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ICFTU/ETUC SUBMISSION TO EU-GSP (4/
Subject: ICFTU/ETUC SUBMISSION TO EU-GSP (4/4)
/* posted 18 Aug 6:00am 1996 by DRUNOO@xxxxxxxxxxxx in igc:reg.burma */
/* -------------" ICFTU &ETUC Report on Forced Labour (4/4) "----------- */
[ Reproduced from the submission by Australian Council of Trade Unions to
Australian Human Rights Sub-Committee, Vol 6, pp.1010-1032 -- U Ne Oo.]
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Burma: SLORC's Private Slave Camp
Submission to the European Union Generalised System of Preferences
ICFTU. International Confederation of Free Trade Unions
155, Boulevard Emile Jacqmain, B-1210 Brussels
Tel.:224.02.11 Fax:201.58.18
ETUC. European Trade Union Confederation
155, Boulevard Emile Jacqmain, B - 1210 Brussels
Tel.:224.04.11 Fax:224.04.54
4. OTHER TYPES OF FORCED LABOUR OCCURRING IN BURMA
4.3 Tourism development projects.
The big tourist push which SLORC has planned for 1996 under the title "Visit
Myanmar Year" has been presented as one of the - or even the single most
important factor provoking forced labour in Burma today. Aiming at
convincing half a million tourists to visit the country, the campaign is
designed to end years of isolation, revamp the regime's tarnished image,
and obviously, attract considerable hard-currency volumes. Forced labour is
used all over the country in this process, on roads, airports and possibly
hotel construction. Foreign investors are reported to be involved in the
tourism drive, e.g. Novotel, in the Novotel Mandalay construction project
[41].
4.3.1 Mandalay: the Moat of the Gold Palace
"You find gangs working everywhere, egged on by soldiers, to build and
repair the infrastructure the country needs for its launch into mass
tourism", said the BBC reporter quoted above (see section 4.2.2) and
according to whom such giant schemes as the Mandalay highway - which she
had visited - were " turning Burma into one vast slave labour camp."
Pictures smuggled out by refugees and shown on television showed people
being forcibly evicted, villages being burned, and bloated corpses of
people beaten to death, floating down a river. In Mandalay itself, Ms
Roberts reported, gangs of men and women, each being guarded by a soldier,
were forced to clear up the city's roads and historic buildings [42]. The
dredging of the moat around the 19th Century Gold Palace, which has been
reported for over two years, is continuing; SLORC commanders in Mandalay
have previously have been accused in the French press of forcing thousands
of civilians to dredge the moats with their bare hands, while pocketing the
funds released by the central government for the purchase of dredging
equipment earmarked for this work.
4.3.2 The New Dam at Inlay Lake
Forced labour is used extensively around Inlay lake, a tourist destination
which the SLORC is reportedly eager to develop. The aim of the project is
to build a new dam o the Biluchaung river in Moebye; the purpose thereof is
to prevent the water level of Inlay lake from reflux in the summer, thereby
preserving the attractive green shores for the tourists. Measures against
those refusing to work "voluntarily" include keeping them for hours in the
hot sun, fines, beatings, etc.. Work also includes pushing back the algae
into the depths of the lake with long bamboo poles, in order to keep it
clean for tourists. Local residents say the work is useless, as it makes
the algae grow faster, but that SLORC refuses to heed their complaint and
orders the work to continue.
4.3.3 Construction of Airports
Airports are being developed rapidly throughout the country, allegedly with
the use of forced labour. "At Putao airport, I saw forced labour being used
to extend a runaway so tourists could arrive in large jets", said English
guidebook author Nicholas Greenwood, who has visited Burma 16 times in
recent years he had "countless times (...) seen what look forced labour,
including people working in chains"[44].
According to Another report, cholera had broken out on the forced labour
construction site of Bassein Airport, In Irrawaddy State, and no one had
received adequate medical treatment [45]. On 12 July 1994, the London-based
Guardian newspaper reported that 30,000 labourers working on the airport's
extension project had not been paid.
4.4 Army-owned Commercial Ventures
The army, and especially top SLORC-commanders are reported to be
conspicuously present in most, if not all, profit-making sectors of the
economy. Civilians are routinely forced to work for free in army-owned
commercial enterprises, such as paddy-and fishpond and tree-planting
operations, which local farmers have to build up and maintain. Needless to
add, the required land is also confiscated without compensation.
One 43-year old refugee Karen farmer, interviewed by Burma Issues, said he
saw a fellow forced labourer being brutally interrogated and beaten for tow
hours, before being stabbed to death by soldiers. They were forced to work
on a rubber plantation, at least 10,000 acres (approx. 5,500 ha) large,
owned by military. Pay was never handed out, and it was suspected that it
was being diverted by the military. They were also forced to dig ponds for
shrimp firming and erect an 8 foot-high dike to keep the sea away (which
eventually broke away under a high tide, owing to bad planning, according
to the source ), 13,000 people were reported to be forcibly working in
these area [46].
5. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.1 A record of violations
The facts described above are representative of comprehensive source file
on forced labour in Burma, which comprises over 1,500 pages of evidence
gathered by intergovernmental and non-governmental human rights
organizations. Hundreds of witnesses (some openly, others with their
identities disguised, for fear of retribution) provide countless details of
the most severe breaches of fundamental human rights occurring in the
process, including arbitrary detention, beatings, torture, rape and murder.
As practised in Burma today, forced labour constitutes a clear violation of
the country's international obligations: as this report conclusively
demonstrates, the SLORC stands in grave and constant breach of multiple
key-standards of international human rights law, international labour law
(in particular ILO convention no 29 on Forced Labour), and international
customary law, i.e. Geneva Conventions of 1949.
