Burma Slaves Reportedly Used (fwd)

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Subject: Burma Slaves Reportedly Used (fwd)
Lines: 96

>Subject: Burma Slaves Reportedly Used
>Copyright: 1994 by The Associated Press, R
>Date: Tue, 19 Jul 94 23:40:06 PDT

        HALOEKHANI CAMP, THAI-BURMA BORDER (AP) -- Burma's ruling
military has marshalled tens of thousands of slave laborers to
build a railroad needed for a natural gas pipeline financed partly
by an American company, human rights groups say.
        Villagers who have fled the railway project describe 10 1/2-hour
workdays, daily beatings by soldiers, frequent accidents and
payments to the military to get rest days. Hunger and disease are
rampant. The unpaid workers even have to pool their money to rent
construction equipment from the military.
        Located along a remote coastal strip of southern Burma, the
railroad will run near a pipeline that is to carry natural gas from
an offshore field to energy-hungry Thailand by 1998.
        Partners in the $1 billion project are the oil companies Unocal
Corp. of Los Angeles and Total of France, a Thai energy enterprise
and Burma's military junta.
        Contacted by The Associated Press, both Unocal and Total
maintained the railroad was not related to the pipeline.
        But Burmese resistance groups and foreign human rights
organizations claim the railroad is essential for the building,
maintenance and security of the pipeline.
        They liken the project to the notorious ``Death Railway'' built
by Allied prisoners of war and Asian laborers to move Japanese
supplies between Burma and Thailand during World War II.
        ``What has evolved is literally blood loss for oil revenues,''
says the All Burma Students' Democratic Front.
        Already impoverished villages are facing economic ruin as men
are forced to abandon their farm work for months at a stretch or
escape to nearby Thailand, the groups say.
        ``There are numerous credible reports of thousands of people
conscripted to build railway lines and roads in violation of
Burma's commitment to uphold international conventions against
forced labor,'' the private group Human Rights Watch Asia testified
before Congress last month.
        The Burmese government routinely denies charges of human rights
abuses. It has released some 2,000 political prisoners, liberalized
the economy and is managing to attract more foreign investors.
        But the U.S. government, the United Nations and others say
widespread torture, arrests of opponents and brutality against
villagers continue, especially in areas such as the southern
Burmese coast where ethnic minority rebels operate.
        Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who led a 1988
pro-democracy uprising in Burma, completes her fifth year under
house arrest this week. The military crushed the uprising by
gunning down thousands of demonstrators.
        In the wake of international condemnation, Amoco, Levi Strauss &
Co. and other American companies have pulled out of Burma, while
others -- notably Unocal, Texaco and Pepsi-Cola -- are under pressure
from activists and some stockholders.
        A recent Unocal report to its shareholders says: ``If there were
any possibility that our project was connected with human rights
abuses this would be absolutely unacceptable to us.''
        Burmese opposition groups say the military began mass, forced
relocations of villagers from their homes last year. So far, as
many as 150,000 people from 15 to 60 years old have been used as
conscripted laborers.
        Ah Htaw, 29, who worked on the railroad for three months before
fleeing with his family, said soldiers told people in his village
of Paokpinkwin that ``volunteer labor'' to complete the railroad
would be needed for three dry seasons. The season lasts up to six
months of each year.
        Interviewed at a border camp ravaged by monsoon rains and
malaria, the farmer said each of the 600 households was ordered to
provide one person for the project, but they were told little about
it.
        ``We just bent down and worked, even afraid to look into the
soldiers' faces lest they say, `Why are you staring?' and beat
us,'' Ah Htaw said.
        The conscripts slept in makeshift shelters along the line,
bringing their own food, water and tools. Soldiers kept close guard
-- one armed trooper for 12 laborers -- and routinely caned those who
reported to work even a minute late.
        He and his colleagues worked 10 1/2 hours every day for no salary.
If incapacitated, they had to either pay $33 -- a sizable sum in
Burma -- to the military or send their wife or other family member
as a substitute.
        Ah Htaw and others said workers also had to pool money to rent
bulldozers and other equipment from the military.
        Many workers suffered from disease, hunger and accidents, he
said. He saw two men keel over and die, two others crushed by
falling rocks, and a pregnant woman die from exhaustion.
        Ah Htaw said he knew of at least 40 families from his village
who fled to Thailand. Most had no intention of returning, he said.
        ``This year we cleared the land, but next year will be worse
because we will begin building the bed and bridges,'' he said.
``And after the railway, I feared they would force us to work on
roads and many other things.''
        Opponents of Burma's military, aided by international human
rights and environmental groups, have assembled photographs, audio
cassette tapes and interviews to document conditions on the
project.
        They also charge the 37-mile pipeline within Burma will cut a
swath through some of the finest surviving rainforests and wildlife
of Southeast Asia.
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