News & Articles on Burma-Friday, 25 March, 2011

News & Articles on Burma
Friday, 25 March, 2011
-------------------------------------------------------------
UWSA Calls for Dialogue with Junta
Burma’s dissident groups demand removal of military’s homemade sanctions
Over 3,700 Burmese Fishermen Still Missing, Presumed Dead
Burmese Regime Urged to Respect Laws of War
Reading between the anti-sanctions line
Quake death toll could reach 100 and more
British activist deported from Burma
At least 75 killed in Burma quake: officials
Freedom of Association Law a Litmus Test for 'New' Burma
-------------------------------------------------




UWSA Calls for Dialogue with Junta
By KO HTWE Friday, March 25, 2011

In a statement issued last Saturday, Burma's largest ethnic armed group, the United Wa State Army (UWSA), called on the country's military junta to resume dialogue with cease-fire armies in order to avoid a resumption of hostilities.

The statement, issued during a conference attended by around 200 key members of the UWSA and addressed to the Burmese junta and the group's ethnic allies, said the regime and cease-fire groups should not allow their differences over the border guard force (BGF) issue and territorial claims to spark a new outbreak of war.

Although it urged a conciliatory approach, however, the statement was critical of the regime for pushing its agenda on cease-fire groups.

“One-way 'negotiations' that merely force ethnic representatives to listen to representatives of the military only lead to tension and fighting,” the statement said.

“For the development of the country and the good of the people, both sides must make an effort to avoid conflict,” it added.

The statement also mentioned that when the regime's chief negotiator, Lt-Gen Ye Myint, met with UWSA leader Bao Youxiang in June 2009, he said that junta head Snr-Gen Than Shwe recognized the group as a “partner”.

The UWSA is the most powerful armed cease-fire group in Burma. Like most of the other groups, it has rejected the BGF plan, which requires ethnic militias to transform themselves into special units under Burmese military command.

The regime has been pushing the plan since April 2009, with little success. Although a handful of groups have already joined the BGF scheme, others have rejected it, raising the specter of a return to hostilities after more than two decades of relative peace.
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21014
-----------------------------------------------
Burma’s dissident groups demand removal of military’s homemade sanctions
By Zin Linn Mar 25, 2011 9:36PM UTC

All Burma Monks’ Alliance, 88 Generation Students and All Burma Federation of Student Unions have made a joint statement on Wednesday demanding immediate withdraw Sanctions imposed by military regime upon people in the poor country.

The SPDC or military regime is constantly blaming and rebuking sanctions imposed by western democracies. In the same way, political parties that have contested in 2010 elections as well as ASEAN countries are also echoing the regime’s voice that foreign countries’ sanctions are cause of poverty in Burma. ASEAN countries and those political parties have been clamoring to get favor from the regime for their self-interest and business opportunities, the joint-statement also says.

Sanctions are made on the military regime and its cronies due to human rights violations, oppression of ethnic minorities, persecution and detention of political activists and abuse of power. If the junta wants to withdrawal of sanctions, it must improve in human rights situation, the statement says.

The group additionally highlights their criticism in their joint statement as follow.

Military’s monopolies, restrictions and mismanagement of country’s resources are cause to be poverty of immeasurable scale on Burmese people. International sanctions chiefly concentrate on arms embargo, freezing bank transactions of military junta and visa ban.

Poverty and living hardships of the people are not due to Western countries’ sanctions. It is just because of SPDC’s wrong policies intended to perpetuate its military ruling. It occurred as a result of expanding its arms and military buildup, seeking nepotism and self-enrichment, and waging a civil war upon ethnic nationalities and entire pro-democracy forces rather than making a political settlement through dialogue, as the group pointed out in their joint-statement.

With such fallacious policies, the regime is imposing sanctions upon its own people, nailing them eternally to poverty. For instance, freedom of political parties, unions, civil society organizations for education, health and social welfare has been banned or restricted under unreasonable laws and decrees. Even UN agencies such as UN Human Rights Council, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) are restricted, rejected or ignored by the junta.

Though the regime forbids civil servants engaging in politics, it allows army personnel to participate in politics. Moreover, they are even allowed taking part in the parliamentary politics leading role without contesting in the elections or without people’s mandate.

