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ILO Censures Myanmar Despite Asian Opposition The executive body of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) had to wend its way through a complicated debate, and the resistance of Asian nations, to open the way for sanctions against Myanmar (Burma) for its widespread use of forced labour. The actions could cost Myanmar aid from other governments, international institutions, as well as public and private entities. The ILO resolution calls for the unprecedented implementation on Nov 30 of its constitution's Article 33, enacting measures of censure against the Myanmar government. The Myanmar delegation responded by announcing in Geneva that it would refuse all future collaboration with the ILO. The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), which headed the campaign against the Rangoon military regime, estimates there are approximately one million people subjected to forced labour in Myanmar. The application of measures by the international community will likely mean the government's plans to boost income from tourism will fail. The country took in 100 million tourism dollars in 1999 and had projected 200 million for next year, according to the ICFTU. The ILO Governing Body stated that its Commission of Inquiry had not observed progress in Myanmar towards adopting the international convention against forced labour. As a result, the decisions adopted last June by the International Labour Conference were left intact, and call for applying sanctions against an ILO member nation for the first time in the organisation's 81-year history. Several Asian nations attempted until the final hour to defer the issue with a proposal presented by Malaysia, and sponsored by the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore and Vietnam, to postpone discussion until the next sessions of the Conference. The Malaysian delegation maintained that the Myanmar government had made ''serious efforts'' to apply the measures adopted by the Conference. Other countries that backed delaying action against Rangoon included China, India, Japan and Russia. Meanwhile, European and Latin American nations, as well as labour and corporate delegates, supported the condemnation. The Governing Body, the ILO's executive, is comprised of 28 government representatives, 14 labour delegates and several from business organisations. Its decision was based on the negative report presented by the technical co-operation mission that visited the country in October. But the origin of the censure dates back to recommendations made by the 1998 Commission of Inquiry, which found that forced labour in the country was ''widespread and systematic.'' The Commission's recommendations called for Myanmar to ''take concrete actions'' toward implementing the international convention against forced labour, which the country ratified in 1955. The ICFTU affirmed that, despite the recommendations, the Myanmar military continued to harass residents in rural areas, forcing them to perform, without pay, all kinds of tasks, ranging from road repair, barracks maintenance and weapons transport to growing crops that were sold for the army's profit. The Brussels-based global union said the Myanmar military dictatorship is concerned that sanctions could strangle the country's economy, which - apart from drug-trafficking - depends heavily on sales to Thailand of natural gas from the deposits in the Andaman Sea. The international sale of natural gas was made possible by the pipeline built by Elf-Total-Fina and Unocal, two companies ''harshly criticised for their use of forced labour and the displacement of the local population,'' said the ICFTU. The sanctions of the International Labour Conference, to take effect at the end of this month, call for a full investigation, trial and punishment for those found guilty of forced labour. They also establish that future sessions of the Conference will assess ''the implementation of the Commission of Inquiry's recommendations at future sessions of the Conference so long as Myanmar has not been shown to have fulfilled its obligations.'' Another point of the resolution recommends that ILO members ''review their relations with Myanmar and take appropriate measures to ensure that such relations do not perpetuate or extend the system of forced or compulsory labour in that country.'' ILO Director-General, Juan Somavía, is to ''inform international organisations working with the ILO to reconsider any co-operation they may be engaged in with Myanmar and,if appropriate, to cease as soon as possible any activity that could have the effect of directly or indirectly abetting the practice of forced or compulsory labour.''
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