The number and, especially, the consistency - also over time [47] - of
these problems make it impossible to avoid the conclusion that the recourse
to forced labour in Burma today represents the central feature of the
regime's infrastructure development policy. Forced labour is being used
systematically, in all regions, in both military and civilian
infrastructure projects, as well as commercial, often army-owned
enterprises and tourism projects.
5.2 The economic and political impact of forced labour
Meanwhile, combined with what is portrayed at its notorious corruption
(which occasionally pushes foreign companies to disinvest, e.g. Levi
Strauss, Liz Claribourne and others), the huge profits reaped by the SLORC
leadership from unpaid, forced labour enable the regime to purchase vast
quantities of military hardware, used to suppress ethnic insurgents and
political opponents alike. In view of the present trend of growing foreign
investments in the country, it must be assumed that this pattern of
exploitation by the country's ruling circles will continue for the
foreseeable future, as long as the international community remains unable
to influence the country's military regime.
Another factor take into account by human rights sources is the likely huge
impact of gas-generated income on SLORC'S ruling position. The combined
financial profits (production stakes, tax and royalties) that SLORC is
likely to obtain from the Yetagun and other projects in the Gulf of
Martaban "could amount to several hundred million dollars a year worth of
gas", according to the authors of the TEXACO minority shareholders' proxy
proposal examined above. In the view of these shareholders, "some
governments are so incorrectably repressive that claims such as those made
by Texaco that positive engagement helps open otherwise closed socities
simply do not apply.In their view, the presence of corporations only serves
to help the illegitimate regimes remain inpower". They quote a former US
ambassador to Burma, Mr. Burton Levin, according to whom "foreign
investment in most countries acts as a catalyst for change, but the Burmese
regime is so single-minded that whatever money they obtain from foreign
sources, they pour straight into the army while the rest of the country is
collapsing".
5.3 The withdrawal of European GSP benefits
Given its status as a least developed country, Burma/Myanmar presently
benefits from the entire suspension of common custom tariff duties on
products covered by the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) of the
European Union (see Article 3 and Annex IV of EU Council Regulation no
3281/94 of 19 December 1994 applying a four-year scheme of generalized
tariff preferences (1995 to 1998) in respect of certain industrial products
originating in developing countries.
The EU is a significant trading partner for Burma. Of Burma's total exports
to OECD countries of $US 133.3 million in 1992, $41.2 million were received
by the European Union (30.9%). this has to be seen in the context of the
SLORC junta's ambition to expand the export vocation of Burma and the
existence already of various joint ventures involving EU multinational
companies including Total and Novotel (France), and Premier Consolidated
Oilfields (UK). As long as Burma continues to received GSP access, the
SLORC will be encouraged in its view that it can continue to use forced
labour in the various ways described above. As has been noted in this
report, there is little evidence that the benefits of any growth could lead
to enhanced standards of living among the population as a whole; rather, it
will serve mainly to fuel the continued purchase of military equipment to
repress the Burma population and to maintain the lifestyles of senior the
SLORC leaders. Conversely, if the EU were to remove Burma from its GSP
scheme, it would send a clear signal to the SLORC junta that they can
expect only international isolation as long as they continue to engage in
practices which so clearly violate internally agreed standards for the
respect of basic human rights.
We therefore consider that the EU should undertake the "temporary
withdrawal, in whole or in part, of the scheme of generalized preferences",
due to the practice of any form of forced labour as defined in the Geneva
Slavery Conventions of 24 September 1926 and 7 September 1956 and the
International Labour Organizations Conventions No 29 and 105", in
accordance with the provisions of Title III, Article 9 and 10 of EU
Regulation No 3281/94 (cf.supra).
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List of Appendices
Appendix A: Human rights violations in the context of forced portering:
summary victims' accounts, compiled by ICFTU, 1995.
Appendix B: UN Commission on Human Rights: Resolution on Myanmar, 1993 &
1994.
Appendix C: Human Rights in Burma(MYanmar)", Asia Watch, May 1990, pp21-31.
Appendix D: Report of the Committee set up to consider the representation
made by the ICFTU under article 24 of the ILO constitution alleging
non-observance by Myanmar of the Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (n0 29),
ILO Governing Body, 261 Session, Geneva, November 1994, ILO doc. no
GB.261/13/7.
Appendix E: Maps of the Ye-Tavoy railway link and connected Gulf of
Martaban pipeline projects.
Appendix F: "Texaco Inc, US Business and HUman Rights Guidelines", Proxy
Statement Proposal no6, by INvestor Responsibility Research Center (IRRC),
Washington, DC, April 1995.
Appendix G: Introduction to "forced labour in Burma, A Collection of
Documents, 1987-1995", Burma Peace Foundation, N.Y. NY, June 1995.
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Footnotes:
[41] one source stated that NOvotel had to pay 10% of the contract's value
as bribe to the SLORC's Tourism Minister, Mr Kyaw Ba, who had just approved
10 new hotel projects in the ancient city.(see: "Letter from Burma", 31
January 1995, in "Supporting Documents", 4/13.
[42] see: Burma uses forced labour to build tourism projects, Bangkok Post,
22 January, 1995, in : "Supporting Documents", 4/12.
[43] see: The Plight of the People in Shan State, In Dawn, October-November
1993, see "Supporting Documents", 4/1
[44] see: Burma Boycott ? New tourist drive uses forced labour", by Gary
Stoller, Conde New Traveller, undated, in "Supporting Documents", 4/23.
[45] see "Supporting Documents", 4/11, op. cit.
[46] see: A culture of Coercion, by N. Chan, in Burma Issues, January 1995,
in: Supporting Document 3/37.
[47] As seen above, the ILO Committee of Experts has been requesting Burma
to adapt its legislation and practice of forced labour since.. 1967.
/* Endpart 4/4 */