Freedom of writing, printing, publishing and distribution through news media is restricted with all kinds of unfair set of laws. Freedom of gathering news is also banned. Foreign news agencies’ broadcasts are also forbidden in the armed forces. Installation of Satellite antennas are not allowed so as to shut eyes and ears of the military and the people.

All artistic creations such as poems and fiction, even including traditional astrology pamphlet and traditional hip-hop chanting for Thingyan (Water Festival) are banned or harshly censored.

Welfare services, free education charities, relief and assistance for victims of Cyclones Nargis or Giri and famine in Chin State are harassed, delayed or blocked under unfair laws and undue measures.

Internet users are restricted under many regulations; numerous websites are banned; Internet speed is slowed down intentionally; spying measures installed at Internet cafes invading into privacy; threatening with the Electronic Law; phone lines are tapped; mails are opened or undelivered. Citizens’ Freedom of travels is restricted with unnecessary decrees. Right of foreign travels is also not allowed by banning passports.

Such conditions are extracted as examples of junta’s sanctions imposed on the civilian people in realms of politics, economy, social affairs and culture, according to the groups’ joint-statement.

In realty, Military regime and most recent political parties’ should not call to Western countries to lift sanctions on the military rule country. Instead, they must call to the junta removing sanctions imposed on its own population.

The group – All Burma Monks’ Alliance, 88 Generation Students and All Burma Federation of Student Unions – seriously demand the incumbent military regime to do a pragmatic and honorable attempt removing those homemade sanctions on the people.

The joint statement also urges the junta initiating national reconciliation dialogue to create good political and economic surroundings in poverty-stricken Burma.
http://asiancorrespondent.com/51174/burma%E2%80%99s-dissident-groups-demand-removal-of-military%E2%80%99s-homemade-sanctions/
-----------------------------------------------
Over 3,700 Burmese Fishermen Still Missing, Presumed Dead
By NA YEE LIN LATT Friday, March 25, 2011

Of the 7,000 fishermen that were swept into the Andaman Sea during a tropical storm on March 14-16, a total of 3,374 have now been rescued, according to a source close to the Myanmar Marine Fishing Association (MMFA).

The remaining 3,700 are still missing. Nearly two weeks since 400 fishing vessels were overturned or destroyed in 70mph winds, little hope remains of anyone else surviving.

“There are currently about 400 fishing vessels at sea trying to rescue survivors of the storm,” said the source. “So far, more than 3,700 fishermen have been rescued and brought to Rangoon.”

Burma's state media reported on March 22 that naval ships, large fishing vessels and local fishing boats had jointly rescued 3,374 fishermen. While 3,152 have already gone home, 222 fishermen remain under government care, the report said, adding that the rescued fishermen had been provided medicine, clothes and food.

The tropical storm occurred off the Irrawaddy delta coast close to areas such as Bogalay and Laputta which were severely hit by Cyclone Nargis in May 2008.

“We already listed 7,000 people as missing at sea along with their vessels,” said an official from the Botahtaung Thanlyin naval compound. “But that figure does not include those people living in littoral areas. So the number of dead may be higher.”

He and other navy officers confirmed that more than 200 bodies had already been recovered from the sea.

“The majority of boats that were overturned were carrying local fishermen,” said the MMFA source. “Fishing vessels from Rangoon are generally larger, stronger and better equipped to resist the storm.”

Naval sources have estimated that the majority of missing fishermen are from Irrawaddy Division and Mon State.

State press reported that the Total E & P Myanmar Co. was involved in the rescue process. The company compensated each storm survivor with 20,000 kyat (US $20), medicine, clothes and other personal supplies, and arranged transportation for them.

However, a Rangoon-based journalist told The Irrawaddy that he was refused permission to talk to the survivors. “We [several Rangoon reporters] tried to talk with the storm refugees, but were not allowed.

The authorities sent them home right away. They even sent guards to accompany them to make sure they went straight home.”

State-run Myanmar Alin reported on March 13 that 100 houses and 38 huts in Rangoon and 20 houses in Irrawaddy Division were destroyed by the torrential winds.

