Pepsi withdraws from Burma

Pepsi withdraws from Burma

A six-year campaign has ended with PepsiCo's announcement that it will totally withdraw from Burma by May 31. PepsiCo sells Pepsi and 7-Up in Burma under the brutal State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC).

PepsiCo's Edward V. Lahey Jr., senior vice president, conveyed the news to Father Joe La Mar, a shareholder in Maryknoll, New York: "... we have severed all relationships with our former franchise bottler, effective January 15, 1997. The bottler in Burma is taking appropriate steps to ensure that all production and distribution of our products are ceased by May 31, 1997."

PepsiCo claimed it withdrew last April, when Lahey wrote La Mar and acknowledged "the sentiment expressed by you and others about investing in Burma at this time".

But that move was decried as a sham because it failed to end the bottling and marketing of PepsiCo beverages in Burma. Democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi responded on BBC radio, "As far as we are concerned, Pepsi has not divested from Burma".

PepsiCo still refuses to specifically acknowledge the "sentiments" about how its operations helped undermine human rights and the struggle for democracy in Burma.
[From PeaceNet.]

From GLW issue 262