New Blast Against Sanctions

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                            Intelligence Newsletter

                               February  27, 1997



HEADLINE: New Blast Against Sanctions

    Only days after the boss of the U.S. oil company Conoco, Archie Dunham,
criticized Washington for applying unilateral sanctions (IN 305) against what it
sees as rogue nations a number of American corporations have joined the battle
to fight curbs. "Unilateral sanctions don't work," declared Frank Kitteredge,
head of a business lobby group, National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC), that
claims up to 35 big U.S. corporations are against the curbs which indirectly
undermine American corporate efforts to compete for business abroad.

    But the companies are not only unhappy with official U.S. bans on Iran, Cuba
and Libya. They claim to be even more worried about a growing trend among

cities and states around the U.S. to take action to impose boycotts of their own
-- or following sanctions decreed by others cities and states.

    The movement has escalated as the state of Massachusetts and several cities
in Wisconsin, California and Colorado have forbidden local government and
administrative bodies from signing contracts with companies that operate in
 Burma  or Nigeria because of human rights abuses in those nations. Companies
like Apple Computers, Kodak, Walt Disney and Motorola have withdrawn from
 Burma  because of protests in the U.S. against Rangoon's military dictatorship.

    "Multilateral sanctions like those on Iraq may work," Kitteredge conceded in
reference to the UN embargo slapped on Baghdad in 1990 because of its invasion
of Kuwait. But he cited the U.S. embargo on the Russian oil pipeline in the
early 1980s as a prime example of an ineffectual ban. "It simply cut out U.S.
companies and the Russians instead got aid from Europe and Japan," he declared.

    Foreign companies working in the U.S. could also suffer from the individual
sanctions decreed by towns or states. Indeed, the Massachusetts law sets out to
forbid European companies working in  Burma  from competing for contracts in the
state. Elsewhere, Ericsson of Sweden said it could be disqualified from bidding
for a $ 40 million contract to rebuild an emergency radio system in San
Francisco. It is thinking of taking court action. Among the firms that belong

to anti-sanction NFTC are American Express, AT&T, Boeing, Citicorp, Ford and
General Motors.

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

LOAD-DATE: February 28, 1997