The statement
Says Mitt Romney had the uniforms for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games made in Burma.
Priorities USA Action, in a video
The ruling
The day before the 2002 Games opened in Salt Lake City, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions sent a letter of protest to the International Olympic Committee.
"No responsible organization or body should make use of products originating in Burma," the letter said. "Doing business with Burma, in effect, supports human rights abuses."
The next day, according to an article in the Ottawa Citizen, the company that provided those uniforms, Marker Ltd, confirmed that the torch bearer uniforms had come from a supplier in Burma. The article quotes Marker's Olympic program managing director, Ralph Eeson, saying the company "has no reason to believe the uniforms were made under conditions that violate international law."
Marker, a Salt Lake City-based sports apparel company, was a co-sponsor of the Games. In May 1999, it had agreed to provide about $20 million worth of clothing. Romney left Bain Capital in February 1999 to take over the floundering Salt Lake Organizing Committee. Three months after he arrived, Marker signed on.
By 2000, Burma was a pariah. Its military dictatorship had been sanctioned by many international bodies for using forced labor on large irrigation construction projects and violating child labor standards.
The ad suggests Romney played a direct role in ordering the uniforms from Burma, but the only source provided by Priorities USA Action was a Huffington Post article, which didn't make that direct connection.
In assessing his possible role, it's important to note that the Salt Lake committee was a large organization. It had about 2,000 paid staff. The budget for the Salt Lake Games was about $1.3 billion. There were about 10 other sponsors like Marker, plus about another 15 firms with marketing contracts. Marker's sponsorship represented less than 1 percent of the total budget.
We asked the U.S. Olympic Committee whether the Salt Lake group used any procurement guidelines and did not hear back. A recent Salt Lake Tribune article suggested that detailed information may no longer exist.
The torch bearer uniforms, perhaps more than 11,000 of them, were made in Burma, but that's not all of the uniforms used in the Games, particularly for the athletes. And we've seen insufficient evidence to link them directly to Romney. We rate the statement Mostly False.
This ruling has been edited for print. Read the full version at PolitiFact.com.
Loading...