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re Infrastructure Finance Feb/Mar 9
- Subject: re Infrastructure Finance Feb/Mar 9
- From: cd@xxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 13:42:00
Free Burma Readers,
If you have not, please let me underline the interest in reading :
Infrastructure Finance Feb/Mar 96 , 27 Feb 1996 15:46:33 , From:
dohrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
re TROUBLING PROJECTS
Myanmar's Yadana gas field raises the question:
Should companies do business with regimes that violate basic human
rights?
By Gregory Millman (pp. 17-19)
It raises a lot of issues on the Yadana Pipeline, however, looking the
arguments put forward by the honored professors of economic diplomacy, we
see how specious they are in trying to defend the rhetoric of making
money at the cost of human life and destruction of the enviornment, well
known to oil companies since the days of Standard Oil and « Here?s a dime
» John D Rockefeller. Oil company policy has not deviated from its
bottom line priorites set by the industrial revolution and the grab for
land and territory. Millman?s own ambiguity only endorses the confusion
shared by these honored gentleman in their ivory towers. Please send
comments to Dawn Star. Thank you.
Lets see closer, as ?Prof ? Donaldson says :
Professor Tom Donaldson of Georgetown University, author of The Ethics of
International
Business, says, "In Burma the human rights violations have been
systemic,
widespread, and involve violations of the most fundamental and central
human rights accepted by both liberals and conservatives."
Donaldson is no knee-jerk bleeding heart. (what does that mean? ed. Dawn
Star)
He says that his ethical business guidelines would allow a company to do
business with
almost anyone in the world. "I call this the condition of business
principle," he says, "Basically, we will tolerate a fair amount of
unethical behavior from a person, firm or nation with whom we just have
business dealings, but when matters reach the point of a dramatic
threshold, most people say you just don't do business with that type of
person. I don't think China reaches that point, but if any country
might
qualify as passing that threshold, it would be Burma."
Well, Prof, what about the millions of Tibetans killed, and the
destruction of their culture, which is being replayed by the China-proxy
Slorc now at war with its people.
Donaldson's view is reinforced by Richard DeGeorge, director of
the International Center for Ethics in Business at the University of
Kansas, who says, "One of the guidelines I would put out is that a
company should not knowingly cooperate with with any supplier,
government
or other enterprise that engages in slavery, slave labor, or even child
labor.
Well, Prof, does that standard hold now for over half of the world?s
population, using child and woman slavery for labor?
Professor Kenneth Goodpaster, a former faculty member at the
Harvard Business School who now teaches business ethics and policy at
the
University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis-St. Paul, says, "When you can
forsee in clear terms that this supplier or user of your services or
products is engaging in behavior that is, by any reasonable estimate, an
abridgment of basic human rights, there's no escaping that you have a
responsibility there."
« a responsablity », still beating around the bush. These academic
professors do not seem to be able to draw the line.
None of these ethicists specifically says that it is unethical
for Unocal and Total to invest in Myanmar, but they all underscore the
need for innovative approaches to insure that the project does not
benefit from the SLORC's injustice.
That is really for laughs! When will the apologists see the point that
following the ABSDF line and DASSK thinking, only when the political
structure changes, and Slorc gets out, will there be justice in doing
business with a democratically elected government representing the
Burmese people?
Though oil companies insist they are making every effort that
ethical business requires,
It seems here that stretching the truth knows no limits with oil
companies and their apologists, all to put the gas into your car and
drive our industrial technology.
Please be on your guard and call a spade a spade, a dictator, a dictator,
crime a crime, and investment in burma, bad business, and bad for human
rights, and unethical period.
Dawn Star