SCMP-Forced labour used to build Ma

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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

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.