Leslie Gevirtz, Boston – A Massachusetts state legislative committee Thursday approved a measure that would impose sanctions against companies that do business with Indonesia.
The Massachusetts Committee on State Administration approved the measure, which its sponsor, state Senator Marc Pacheco, said was amended to make it conform to the World Trade Organization's Government Procurement Act.
Pacheco said he hoped the bill, which must now go to the state's House of Representatives, "would send a strong message to the dictatorship in Indonesia that they must change their ways and provide the people of East Timor basic human rights and a measure of self determination."
Massachusetts passed a similar measure in 1996 that bans the state from doing business with firms that do business with Burma, also known as Myanmar. That law, which went into effect on January 1, has sparked an international furor among U.S. trading partners.
The European Union and Japan have protested to Washington about the Burma law and federal officials have met with Massachusetts legislators in hopes of having them change the measure.
A battle before the WTO still looms and a spokesman for Massachusetts State Attorney General Scott Harshbarger said his office stands ready to defend the Burma bill.
The Indonesia legislation was amended to exempt individual purchasing contracts of more than $500,000 and construction contracts of more than $7 million to avoid any potential violations of the WTO act.
The measure prohibits Massachusetts state agencies from contracting with companies that conduct business in Indonesia.
"Whether it has been imposing sanction on South Africa or Burma, Massachusetts has a history of taking a leadership role in issues like this and several other states around the country have already begun to file legislation modeled after the Massachusetts bill," Pacheco said.
If the measure passes both houses of the state legislature, the ban would remain in effect until Indonesia complies with United Nations resolutions calling for self determination in East Timor.
Rebels are fighting Indonesian rule in East Timor, which Jakarta took over in 1975 and incorporated as Indonesia's 27th province the following year. The move has never been recognized by the United Nations.
Indonesia's ruler President Suharto, 75, is widely expected to run for a seventh five-year term next year.