Forced labour still massive in Burma, says ICFTU
source : ICFTU
Brussels, December 03, 2001 (ICFTU OnLine): "Burma's military authorities continue to resort to forced labour on a massive scale, in spite of their denials and alleged spirit of co-operation with the ILO", the Brussels-based International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) said today.
In a new report submitted on November 30 to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the ICFTU accuses "senior, middle and low-ranking army officers and rank-and-file soldiers, as well as civilian authorities, to have continued to exact forced labour in all areas of activity previously identified by the ILO".
The report, totalling over 100 pages with its appendices, includes recent evidence of " forced portering for the army, often in combat, with frequent deaths of porters from exhaustion, disease, deprivation of food, water, rest and medical care or by sheer murder". Other recent cases describe "forced road clearing and building, construction and maintenance of army installations, confiscation of land and forced agricultural work on this land for the army's benefit or profit, compulsory supplies of construction materials, food (including rice, meat, fish, vegetables and fruit) and alcohol, forced labour in army-owned brick kilns and forced supply of firewood for them, as well as random and arbitrary tax collection.
Women, many of them raped by officers and soldiers, and children as young 8 were forced to carry heavy loads for the military in Shan State last July. Others were forced to clear a road infested with landmines in Karenni and Karen State, last September. Thousands of civilians are presently carrying out forced labour constructing a railroad in southern Shan State, under the control of one Captain Than Naing Oo, of the 66th Infantry Battalion.
The report says that forced labour had decreased in some areas immediately prior to and during the ILO visit to the country, but had resumed since on an identical scale as before. It also says dozens of army officers were identified by name in the report, including top army commanders belonging to the junta's ruling circle. One of them is General Myint Swe, Commander-in-Chief of the Southeast Military Command and a member of the ruling State Peace and Development Committee (SPDC, official name of the junta). Villagers in Mon State were forced to rebuild a road ahead of a visit to the area by General Swe, only days after he had met with the ILO's High-Level Team, on September 25 and 27.
The ICFTU report also exposes several concrete cases of military pressure on the civilian population to hide the reality and extent of forced labour from an ILO investigation which toured the country last September-October. It concludes by saying that "military and civilian authorities at every level, including the highest echelons of the state, have colluded to deny or disguise the reality of forced labour, through manipulation, deception, intimidation, threats and violence."
"Our new and massive evidence once more shows how important it is for the international community to act forcefully against the Burmese junta's systematic use of forced labour. It should also send a strong signal to multinational companies still present there that it is high time for them to reconsider their Burma links and operations".
Earlier last month, the ICFTU released the first version of a list of companies with links to Burma, containing 250 enterprises, all of which were contacted and asked that they withdraw from the country on human rights grounds.
"Training criminals in human rights' standards is a poor substitute for putting effective pressure on them; only disinvestment can achieve that", ICFTU General Secretary Bill Jordan concluded.
Link to the new ICFTU report submitted to the ILO Committee of Experts.
Link to the list of companies identified by the ICFTU and its Global Unions partners.
The ICFTU represents more than 157 million workers in 226 affiliated organisations in 148 countries and territories. ICFTU is also a member of Global Unions: http://www.global-unions.org
For more information, please contact the ICFTU Press Department on +32 2 224 0232 or +32 476 62 10 18.