A Historical Look at the
Pepsico/Burma Boycott

by Reid Cooper

Boycott Quarterly, Summer 1997

The Pepsi logos seen throughout Burma, whether on billboards or in the state-run press, should soon be disappearing, sending one message that Burma's dictatorship, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (or SLORC) cannot censor. The recent decision by PepsiCo to cut all ties to Burma by May 31, 1997, is a significant achievement for Burma's democracy movement. A major Western corporation has promised, after much resistance, to leave Burma until democracy is restored.

Although I hesitate to speak of victory (SLORC, after all, has still not respected the results of its own 1990 election), the success of the PepsiCo/Burma boycott is a testament to the potential power of consumers. It would be a mistake to overestimate the boycott's significance, but it would be as big of a mistake to miss it. The dynamics driving this boycott's success warrant careful study by democracy activists. As one closely involved with the boycott, I would like to attempt a brief history of the boycott.

The boycott was first called by the All Burma Students' Democratic Front (ABSDF), which was founded by refugees who had fled SLORC's student massacres in 1988. In the ABSDF's newsletter, DAWN News Bulletin, dated April, 1990, the group argued that, despite the company's disingenuous claims to the contrary, PepsiCo's entry into Burma was "a direct and obvious involvement in Burma's politics." PepsiCo's high profile presence would give the emerging SLORC much-needed money and legitimacy.

As Boycott Quarterly has previously reported (Spring '94), the boycott call was part of a larger campaign by Burma's democracy movement to discourage foreign investment in Burma until civilian, democratic rule was restored. After careful analysis, groups like the National League for Democracy had concluded that the presence of companies like PepsiCo would do more harm than good under SLORC. But PepsiCo's response was, "The market is there, that's one thing we're sure of..."

On November 22,1991, a Pepsi bottling plant in Rangoon formally opened. The plant was joint venture between PepsiCo and Thein Tun's Pepsi-Cola Products Myanmar. Thein Tun had built his business career on being a representative for foreign firms in Burma, developing a reputation as a "SLORC businessman", to quote Asian Business. Unfortunately for PepsiCo, Thein Tun was quite public about the political implications of his business, and he saw support of SLORC as his "duty". When PepsiCo went ahead with its plans, the ABSDF renewed its boycott call. Members of Burma's Parliament, elected in Burma's May 1990 election, came out in support of the boycott, and asked pop star Michael Jackson to end his Pepsi sponsorship. On February 20,1992, the Burma Rights Movement for Action (now known as Burma Issues) produced an English-language flyer in support of the boycott, and it wrote to various supporters of Burmese democracy in Asia and the West about the importance of the boycott.

In the West, however, Burma activists were concentrating their efforts on oil companies like Texaco, Amoco and Petro-Canada. Their attention elsewhere, these activists outside Asia left the PepsiCo issue on the backburner if they were aware of it at all. But when Petro-Canada pulled out in late 1992, Burma activists in Canada, working in consultation with a handful of U.S.-based activists, turned their attention to PepsiCo. Terry Cottam, then coordinator of OPIRG-Carleton's South east Asia Working Group, produced the first North American PepsiCo/ Burma boycott flyers in early 1993. He quickly distributed them to other Burma activists, including Brian Schmidt. Schmidt later formed the Oregon-based Pepsi Burma Boycott Committee, and became the main U.S. boycott contact.

Three things were noteworthy about that first flyer. One, the information-rich flyer provided footnotes for its claims. In addition to helping people find more information on their own, it documented its claims, which gave the flyer a vital element of credibility. Two, more than simply a flyer on Pepsi, it served as a general introduction to Burma's struggle. Three, the flyer subverted PepsiCo's contrived image of fun and freedom by turning its own slogans against it. Future updates of that first flyer, despite often radical revisions, always kept those three virtues.

Soon afterwards, others at OPIRG-Carleton realized the untapped potential of the Internet for Burma activism. Early in 1993, the group posted a Net version of the flyer to appropriate internet newsgroups, and soon began fielding requests for more information. Others, especially in Thailand and the U.S., also recognized the Net as a powerful tool for linking Burma activists. Brian Beker laid the foundations for the newsgroup <soc.culture.burma>, while Doug Steele set up BurmaNet, the first of the various e-mail Burma information mailing lists. Both tools would eventually come to play a central role in the spread and coordination of the PepsiCo/Burma boycott campaign.

In the summer of 1993, Burma activists in Seattle took the lead in getting a PepsiCo/Burma boycott sticker made based on a design by Cottam, and groups in Portland and Ottawa distributed the stickers to an even wider audience. The stickers were an instant hit, particularly with high school students. In a story on students protesting PepsiCo's exclusive marketing deal with the Toronto Board of Education, the Toronto Star published a photo of high school students wearing the stickers.

That fall, the steady flow of requests for information about the boycott prompted OPIRG-Carleton to develop an information package to help people start their own local groups. Over time, it was constantly refined and updated as 'info-pack' requests became increasingly more frequent. One section of the pack focused on the various Burma boycotts, including a master copy of the PepsiCo flyer, while the other section provided more general background material on the situation in Burma, including a brief history, information on AIDS and heroin, proposed mega-dams, teak logging, arguments for sanctions, and shareholder activism. By the end of 1995, working with OPIRG-Carleton, I had mailed out over 200 such info-packs to groups around the world, and learned that some groups (such as the University of Wisconsin Greens) had re-copied our PepsiCo boycott material to help yet other groups get started. By the time the boycott ended this year, I had sent out approximately 400 info-packs.

