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12 August, 2005ICEM News release No. 69/1998
Forced labour is "widespread and systematic" in Burma (Myanmar), says a major report published today by the UN's International Labour Organisation (ILO).
The report on the forced labour practices of the Burmese military junta was produced by a special ILO Commission of Enquiry after sifting voluminous evidence. It is one of the ILO's strongest ever condemnations of a national government - and probably the world's most detailed and careful compilation of evidence concerning Burmese forced labour.
A "saga of untold misery" in Burma is described by the three-person Commission, which comprised former Chief Justices of India and Barbados and an Australian barrister.
They note "abundant evidence" of "the pervasive use of forced labour imposed on the civilian population throughout Myanmar by the authorities and the military." Women, children and the elderly are among those forced into work which is "almost never remunerated or compensated."
"Forced labourers, including those sick or injured, are frequently beaten or otherwise physically abused by soldiers, resulting in serious injuries," the ILO report says. "Some are killed, and women performing compulsory labour are raped or otherwise sexually abused by soldiers."
In a clear warning to Burma's rulers and others concerned, the Commission points out that any person who violates the prohibition of recourse to forced labour in international law bears an individual criminal responsibility.
The ILO findings will further increase the pressure on multinationals to withdraw from Burma for as long as the junta stays in power there. The call on firms to quit Burma was renewed today by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) and the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM).
"The ILO report makes it quite clear that the Burmese economy runs on forced labour," commented ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe. "Any company that stays in Burma is benefiting either directly or indirectly from that illegal and immoral system. There can be no justification for maintaining investments in Burma as things stand there today."
The ICFTU also today called on the Burmese junta to resign and hand over power to a democratic, civilian-led government.
The ICFTU coordinated international worker complaints which led the ILO to set up the special Commission. Support came from the ICEM and other union internationals. The complaints were based on ILO Convention 29, which prohibits forced labour. Burma has been a party to this Convention since 1955.
ARCO QUITS
A number of multinationals have already decided to quit Burma, the latest being the US-based energy corporation ARCO. The company's announcement on 12 August that it would not be renewing its remaining exploration lease in Burma is a major victory for Burmese and US campaigners. Oil and gas exports are the Burmese junta's biggest legal revenue earner - rivalled only by its lucrative illegal trade in heroin and other narcotics.
Both the US and the EU already have a range of economic sanctions in place against the Burmese regime, due mainly to international trade union campaigning on the issues of forced labour and child labour.
Prominent among the campaigners for oil companies to withdraw has been the ICEM-affiliated US oil, chemical, atomic and allied workers' union OCAW.
"We are proud of our rank and file members and ARCO workers who confronted management directly with this issue at the refinery and shareholders meetings," commented OCAW President Robert Wages. "We also profess our admiration to all the activists who turned up the heat and made ARCO's Burma investment a lose-lose situation."
ARRESTS AND TORTURE
Wages condemned the recent arrest of 18 Burmese peace activists in Rangoon. "We hold Unocal, Total and Arco directly responsible for these arrests," Wages said. "It's the oil companies who prop up this corrupt narco-regime."
Meanwhile, the ICEM and its affiliated unions worldwide are stepping up their pressure for the release of Burmese trade unionists U Myo Aung Thant and U Khin Kyaw. Both were arrested on 13 June 1997 and have been in jail ever since. U Myo Aung Thant has been sentenced to ten years in jail and given a concurrent life sentence for "high treason". The "treason" was his attempt to form a trade union in the All-Burma Petrochemical Corporation, where he was employed. U Khin Kyaw, from the Seafarers' Union of Burma, was arrested with him and is apparently being held without trial. Both are reported to have been tortured in prison.
OIL COMPANIES ACCUSED
Oil and gas multinationals have been widely criticised for their economic support of the Burmese junta, but energy corporations have also faced specific accusations that they have directly benefited from forced labour.
The charges have centred on the Tavoy pipeline, built to carry gas from the Yadana field off the Burmese coast to Thailand. The main partners in the Tavoy consortium are the energy multinationals Total and Unocal, together with the Petroleum Authority of Thailand Exploration and Production Company and Burma's state-run Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE).
Two particular allegations were examined by the ILO Commission. One was a charge that helipads built by forced labour had been used by the oil companies. "In a communication addressed to the Commission, TOTAL stated that most of the helipads situated on the pipeline route had been constructed by TOTAL or by companies working for TOTAL and applying its code of conduct, although TOTAL did not know under what conditions other helipads in the region had been constructed."
The other charge concerns preparatory work on the pipeline site: "There was evidence before the Commission in the form of secondary statements that forced labour was used until May 1995 for ground clearance work to provide access to survey teams for the Yadana gas pipeline project in Yebyu township, Tanintharyi Division. In a communication addressed to the Commission TOTAL stated that it was wrong to claim that the preparatory clearing work could have been undertaken by forced labourers for the purpose of facilitating the access of the project teams. During the years 1993 and 1994, clearing work had been carried out by the Compagnie générale de géophysique (CGG)."
The ILO Commission ultimately found itself unable to rule on these allegations, because the junta refused it permission to visit Burma and investigate: "In view of the contradiction between the facts presented, and since the Commission was denied access to Myanmar to supplement its evidence, no finding on this matter could be made." So for the present, these charges are neither proven nor rejected.
"STAND BY THE ILO" - AUNG SAN SUU KYI
But as to the Burmese junta itself and its forced labour system, the ILO's findings are conclusive and damning.
Commenting in Burma on today's ILO report, Nobel Prize-winning Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi said: "What the ILO needs to do is not just put an end to forced labour in Burma but also to try to create conditions under which our workers can get a fair deal... It is for the international community to stand by the ILO and to insist that necessary changes be brought about in Burma."
