[asia-apec 216] Re: Lippo-Clinton connections

[Pharis Harvey]

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.)