Added sanctions the last thing Burma needs
(Special to Asia Times Online)
By Fred Thurlow
The decision last week by the Governing Body of the International Labor Organization (ILO) in Geneva calling for sanctions against Myanmar for the persistent use of forced labor is likely to cost the country aid and investment from governments, international institutions, as well as public and private entities.
Any new sanctions, in addition to those already imposed by the United States and the European Union, will place a heavy strain on the struggling Myanmese economy. It is one of the world's poorest countries, with an average per capita gross domestic product of US$300, according to World Bank figures. Foreign exchange reserves are believed to be below $350 million.
An immediate casualty could be the tourism industry, which the government is promoting heavily in an attempt to raise much-needed foreign currency. The country earned about $100 million in 1999 and had hoped to double this amount with its "Visit Myanmar" campaign which runs into next year.
The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), in welcoming the ILO decision, urged tour operators and multinationals working in Myanmar to heed the call for sanctions. It said multinational energy companies should also reconsider their involvement in the Myanmar-Thailand gas pipeline, where cases of forced labor have been reported. Britain's Premier Oil, France's TotalFinaElf and US company Unocal have commercial oil interests in Myanmar.
Unlike the sanctions of the United Nations Security Council, which spell out limits on trade and other punishments, the ILO will leave it to individual governments, employers, organizations and labor unions to determine what they will do. The ILO has 174 member nations.
The ILO urged its member states, private companies and other international bodies to "review their links with Myanmar and take appropriate measures to ensure [Myanmar] cannot take advantage of such relations to perpetuate or extend the system of forced or compulsory labor". The ILO has no powers of its own to impose or enforce sanctions.
Trade union bans could see Myanmar's valuable agricultural exports turned away from ports around the world, particularly on the eastern seaboard of India.
Myanmar remains shunned by most of the international community for its treatment of the pro-democracy opposition, which won elections in 1990 by a landslide but has never been allowed to govern. Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been held in de facto house arrest since then. A planned meeting of the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) and European Union foreign ministers in Laos in December is under threat because of international concerns over the treatment of Suu Kyi.
The EU has boycotted ministerial meetings with Asean since Myanmar was controversially admitted in 1997. Several European countries have indicated they will not be sending their foreign ministers to the Laos meeting and will be represented instead by junior ministers or diplomats.
Myanmar has been an ILO member since 1948 and it ratified ILO Convention 29 concerning forced labor in 1955. It was only in 1996 that accusations first surfaced that there was forced labor in the country.
The vote
In a show of hands, only four of the 56 delegations - China, India,Malaysia and Russia - voted against the move against Myanmar. The Governing Body, comprised of 28 government representatives, 14 worker and 14 employer representatives, based its decision on a negative report presented by a technical cooperation mission that last visited the country in October. As a result, the call was made for applying sanctions against an ILO member nation for the first time in the organization's 81-year history.
Several Asian nations attempted until the final hour to defer the issue until next year with a proposal presented by Malaysia and sponsored by the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore and Vietnam. The Malaysian delegation maintained that the Myanmar government had made "serious efforts" to apply the measures adopted by the Conference.
Earlier in the month, Thailand vetoed an initiative by Malaysia and Singapore to muster Asean support for Myanmar, which joined the regional bloc in 1997. Thailand says it cannot support Myanmar due to the 1 million illegal workers who have fled over the border because they "cannot tolerate the slave labor in Myanmar".
Other countries that backed delaying action against Yangon included China, India, Japan, Pakistan and Russia. European nations, the US and Canada, as well as all workers' and employers' representatives backed the decision.
The origin of the censure dates back to recommendations made by a 1998 ILO Commission of Inquiry, which found that forced labor in the country was ''widespread and systematic" and follow-up missions reported little progress. Subsequently, in June 1999 the ILO passed an unprecedented resolution that barred Myanmar from participating in any ILO meetings, seminars and symposia and from benefiting from any ILO assistance until it implemented recommendations of an ILO Commission of Inquiry related to core labor standards.
Myanmar's response
Myanmar said after the vote it will stop cooperating with the ILO on forced labor issues and warned that the decision would have a "negative impact on the very people it purports to protect and serve". The statements raised fears that the government would stall the few reforms it has introduced to end the widespread practice of forced labor in the country under the guise of voluntary community service. Myanmar insists the use of forced labor has been stopped and in late October issued a government order stating that "requisition of forced labor is illegal and is an offense under the existing laws of the Union of Myanmar''.
The home ministry also announced in October it had abolished two statutes that allow local authorities to compel the populace to work in public projects. This was reinforced on November 1 by a military directive. But the ILO judged the measures were "too little, too late".
Myanmese Deputy Foreign Minister Khin Maung Win told a news conference after the ILO ruling: "The resolution cannot hurt us too much as it does not carry much weight and individual countries are not obliged to comply with ILO's urgings." He added: "Trade patterns are mostly with neighboring countries who are not obliged to follow the resolution."
Earlier, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement dismissed the ILO move as being political and the result of a "a small group of hostile Western countries intent on decrying our efforts to deal with the issue of forced labor". The statement added that the credibility of the ILO was now at stake.
The statement continued: "It is heartening to note that a number of countries, including Asean members, have made known their reservations against the action taken by the Governing Body. Myanmar appreciates the stand by thesefriendly nations who held the view that instead of trying to criticize and isolate Myanmar, the door should be kept open for Myanmar and the ILO to work together for a satisfactory resolution of the issue in question."
