The Chicago Council on Global Affairs hosted a luncheon at the Fairmont Chicago May 8 during which ambassadors for some of the countries that are part of the Association of Southeast Nations ( ASEAN ) spoke on the wealth of business and trade opportunities between the United States and an organization of nations that possess—as moderator and Underwriters Laboratories Vice President for Global Government Affairs Ann Weeks noted—a combined GDP of $2.2 trillion, accounting for 7 percent of global trade and making it the largest destination for U.S. investment. One of the ASEAN panelists was the ambassador of Brunei to the United States, Dato Yusoff Abd Hamid.
Caption: ASEAN ambassadors serve as panelists during Chicago Council on Global Affairs luncheon. Brunei's ambassador is second from the right. Photo by Gretchen Rachel Blickensderfer
"Many of you don't know where Brunei is," Yusoff joked. "Brunei is a small country; we don't have a lot of trade. We only sell oil and gas and yet we are a member of the TPP [Trans Pacific Partnership]. We are looking at free trade and free movement of capital but the only way to do it is to have to have rules and regulations which are accepted by everybody. That is why we sit down and negotiate what can be accepted and what is not accepted and we hope that—by having this agreement—trade will increase."
However, what is unacceptable to the United Nations; celebrities like Jay Leno and Ellen DeGeneres; business leaders like Virgin Group founder Richard Branson; and organizations ranging from ICM to the Feminist Majority Foundation is the country's enactment last month of sharia law that would punish same-sex acts with the death penalty. By 2015, LGBTQ people in the tiny East Asian country could suffer death by stoning if caught engaging in those acts.
In a May 7 press release, Equality Illinois CEO Bernard Cherkasov asked participants at the luncheon to challenge the ambassador on his country's anti-gay laws.
"This is a conference about bringing more business to Brunei and other participating countries," Cherkasov told Windy City Times. "I think to not ask about the danger to those employees who have been brought to Brunei and will be subjected to the death penalty just because they identify as LGBT is a real travesty. This is a country that's moving in the wrong direction in regard to the most basic fundamental human rights and we have to ask them difficult questions."
"The general premise is that when people travel to a certain country they are subject to the laws of that country," Cherkasov added. "We should not tolerate putting individuals in harm's way in Brunei. We would not tolerate this if it meant sending employees to a country where for their religious beliefs they would be stoned to death."
During the luncheon, Yusoff was polled on his understanding of the opportunities for trade and business growth that have come out of the TPP and what he sees as obstacles that need to be resolved or evaluated from Brunei's point of view.
"I think if everybody is open and starts thinking about the benefit to everybody rather than only one national interest, that way perhaps we can move," Yusoff said.
In answering Weeks' question about the pitfalls of U.S. companies doing business in the region, Ambassador of Thailand to the United States Vijavat Isarabhakdi said that he thought U.S. companies have done very well in ASEAN countries, "especially if they go in having studied the culture and the ways of doing business. ASEAN is a great place to do business. It's a grouping of free market economies, very pro-business. They have the same values as the Americans in democracy and human rights."
Chersakov said that U.S. pressure against Brunei's laws must be unified and absolute. "I think that pressure should come—not just from the government of the United States—it must come from NGOs [non-governmental organizations] like the Council on Global Affairs every opportunity they have," he said. "And it must come from the business world. Businesses should not work with countries when sending employees there would subject them to the death penalty."
While the Chicago Council on Global Affairs welcomed Windy City Times to attend the luncheon, questions from the media to the panelists were not permitted, and no comment was received from the council regarding either Equality Illinois' statements or Brunei's new laws by the time of publication.
