[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index ][Thread Index ]

SCMP: Forced labour used to build M



Subject: SCMP: Forced labour used to build Mandalay airport, says opposition

South China Morning Post

Wednesday, July 7, 1999

BURMA

Forced labour used to build Mandalay airport, says opposition

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Updated at 3.36pm:Burma's military government has kicked villagers off
their land and used them as
forced Labour to build an airport road in Mandalay, the country's
opposition party said Wednesday.
''Villagers in Ze-gyo have been evicted because the Mandalay international
airport road cuts through
their village,'' said a National League for Democracy statement posted on
the Internet. Mandalay,
560 kilometres north of the capital Rangoon, is Burma's former capital and
an important tourist
destination. Activist groups also accused the government of using forced
Labour to renovate
Mandalay's royal palace before Visit Burma Year in 1996. In the road
construction for the airport,
the NLD said, ''forced Labour of the villagers is required for transporting
crushed granite powder
from the vehicles transporting the rocks to road sites''. ''These villagers
are day to day wage earners
and this forced Labour is causing untold hardship,'' said the NLD, the
party led by Nobel Peace
Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. The International Labour Organisation
recently condemned Burma
and denied it access to any of its programs or support because of the
widespread use of forced
Labour by the military government. A military spokesman in Burma was not
immediately available to
respond to the NLD charges. The government has denied the accusations of
forced Labour by the
ILO, the United Nations and other human rights groups, such as Amnesty
International. The
government has said that the workers willingly volunteer their Labour.