Media coverage of the boycott was initially limited mainly to local weekly and student newspapers. A letter-to-the-editor campaign succeeded in getting more mainstream press coverage. One result was a now much copied 1994 cartoon from the business-oriented Globe and Mail, used to illustrate our letter to the editor. The cartoon, by Anthony Jenkins, featured Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi wearing a ball and chain with Pepsi, Texaco and Amoco logos on it.

A broad coalition of groups came together to support the campaign to get PepsiCo out of Burma. This wide support was an important reason for the boycott's ultimate success, both for raw numbers and for morale. It was truly inspiring to see people of widely diverse political and religious views coming together to support basic democratic values at Burma conferences.

Back in Burma, reports from human rights workers pointed to the widespread use of what the U.N. calls "forced labor" (a euphemistic legalese term for a form of slavery). In particular, it became clear that forced labor-along with land expropriation-was being used by SLORC officials to reap the bulk of profits from agricultural exports. Combining this information with PepsiCo's own boasts about "counter-trading" in agricultural produce from Burma, pressing questions arose as to how PepsiCo could avoid buying farm goods tainted by slavery. In 1995, OPIRG-Carleton started circulating reports on this matter. PepsiCo management's refusal to address this issue satisfactorily would comeback to haunt them, especially as it became increasingly apparent how much of Burma's basic infrastructure was built or maintained by forced labor.

Meanwhile, socially responsible investors at such organizations as Franklin Research and Development were pressuring PepsiCo to leave Burma. Dialogue between share holders and management started in 1992, with PepsiCo producing its first report on its Burma operations in 1993. In part, shareholders relied on the boycotts to bolster their arguments against PepsiCo staying in Burma. Although shareholder resolutions on Burma were not as successful as they might have been, they did serve to raise awareness of the issue in the business community, generating much wider press coverage. What proved ultimately more effective was the resulting increase in dialogue with senior PepsiCo management, repeating a pattern seen with the Petro-Canada, Amoco and Liz Claiborne departures from Burma.

Political pressure on companies like PepsiCo to leave Burma grew with the Burma boycott. Although such pressure was distinct from the boycott, organizers played an important role in generating this pressure. Several of us at OPIRG, for example, went to Boston in February 1994 to encourage SEAC, the Student Environmental Action Coalition, and CPPAX, a progressive citizens' organization, to make Burma a priority campaign and support Byron Rushing's Massachusetts State selective purchasing bill, the first of its kind relative to Burma. Selective purchasing laws closely modeled on anti-apartheid laws also began to be passed in cities like Berkeley in 1995. Being in Burma meant that PepsiCo would have to forego contracts with these governments. This provided an added incentive for the company to leave.

But the real explosion in the PepsiCo/Burma boycott came with the creation in 1995 of the Free Burma Coalition (FBC), founded by the University of Wisconsin-based Zar Ni. Making more effective use of the Net as an organizing tool, the FBC began to coordinate national and international actions to raise awareness of the various Burma boycotts. In particular, FBC groups across the U.S. and Canada began a concerted effort to stop PepsiCo from getting exclusive marketing deals on their campuses.

One key victory was Harvard. On April 8, 1996, students there succeeded in blocking a $1 million contract when they raised ethical concerns about PepsiCo's dealings in Burma. PepsiCo's failure to address concerns about their Burmese operations being tainted by forced labor was decisive. The students' campaign generated headlines in such places as the Washington Post, which increased PepsiCo shareholder concerns.

Shaken, PepsiCo management responded with what Burma activists called a "papershuffle". On April 24, 1996, PepsiCo announced that it was selling its interest in its Burmese operations to its partner, Thein Tun, turning them into a franchise. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's elected leader, responded by saying "As far as we are concerned, Pepsi has not divested from Burma. " Boycotters had to be vigilant to counter PepsiCo's disinformation campaign on this point, as newspapers and even magazines like the New Internationalist prematurely reported PepsiCo's "departure" from Burma.

One of the final nails in the coffin was hammered in by Thein Tun him self, whose loyalty to SLORC was greater than his loyalty to PepsiCo. On June 15, 1996, he led a SLORC anti-democracy rally, destroying any remaining credibility for PepsiCo's claim that its presence in Burma was apolitical and a force for liberalization. The Bangkok Post quoted him as saying that business should help SLORC "crush any... destructionists". Again, though, the Western press was slow to pick up the story, and activists had to work to spread this information without initial media assistance.

In late 1996, the PepsiCo/Burma boycott picked up momentum in the U.K. when Third World First, an organization with chapters at 40% of British universities, made the boycott a major campaign. It produced and distributed 55,000 leaflets, 30,000 stickers and 20,000 posters to student unions across Britain. Now PepsiCo would soon be facing in Europe a repeat of its disasters at North American campuses. The end game, however, saw boycotters take aback seat to shareholder activists. PepsiCo's senior management had entered a sustained, if drawn-out, dialogue with concerned shareholders. Such talks proved vital in making PepsiCo officials realize not only the breadth and depth of the boycott movement, but also that the boycotters actually had good cause to be critical of PepsiCo's presence in Burma.

It is rare for bureaucrats to ever publicly admit error, and PepsiCo managers proved no exception. In contrast to the publicity generated by PepsiCo's pseudo-departure from Burma in 1996, many had to rely on e-mail to learn of PepsiCo's decision to leave Burma completely. Rather than issue a press release to announce it, PepsiCo simply faxed a brief letter to Fr. Joseph La Mar at the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility on January 24,1997. Further, PepsiCo cited "the spirit of current U.S. government policy" for its departure, rather than follow the example of Levi Strauss and Liz Claiborne and admit that it had erred in entering Burma in the first place.

Reid Cooper is an Ottawa, Canada, lawyer and former coordinator of OPlRG-Carleton Burma-Tibet Group.

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