Burma's Department of Meteorology and Hydrology reported on March 14 that the region would experience heavy winds and rain with some thunder and lightning, but did not predict the tropical storm.
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21012
----------------------------------------------------
Burmese Regime Urged to Respect Laws of War
By KO HTWE Friday, March 25, 2011

A US-based human rights group has sent an open letter to Burma's ruling regime urging it to respect international humanitarian laws, or “laws of war,” and cooperate with a UN investigation into alleged war crimes by the Burmese military.

The letter, addressed to the regime's judge advocate general, Maj-Gen Yar Pyae, and signed by James Ross, the legal and policy director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), also urged the regime to ensure that those responsible for abuses are held accountable.

“The army leadership needs to send the message that abuses must stop, and enforce that message by prosecuting the perpetrators,” the letter said.

Burmese military forces have long been accused of directly targeting civilians for attack in a number of ethnic minority areas, including in Karen, Karenni, Shan, Chin and Arakan states.

The letter cited a variety of offenses, including extrajudicial killings, torture, sexual violence against women and girls, forced labor, targeting of food production and other objects indispensable to the survival of the population, and confiscation of property.

The regime and other armed groups in Burma have also been criticized for using anti-personnel landmines and actively recruiting and deploying child soldiers. There have also been widespread reports of the junta using prisoners as army porters, in some cases even forcing them to act as human minesweepers.

The letter said that the regime should show it is serious about addressing these issues by “expressing a willingness to cooperate with a proposal to establish a United Nations Commission of Inquiry on laws-of-war and human rights violations.”

Such a move would “help curtail abuses by the country's warring parties,” Ross said. “It would also open the door within the country for serious discussions about justice and accountability.”
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21015
--------------------------------------------------
Reading between the anti-sanctions line
By JOSEPH ALLCHIN
Published: 25 March 2011

Most people arguing for the removal of sanctions tend to hark to a noble cause: the people of Burma, attending to an impoverishment that started long before sanctions were in place. But so a noble an argument is unfortunately wholly wrong, and whether wrong for the right reasons, or wrong because of ulterior motives, Burma’s poverty does not hinge upon trade.

If anything it is impossible to assert that sanctions have not worked, purely because they have barely existed – one cannot claim the policy is ‘counterproductive’ if those same sanctions allow German companies such as Deckel Maho Gildemeister (DMG) or Trumpf to sell machine parts to the military. The same goes for the major oil multinationals Total, Chevron and Transocean, whilst European countries seem to wilfully ignore their banks like UBS and Barclays who clean dirty money for those on the sanctions list.

Meanwhile in San Francisco’s Chinatown, vendors wilfully boast of the fact that their jade is Burmese, despite Bush’s JADE Act which banned the import of that commodity, and many more. The same cannot be said of Cuban cigars, however, the selling of which is viewed as almost treasonous.

It may then be worth remembering the embargo or ‘bloquero’ on that island as we look at Western policy to Burma, for Cuba makes Burma’s own much-discussed sanctions look like an Oval office joke, up there with Monica’s cigars.

Cuba’s sanctions came in 1962 when its government nationalised American-owned assets on the impoverished island, which had only just removed the US-backed Batista dictatorship. This crossing of such a fervent US threshold apparently warranted the most drastic sanctions ever known on the island, which was cursed by the proximity to its giant adversary.

Strangely, sanctions for a change in economic policy were much deeper and harder than anything that Burma has known, for the egregious human rights violations of the generals. As Obama suggested, sanctions on Cuba are “in the national interest of the United States”.

Over time Cuban sanctions have only gotten stricter, so much so that Clinton in 1996 closed the subsidiary clause, which happens to be the favoured mechanism for the likes of French-US telecoms giant Alcatel Lucent, which is alleged to supply the means for the Burmese junta to spy on their own people through the company’s Shanghai branch.

We do not hear people calling for the removal of US sanctions on Cuba, and they haven’t given the assets back to the US companies. But what have sanctions on Cuba done to the people of that country?

Pre-embargo Cuba was not dissimilar to Burma: a third of the population lived in poverty, only 15 percent of rural households had running water and the country was in thrall to US capital as vast swathes of the economy were owned by companies from the north.