The report on the forced labour practices of the Burmese military junta was produced by a special ILO Commission of Enquiry after sifting voluminous evidence. It is one of the ILO's strongest ever condemnations of a national government - and probably the world's most detailed and careful compilation of evidence concerning Burmese forced labour.
A "saga of untold misery" in Burma is described by the three-person Commission, which comprised former Chief Justices of India and Barbados and an Australian barrister.
They note "abundant evidence" of "the pervasive use of forced labour imposed on the civilian population throughout Myanmar by the authorities and the military." Women, children and the elderly are among those forced into work which is "almost never remunerated or compensated."
"Forced labourers, including those sick or injured, are frequently beaten or otherwise physically abused by soldiers, resulting in serious injuries," the ILO report says. "Some are killed, and women performing compulsory labour are raped or otherwise sexually abused by soldiers."
In a clear warning to Burma's rulers and others concerned, the Commission points out that any person who violates the prohibition of recourse to forced labour in international law bears an individual criminal responsibility.
The ILO findings will further increase the pressure on multinationals to withdraw from Burma for as long as the junta stays in power there. The call on firms to quit Burma was renewed today by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) and the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM).
"The ILO report makes it quite clear that the Burmese economy runs on forced labour," commented ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe. "Any company that stays in Burma is benefiting either directly or indirectly from that illegal and immoral system. There can be no justification for maintaining investments in Burma as things stand there today."
The ICFTU also today called on the Burmese junta to resign and hand over power to a democratic, civilian-led government.
The ICFTU coordinated international worker complaints which led the ILO to set up the special Commission. Support came from the ICEM and other union internationals. The complaints were based on ILO Convention 29, which prohibits forced labour. Burma has been a party to this Convention since 1955.
ARCO QUITS
A number of multinationals have already decided to quit Burma, the latest being the US-based energy corporation ARCO. The company's announcement on 12 August that it would not be renewing its remaining exploration lease in Burma is a major victory for Burmese and US campaigners. Oil and gas exports are the Burmese junta's biggest legal revenue earner - rivalled only by its lucrative illegal trade in heroin and other narcotics.
Both the US and the EU already have a range of economic sanctions in place against the Burmese regime, due mainly to international trade union campaigning on the issues of forced labour and child labour.
Prominent among the campaigners for oil companies to withdraw has been the ICEM-affiliated US oil, chemical, atomic and allied workers' union OCAW.
"We are proud of our rank and file members and ARCO workers who confronted management directly with this issue at the refinery and shareholders meetings," commented OCAW President Robert Wages. "We also profess our admiration to all the activists who turned up the heat and made ARCO's Burma investment a lose-lose situation."
ARRESTS AND TORTURE
Wages condemned the recent arrest of 18 Burmese peace activists in Rangoon. "We hold Unocal, Total and Arco directly responsible for these arrests," Wages said. "It's the oil companies who prop up this corrupt narco-regime."
Meanwhile, the ICEM and its affiliated unions worldwide are stepping up their pressure for the release of Burmese trade unionists U Myo Aung Thant and U Khin Kyaw. Both were arrested on 13 June 1997 and have been in jail ever since. U Myo Aung Thant has been sentenced to ten years in jail and given a concurrent life sentence for "high treason". The "treason" was his attempt to form a trade union in the All-Burma Petrochemical Corporation, where he was employed. U Khin Kyaw, from the Seafarers' Union of Burma, was arrested with him and is apparently being held without trial. Both are reported to have been tortured in prison.
OIL COMPANIES ACCUSED
Oil and gas multinationals have been widely criticised for their economic support of the Burmese junta, but energy corporations have also faced specific accusations that they have directly benefited from forced labour.
The charges have centred on the Tavoy pipeline, built to carry gas from the Yadana field off the Burmese coast to Thailand. The main partners in the Tavoy consortium are the energy multinationals Total and Unocal, together with the Petroleum Authority of Thailand Exploration and Production Company and Burma's state-run Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE).
Two particular allegations were examined by the ILO Commission. One was a charge that helipads built by forced labour had been used by the oil companies. "In a communication addressed to the Commission, TOTAL stated that most of the helipads situated on the pipeline route had been constructed by TOTAL or by companies working for TOTAL and applying its code of conduct, although TOTAL did not know under what conditions other helipads in the region had been constructed."
The other charge concerns preparatory work on the pipeline site: "There was evidence before the Commission in the form of secondary statements that forced labour was used until May 1995 for ground clearance work to provide access to survey teams for the Yadana gas pipeline project in Yebyu township, Tanintharyi Division. In a communication addressed to the Commission TOTAL stated that it was wrong to claim that the preparatory clearing work could have been undertaken by forced labourers for the purpose of facilitating the access of the project teams. During the years 1993 and 1994, clearing work had been carried out by the Compagnie générale de géophysique (CGG)."
The ILO Commission ultimately found itself unable to rule on these allegations, because the junta refused it permission to visit Burma and investigate: "In view of the contradiction between the facts presented, and since the Commission was denied access to Myanmar to supplement its evidence, no finding on this matter could be made." So for the present, these charges are neither proven nor rejected.
"STAND BY THE ILO" - AUNG SAN SUU KYI
But as to the Burmese junta itself and its forced labour system, the ILO's findings are conclusive and damning.
Commenting in Burma on today's ILO report, Nobel Prize-winning Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi said: "What the ILO needs to do is not just put an end to forced labour in Burma but also to try to create conditions under which our workers can get a fair deal... It is for the international community to stand by the ILO and to insist that necessary changes be brought about in Burma."