International Herald Tribune (Neuilly-sur-Seine, France)

February 25, 1998, Wednesday

Buffing Burma's Image: Lobbyists' Pot of Gold;

Firms Take Aim at Washington's Sanctions

By R. Jeffrey Smith; Washington Post Service

WASHINGTON

The military rulers of Burma are well aware they have an image problem in Washington. The Clinton administration and human rights groups regularly recount how the generals took office by hijacking a 1990 election, keep hundreds of opponents in inhumane prisons and solicit investments from Asian drug lords.

But a bad image can mean big business for Washington's public relations and lobbying firms. Several firms have been conducting a campaign on Burma's behalf in classic Washington style - producing upbeat newsletters, arranging seminars and interviews and financing all-expense-paid trips - partly to persuade the Clinton administration to lift trade sanctions against the regime.

For a fee of nearly $500,000, for example, a Burmese company that U.S. officials say is close to the military leadership hired a former assistant secretary of state for narcotics control, Ann Wrobleski, and her lobbying firm, Jefferson Waterman International, last year to communicate the company's ''positions and interests,'' according to the contract. Ms. Wrobleski is well known to the regime from her counter-narcotics work, which occurred when Burma was becoming the principal exporter of heroin sold on U.S. streets.

Another well-connected firm in Burma's capital of Rangoon hired a public relations firm and a lobbying firm last year, paying $252,000 to Jackson Bain, a former television reporter, to help the Burmese Embassy burnish the country's reputation, and an undisclosed sum to the Atlantic Group, a lobbying company that is working more directly to help overturn the U.S. sanctions.

In addition, various U.S. corporations that want to do business with Burma or already invest there, including Unocal Corp., an energy company, have been spending money to promote the idea that Washington's barriers to new U.S. trade with Burma do not reflect a politically sound U.S. strategy. The sanctions, which President Bill Clinton imposed last May, bar new investment by U.S. firms in commercial or energy projects.

A Washington educational and advocacy organization called The International Center drew on donations from such corporations to help fund a trip in October by three former high-ranking Defense Department and State Department officials, who met with top military officials as well as with the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.

The three former officials, Morton Abramowitz, Richard Armitage and Michael Armacost, subsequently sent their policy advice to Samuel Berger, the national security adviser, and briefed lawmakers and staff on Capitol Hill.

In a private letter to Mr. Berger, the three men counseled that some sanctions should remain in place, but urged that Washington try to adopt a more flexible approach permitting international loans for health care and education. Eventually, they added, Washington should reconsider keeping any sanctions on Burma. ''Sanctions over time will become a wasting asset and slow Burma's exposure to the outside world,'' they wrote.

The administration has given no hint that it plans to relax Burma sanctions.

Unocal, which has a 28 percent stake in a billion-dollar natural gas project in Burma, gave $50,000 to The International Center last July, after hearing from Frances Zwenig, the center's director, about the trip proposal in March. But Ms. Zwenig said the funds were not intermingled with those of the other corporations that helped underwrite the trip.

Maureen Aung-Thwin, who directs the Soros Foundation's Open Society Institute Burma Project, complained that the reception Burma gets from such institutions in Washington ''sends really mixed signals to a government that is beginning to feel the pressure of the isolation and the sanctions.''

Lobbyists promoting a positive image of Burma say that they are doing nothing wrong. Mr. Bain said he knew the Burmese government was repressive. But he said he enjoyed the challenge of disseminating information that gave a fuller picture of the country.

The work is an uphill battle. According to the State Department's most recent report on Burma, the Burmese regime ''made no progress'' in moving toward democratization and continued its ''severe violations'' of human rights.