UN Call to End Burma Abuses Hits Flat Note

Elizabeth Olson
International Herald Tribune
Thursday, May 3, 2001

Member States Fail to Rally in Fight Against Forced Labor

GENEVA Last November, the International Labor Organization issued its first call for stiff sanctions against one of its own, asking its 175 member countries to punish Burma's military government if Rangoon continued the widespread practice of using forced labor.

The action was extraordinary for the UN agency, which sets global standards in the battle against child labor and workplace discrimination. The organization, composed of governments, employers' organizations and labor unions, traditionally seeks consensus on issues, inhibiting it from taking radical steps.

While the organization did not recommend specific sanctions, analysts say its initiative was aimed at cutting off activities, including trade and investment, that foster Burma's use of forced labor. But the ensuing months have highlighted the complexities of trying to force a reluctant country to change its ways. Even though human rights groups and trade unions say they have clear evidence that forced labor is continuing in Burma, a recent labor organization report did not identify any country that had taken new measures against it since the agency's call.

Further weakening the effort to isolate Burma, Japan in April announced the largest aid package to Burma since the military government's crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in 1988.

The European Union and the United States, which had indicated they would be prepared to move ahead with additional sanctions, have taken no action since the organization's initiative. The EU suspended trade privileges in 1997 and has listed Burma as the only exception to an initiative to drop trade barriers for most developing-country goods. .The union's administrative body said it was "ready to propose further measures," including some in the trade and investment areas. But, as with the United States, its chances of hitting Burma where it hurts - barring its textiles - are limited because Burma is a member of the World Trade Organization and protected by its free-trade rules. Even though a U.S. State Department report this year listed Burma among the world's top three human rights abusers, Washington's maneuvering room is limited. In addition, support in Congress for fresh action on Burma has fractured as the generals in power in Rangoon have kept open a dialogue with Burma's most prominent dissident, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. .The United States has already banned investment in Burma and suspended its trade preferences. Yet it finds itself as Burma's biggest export market despite past congressional interest in curbing its imports, mostly textiles.

In fact, both the United States and the EU have seen their trade with Burma soar in recent years. .According to statistics provided by the European Union statistical agency, Eurostat, trade by the 15 countries that make up the EU nearly doubled from E222.6 million ($198.6 million) in December 1999 to E404.3 million last December. .U.S. Commerce Department figures show a 372 percent increase since 1997 and a 118 percent increase since last year to $412 million in imports to the United States.

As much as the Americans and Europeans find themselves in a quandary over Burma, the labor organization has discovered that its strong stand against Rangoon's conscript labor has highlighted, inadvertently, its biggest weakness - a lack of enforcement power.

American officials at the March meeting of the agency's governing body publicly worried about the labor organization's effectiveness in ensuring an end to compulsory labor.

"In the absence of democratic reforms in Burma, the practical ability of an ILO presence there to assure that forced labor has been eliminated nationwide is highly problematic," a U.S. Labor Department official, Charles Spring, told the group. .The agency's credibility is important to the Bush administration, which opposes efforts to directly link worker safeguards to trade issues. The White House appears to view the labor organization as the alternative to lodging the responsibility for labor standards at the World Trade Organization - an option favored by labor unions.

Efforts to link trade and labor standards are vigorously opposed by developing countries, which see such moves as protectionism by wealthy countries. .The World Trade Organization, unlike the labor agency, has enforcement power because its dispute-settlement system allows countries to impose sanctions on trade violators.

Some in the U.S. Congress would like to force the issue by getting legislation approved that would bar Burmese goods across the board, an action that would force Rangoon to file a trade organization complaint - thereby placing labor standards firmly before the trade forum.