Statement on the arrest of the two

[aungsan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Subject: Statement on the arrest of the two FTUB's executive members

General Than Shwe, Chairman
State Law & Order Restoration Council
192, Kaba Aye Pagoda Road
Bahan Post Office,
Yangon, Union of Myanmar

Date- 24 June 1997

Dear General,

The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, which represents
124 million workers through its 195 affiliated national union centres in
137 countries and territories, protest in the strongest possible terms
against the arrest, on 13 June 1997 in Yangon of U Khin Kyaw and U Myo
Aung Thant, two Executive Committee Members of the Federation of Trade
Unions-Burma (FTUB).

U Myo Aung Thant is a member of the All Burma Petrol-Chemical
Corporation Union since 1988. He was arrested on his return from Bangkok
on 13th June at Mingaladon airport, by officers of National Intelligence
Bureau (NIB). His wife and children were also detained. Later that day,
NIB officials arrested U Khin Kyaw and his wife at their home. U Khin
Kyaw is an official of the seamen's Union of Burma, a member of FTUB and
an ITF affiliate of the Internal Transport Workers' Federation (ITWF).
He was detained for trade union activities in 1993; after his release by
court order5 for lack of evidence, he was never compensated for his
arbitrary detention nor re-instated in his job. He was tortured during
his detention and his wife was sexually abused.

General, arrest of the trade union activists in retaliation for the
exercise of legitimate trade union activists is a flagrant violation of
internationally-guaranteed trade union rights, full respect of which is
binding on the Union of Myanmar by virtue of its membership in the
International Labour Organization. As one of the prisoners has already
been tortured during a previous period of detention, the ICFTU further
considers both U Khin Kyaw and U Myo Aung Thant, as well as their
relatives detained with them, to be at grave risk of torture.

We thus ask you, General, to order the immediate and unconditional
release of our two detained colleagues and of all their relatives, and
request you to provide public guarantees that they have not and will not
be tortured during their detention. I must advise you that failure to
obtain their release would leave the ICFTU no choice but to lodge a
formal complaint against the Union of Myanmar at the International
Labour Office (ILO) and the appropriate UN human rights mechanisms. In
the meantime, I have requested ICFTU - affiliated unions around the
world, and particularly in the Asia & Pacific region, to denounce the
arrest of the two FTUB officials and of their relatives.


							Yours sincerely


							sd. xxxxxxxxxx

							General Secretary