According to the ICFTU, nearly 1 million people are currently subjected to forced labor in Myanmar, particularly in building roads, railways and military installations. The army has been singled out as the main offender.The ILO details instances of such activities as forced portering,cultivating food for the army, use of forced laborers as messengers,sentries, builders and for a variety of other duties, including work on railroads, canals and other infrastructure development. It also includes forced sex for the military. Failure to comply with the demands of the military authorities can and have resulted in the arrest and torture of those resisting.
Sanctions
United States: The US has sought to isolate Myanmar since the State Law and Order Restoration Council (Slorc) came to power in 1988, and especially since it refused to transfer power in 1990 to the National League for Democracy after losing an open election. Myanmar's ruling junta officially abolished the Slorc in November 1997 to replace it with the State Peace and Development Council.
The US has refused, among other things, to recognize the government's change of the country's name to Myanmar, but it has maintained limited diplomatic and economic ties as well as counter-narcotics cooperation with Yangon.
In 1990, Washington withdrew its ambassador from Yangon and since then it has opposed Myanmar's membership in various multilateral financial organizations, refused to approve licenses for the export of military-related items to Myanmar, and imposed limited economic sanctions on that country, for example, suspending Myanmar from the US Generalized System of Preferences (GSP).
US policy towards Myanmar seeks progress in three key areas: democracy, human rights, and counter-narcotics efforts. The US has engaged in sustained multilateral diplomacy to encourage Asean and other European and Asian nations to work in concert to pressure the country to address these key areas of concern.
US measures include: suspension of economic aid and withdrawal of Myanmar's eligibility for trade and investment programs; an arms embargo; blocking assistance from international financial institutions; and downgrading its diplomatic representation to charge d'affaires and visa restrictions on senior officials and their families. On May 20 1997,President Bill Clinton issued Executive Order 13047, which took effect on May 21, banning most new US investment in the "economic development of resources in Myanmar".
Subsequently, various state and local governments in the US passed laws prohibiting US and foreign companies that trade and invest in Myanmar from receiving public contracts in their jurisdictions, or restricted their ability to do so. Among these were the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the cities of San Francisco, Oakland, and New York,and several other local governments, including those of the small, liberal college towns of Madison, Wisconsin, and Berkeley, California. A number of universities and other academic institutions also divesting themselves of stock in companies that do business in Myanmar.
To achieve its goals for Myanmar, the US actively promotes international pressure on the government to enter into a meaningful dialogue on a democratic transition and to improve its human rights practices. The US pursues a multilateral strategy by consulting regularly, at senior levels, with leaders of countries having major trading and investment interests in Myanmar or concerns over human rights practices.
The US co-sponsors annual resolutions at the United Nations General Assembly and Commission on Human Rights that call for democratic change in Myanmar through dialogue and for improved human rights practices. The US also actively supports the UN's "good offices" approach to encouraging dialogue between the regime and the democratic opposition.
The US uses multilateral meetings, including the Asean Regional Forum and Post-Ministerial Conference to directly press Myanmar for positive change in the presence of fellow Asean members.
Narcotics: Each year since 1989 the US has certified that Myanmar has not cooperated sufficiently in counter-narcotics efforts.
Myanmar is the world's second leading producer of opium and accounts for about 80 percent of Southeast Asian production. In 1999, poppy cultivation and opium production continued their three-year decline,falling 31 percent and 38 percent respectively. Although the government has conducted eradication and crop-substitution programs, the decline in opium poppy cultivation was largely attributable to recurring drought.Analysts fear that cultivation may return to past levels, or even increase,when the drought ends. Methamphetamine production and distribution from Myanmar has continued to increase over the past six months.
While there is no evidence that the government is involved on an institutional level in the drug trade, there are continuing reports that corrupt army personnel may be aiding traffickers. The government implicitly tolerates the continued involvement in drug trafficking by ethnic insurgents who have signed ceasefire agreements. These ceasefires have the practical effect of condoning money laundering as the government also encourages former drug traffickers to invest their ill-gotten gains in the legitimate economy.
European Union (EU): The EU has implemented similar sanctions to those of the US, including an arms embargo, visa restrictions, and the withdrawal of GSP benefits.
In April 2000, EU foreign ministers tightened sanctions against Myanmar following a routine bi-annual review of the sanctions in Luxembourg. The ministers extended for a further six months a ban on letting various Myanmar officials visit EU countries. The visa ban had been due to expire at the end of April. In moves led by Britain and Denmark to tighten the sanctions, the ministers banned the export of "equipment that might be used for internal repression or terrorism''. They also agreed to publish the names of the officials affected by the visa ban and to impose a freeze on any funds held abroad by these people.
The EU initially imposed sanctions because of the treatment of the opposition led by Suu Kyi. Her party won an election in 1990 by a landslide but the military ignored the result and detained many of its members.
The visa ban on senior Myanmar officials forced the cancellation of a meeting of foreign ministers from the EU and Asean set for Berlin last year. A lower-level meeting was later held instead.
In a conciliatory gesture, reflecting the desire of some member states for a broader political dialogue as a way of putting pressure on Myanmar,EU ministers stressed the importance of the EU-Asean relationship.The ministers also agreed the EU "troika", its top foreign policy team, should visit Myanmar to explain and promote the aims of the EU's policy towards the country, but set no date. They also agreed to ask the EU's executive European Commission to look at the possibilities for increased cooperation with Myanmar but gave no details.
Japan has maintained the suspension of much of its bilateral aid program.
Asean: Many members of Asean believe that constructive engagement with the government is the most effective way to promote positive change.