[asia-apec 216] Re: Lippo-Clinton connections
Pharis Harvey
laborrights at igc.apc.org
Thu Oct 31 04:48:44 JST 1996
Thanks for your very informative article summarizing the Lippo
GRoup's political and economic connections with the Suharto family.
As one of the filers of the GSP petition you mentioned, I read this
with great interest.
It is still not clear whether the Lippo Group's lobbying was the
decisive factor in the caving of the Clinton Administration on the
GSP issue, since there were so many other U.S.-based MNCs with the
same idea in mind and even more political clout with the Clinton
White House. However, it appears not to be a coincidence that the
famous DNC contribution was made just prior to a decision by the
White House in early January 1994 to move the GSP decision out of the
committee's hands and directly into the White House itself, and that
this decision was followed shortly by a statement by the Indonesian
government promising "reforms" that were transparently fraudulent,
and which we refuted in a lengthy document submitted to the GSP
Subcommittee on January 28. Despite this, barely three weeks later,
the decision to "suspend" the GSP review for six months was made by
the White House. That "suspension", for which there is no legal or
administrative provision, was then made semi-permanent in November,
just before the APEC summit, in response to another memo that
basically repeated the same fraudulent "reforms" that had been
announced in January.
One brief correction to your analysis: textiles and garments are not
included in the U.S. GSP program, so it is unlikely that concern
about the future of textile exports of the Mayatexdian Industries
joint venture of the Suharto and Riady families was a specific
factor.
Thanks for you many informative submissions. Please continue the
good work.
Sincerely,
Pharis Harvey
International Labor Rights Fund (formerly the International Labor
Rights Education and Research Fund.)
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