[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index ][Thread Index ]

Mitsubishi and the Burmese Dictator



Subject: Mitsubishi and the Burmese Dictatorship

--=====================_828123831==_
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"



--=====================_828123831==_
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

MAINICHI DAILY NEWS
March 29, 1996
Reader's Forum

To the Editor:

On March 20 the Burmese Relief Center -- Japan, a Nara -
based NGO supporting the struggle for democracy in Burma,
organized a peaceful protest on Dotonbori Bridge in south
Osaka to publicize the cozy relationship between Mitsubishi
Corporation and Burma's democratically unelected military
regime.

I am surprised that your respected newspaper, which has had
the courage to print weekly installments of Aung San Suu Kyi's
"Letter from Burma," did not report this newsworthy incident. 
Her letters cannot be read, I believe, independently from the
political circumstances in Burma where the lives of more than
40 million people are under systematic control through state -
organized terror, torture, murder, censorship and so on. 
Likewise, the cynical business practices of Mitsubishi in
consorting with the regime cannot be viewed separately from
the country's social and political crisis.  The deals cut between
SLORC and Mitsubishi affect the lives of all people in Burma. 
This is why the Burmese Relief Center - Japan, of which I am
not a member, organized the protest and boycott.

The group is asking consumers in Japan to boycott all goods
and services provided by companies in the Mitsubishi
conglomerate, including Mitsubishi Electric, Mitsubishi
Motors, Mitsubishi Oil, Mitsubishi Bank, Kirin Beer and Nikon
Camera.  Among other things, the conglomerate is guilty of
lining the pockets of the generals in return for heavy logging
access to the country's hardwood forests.

In February, Mitsubishi President Minoru Makihara personally
visited Burma to discuss further business prospects with the
regime.  Human rights groups and other NGOs have interpreted
this as a sign of Mitsubishi's contempt for the human rights of
the Burmese people and for their struggle to free themselves
from corporate - backed tyranny.  In a recent statement, U.N.
human rights investigator Professor Yozo Yokota condemned
the SLORC regime for its "arbitrary killings of innocent
villagers, executions without trial, slave labor, theft of property,
forced relocation and rape."  

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi may be the voice
of sanity and peace in her enslaved country, but as long as
corrupt companies like Mitsubishi are allowed by consumers
and governments to deal with the thugs who run the country,
her voice will be effectively silenced, no matter how often the
MDN carries her "Letter from Burma."

Eric Blair
Osaka

--=====================_828123831==_--