United Nations human
rights report, according to administration officials and other analysts.
   "This could be a hopeful sign," an administration official said. "We
are somewhat encouraged" by the fact that one prominent Burmese official
has said a political dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi might be possible.
   "There are other actions (the junta) could take that would not go
unnoticed in the United States," the official said. But at the same
time, he said, the policy review aimed at finding ways to "delegitimize
the regime" is continuing.
   Given Burma's record of human rights violations, narcotics
trafficking, political repression and the largest outflow of refugees in
Asia, "we have a classic debate," a senior official said. "Do you engage
and hope to influence? Right now, we lean more toward isolation" of the
regime.
   Human rights groups, Clinton administration officals and Yozo Yokota,
the U.N. "special rapporteur" on human rights in Burma, all agree that
the junta known as SLORC - for State Law and Order Restoration Council -
has one of the most dismal human rights records of any government.
   Washington also accuses the junta of open cooperation with opium
producers and money launderers responsible for most of the heroin
entering the United States. Under current U.S. law, Burma's narcotics
record requires that Washington vote against any loans to Rangoon by the
World Bank or other international lending agencies.
   Unlike the administration of President George Bush, who nominated an
ambassador to Burma only to have the Senate refuse to confirm him,
Clinton has maintainined a very low level of diplomatic representation
in Rangoon.
   Some members of Congress, led by Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan (D-N.Y.),
want to go further. Moynihan and 19 other senators from both parties
told Clinton in October that "nothing less than a change in government"
would lead to an end to human rights abuses and a reduction in the flow
of drugs.
   But some administration officials argue that SLORC, which is seeking
Western economic investment, might respond to a less confrontational
approach.
   "I would argue that Burma is extremely important, and we ought to get
more involved in attempting to change what goes on there," said State
Department Counselor Timothy E. Wirth. In an interview in December,
Wirth said he had argued unsuccessfully within the State Department for
more engagement rather tham more isolation.
   "If you isolate and ostracize, you get more and more (heroin) coming
into the world market," Wirth said.
   Yokota, the U.N. rights monitor, is scheduled to deliver his latest
report Thursday at a U.N. Human Rights Commission meeting in Geneva.
According to Mike Jendrzejczyk, Washington representative of the
watchdog group Human Rights Watch, SLORC refused to allow Yokota to meet
Aung Saan Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace laureate, who has been under
house arrest in Rangoon for nearly five years.
   Only family members were allowed to visit her until this week, when
SLORC authorized an extensive visit from Rep. Bill Richardson (D-N.M.).


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