New Economy Communications FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Ira Arlook (202) 721-0111 THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 2001 COMMERCE DEPARTMENT LETS U.S. RETAILERS' USE BURMESE MILITARY REGIME TO SKIRT US IMPORT QUOTAS US Firms Provide Revenue for World's Leading Human Rights Violator State Dept. Cable Names Labels Including K-Mart, Fila, Arrow Golf, & Jordache US Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) will release today a US State Department "unclassified" cable describing how US retailers have used the military dictatorship in Burma to circumvent US worldwide import quotas on apparel. Acting on a tip from well-known anti-sweatshop advocate Charles Kernaghan, Executive Director of the National Labor Committee for Human Rights (NLC), Harkin obtained a copy of the document from the State Department nearly four months after his initial inquiry was rebuffed. "Here we are coddling brutal dictators while thousands of apparel jobs are being lost in this country. Meanwhile, Burmese factories are working round the clock, seven days a week, paying workers as little as 7 cents an hour, $3.23 for a 48-hour work week, and some of the profits go right into the pockets of the generals. And they have nearly unlimited access to the US market.," said Kernaghan. "Most Americans already think we have tough sanctions in place with Burma, but this cable makes clear that our current sanctions policy is more bluster than bite. As a result, many brand-name U.S. apparel companies are importing more and more of their clothes from the Burmese gulag. It is outrageous that part of the $403 million from American apparel imports last year alone went into the coffers of Burma's brutal military regime, so I will introduce legislation soon to ban all textile and apparel imports from that country," said Harkin. "You can't do business in Burma without directly financing the military's purchase of weapons used to deny its citizens' basic rights. The State Department confirms this every year. Virtually all foreign companies must enter into joint ventures with the military government's state-owned enterprises. This is one way, in addition to the heroin trade, that the generals keep their regime afloat. That's why Levi Strauss and a long list of other US retailers pulled out years ago," said Simon Billenness, who follows developments in US Burma policy as a senior analyst at Trillium Asset Management in Boston. A cable from the US diplomatic outpost in Rangoon, Burma's capital, to the US State Department, in July, 2000 explains "Garment manufacturers from those countries [Hong Kong, Korea, and Taiwan, in joint ventures with the Government of Burma] subcontract orders to the Burmese factories that cannot be filled under their own US import quotas." [Available by fax on request] According to Kernaghan, there is no bi-lateral trade agreement with Burma. The US government, unilaterally, sets apparel import quotas through the Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements (CITA). The Committee is comprised of the Departments of Commerce, State, Labor, Treasury, and the Office of the US Trade Representative. The Committee is chaired by the Commerce Department's Deputy Assistant Secretary for Textiles, Apparel and Consumer Goods Industries. The US Commerce Department's Office of Textile and Apparel has established 86 categories of clothing for purposes of setting import quotas. For Burma, the Office set no quotas whatsoever for 74 of these categories including outerwear, knit shirts, sweaters, dresses, and underwear, among many others. In the year 2000, apparel imports from Burma soared 118% over the previous year, growing from $185 million in 1999 to $403.7 million in 2000. In 2000, Burmese apparel factories, joint ventures between Korean, Taiwanese, or Hong Kong investors and Burmese government-controlled companies, shipped 166 million garments to the US. Following the 1997 US imposition of a ban on all new investment in Burma based on continued reports of political repression and forced labor, apparel imports from Burma grew 372%, rising from $85.6 million in 1997 to $403.7 billion in 2000. A review of the most recent shipping datafor November and December, 2000shows retailers not mentioned in the July, 2000 State Department cable importing from Burma: Kasper ASL Ltd., Marshall's Department Stores, TJ Maxx, and Williams-Sonoma. After Kernaghan and the NLC released a study, reported in the New York Times (12/19/00), citing the Pentagon's Army/Air Force Exchange Service and several retailers for importing clothing made in Burma, the Pentagon, Kenneth Cole, and Wal-Mart announced their decisions to cease doing business in Burma. A visit to Kenneth Cole's flagship store on Fifth Avenue at Rockefeller Center in New York City, on Wednesday, February 28th, however, turned up numerous sweater styles made in Burma. ####
