April 08, 1996; Monday 00:10 Eastern Time
SECTION: Financial pages
LENGTH: 974 words
HEADLINE: US Students Eye Burma Events
DATELINE: STATE COLLEGE, Pa.
BODY:
Snacking on Pizza Hut or Doritos chips may be the norm for many college
students around the country.
But a growing group of collegians are following in the footsteps of their baby boomer parents and protesting corporations for their operations in Burma, calling for the military regime in this southeast Asian nation to step aside and allow the elected government to take over.
From Harvard to Virginia Tech to the University of Washington, students are avoiding Unocal gas stations and PepsiCo Inc. products, including Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and KFC restaurants and Doritos and Lays chips.
''We can draw a relationship between our behavior here at Penn State and a situation on the other side of the world,'' said Andrew Miller, a Penn State senior majoring in political science.
''A lot of people think the situation is very distant and has nothing to do with us. But our behavior here has ramifications everywhere.''
Burma's military government staged an election in 1990 that the National League for Democracy, led by 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, won by a landslide.
Instead of turning over power, the military said the vote had been to elect delegates to a constitutional convention. Suu Kyi's party boycotted the convention saying delegates are only allowed to rubber-stamp measures proposed by the military.
Refugees who have fled to Thailand report that the military is forcing civilians, especially ethnic minorities, to work for pennies a day on government projects.
''It's not like we're asking people to stop drinking soda,'' said Zar Ni, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin who fled Burma in 1988, when the current junta seized power and killed several thousands of pro-democracy protesters. ''There are a zillion alternatives in this country.''
A similar campaign was waged against companies who invested in South Africa before apartheid was lifted.
''What finally killed apartheid was selective purchasing,'' said Douglas Steele, a Georgetown law student. ''It became more profitable for companies to do business in this country than to do business in South Africa.''
Many companies have already bowed to pressure and abandoned Burma, including Amoco, Levi Strauss, Liz Claiborne, Eddie Bauer and Reebok International.
And last week, Harvard canceled its plans to switch from Coca-Cola to Pepsi in dining halls.
''Symbolically, it was very important,'' Harvard junior Marco Simons said. ''It's helpful to the dining services and trustees of other schools because no one wants to act in a vacuum.''
Students at Penn State have taken a dig at Pepsi's own slogan with a banner that on campus reading: ''Pepsi/ The Choice of a New Genocide.''
Despite the human-rights violations, Miller knows that Penn State would never break its exclusive $14-million contract with Pepsi to support democracy in Burma. Pepsi provides all soft drinks at university events, dining halls and in vending machines.
''We're not asking for Penn State to break its contract or sell its Pepsi stock,'' he said. ''What we're asking Penn state to do is come out with a statement against investment in Burma and use its stock in Pepsi to support a shareholders' resolution for a human right's code of conduct.''
That resolution, which would force the company to take human-rights violations into consideration when investing in a country, will be voted on during a stockholders meeting on May 1.
Daniel Sieminski, Penn State's director for finance and business, said the school has not taken a position on Pepsi's investment in Burma and has not decided how to vote at the shareholders meeting.
Pepsi, which makes about $8 million a year in Burma, has insisted that the company can do more good by doing business in the nation than it would by leaving.
''We do not support repressive governments,'' Pepsi spokesman Richard Detwiler said. ''If the U.S. government says its OK to do business in a country, we generally look to that as our guideline.''
Last modified: 18 April 1996
http://www.actionpa.org/fcg/sdb/ap.html