Today however, after nearly 50 years of sanctions, Cuba has a higher level of human development than Hong Kong, and with a score of 0.863, ranks alongside Spain in the Human Development Index (HDI). It also has an infant mortality rate of 5.1 per 1000 live births, down from 39.2 at the time sanctions were enacted in 1962. The US’s meanwhile is 6.3, while Burma’s is 53.8.

In other words, sanctions on Cuba have not caused the ‘poor people’ of that country to fail that most basic of human indices, the right to survive their first birthday.

How would sanctions on Burma mean that 53.8 babies out of every 1000 don’t make their first birthday? Burma is not surrounded by a belligerent navy, and there is nothing stopping Burmese traders from importing a multitude of products from neighbouring countries. It also has an immense capability to grow food and under British rule was the world’s largest exporter of rice, hence its former nickname, ‘the rice bowl of Asia’.

Cuba does not have the finest jade, gems and rubies in the world, nor does she have billions of dollars worth of natural gas to sell, nor the last hardwood forests in Southeast Asia to plunder.

When ‘experts’ like Marie Lall from the British foreign policy think tank Chatham House assert that sanctions have undoubtedly “contributed to stagnation and impoverishment” what is she referring too? People don’t generally “stagnate” – economies do. It’s worth noting that Chatham House is funded by none other than Chevron and Total, the two oil companies who, contrary to sanctions, are busy profiting from Burma’s natural gas.

Lall claims to also advise the German government on their Burma policy. The so-called South Asia expert has 15 years experience in the region in countries which do not, as she laments of Burma, receive only $US5 per head in aid. She also has worked for Myanmar Egress, a position funded by the German think tank Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.

Indeed as European countries are dismantling their long-held aid missions to India, the nuclear powered ‘shining’ nation that started to open up to foreign business at around the time Lall was gaining her experience, we should all be aware that its openness has not achieved the desired results, with more than 40 percent of India’s children malnourished.

The openness and aid that Lall craves for Burma, as enunciated in her call to end sanctions, has not led to the results that she allegedly wants in other countries, with India’s infant mortality and child hunger levels remaining below those of Cuba.

In other words, there is no evidence that the supposed aims of the anti-sanctions lobby will be served by trade with the West. Their real reasons then are, if rational or informed, likely to be more political or economic than anything.

It is perfectly valid to believe that the practical political implications of sanctions are not effective – they haven’t resulted in a demonstrable change in the governance of Burma, despite the belief of many anti-sanctions people who assert that ‘we should do business” now the junta has held elections.

Why did the junta hold elections? The main reason most people would probably agree with is not that they are inherent democrats but that they craved legitimacy. Their illegitimacy was reinforced by sanctions and the sentiment they express. So if, as the International Crisis Group (whose corporate partners include Chevron) assert, small progress has been made with the elections, the assertion that sanctions do not work is logically flawed because for them they have had results – the elections.

Legitimacy is a major issue here, one which when viewed from the outside is often about as important to the West as Hosni Mubarak’s torture victims. The missing link with sanctions lifters is their relative appreciation of legitimacy – they would not be satisfied with the legitimacy of the current government in their own country, but are perfectly happy for it to suffice for the Burmese public.

Moreover if trade, as many claim, is good for the Burmese people, what’s wrong with the Chinese or Thais doing it? Why do we need your funders in there Marie?

If nations have a foreign policy it should reflect onto others the political legitimacy and aims with which they hold for themselves. If you believe in military rule, please send your DMG metal cutters and Chevron drills to help fund this “cause” (Lall may also get a pay rise), and if you believe in the right of a people to choose their own destiny then opposition is all you can offer to those that deny that right.
http://www.dvb.no/analysis/reading-between-the-anti-sanctions-line/14947
---------------------------------------------------
Quake death toll could reach 100 and more
Friday, 25 March 2011 11:36 S.H.A.N.

More than 80 coffins were sold out this morning in Tachilek, following last night’s 6.8 magnitude quake that centered in Talerh-Monglane area, 48 km north of Tachilek-Maesai border checkpoint, according to sources on the border.

More than an estimated hundred buildings, including the Talerh hospital, crumbled in Talerh, Monglane (20 km further northeast) and Mongphyak (35 km further northwest). “Half of a two-floored house was seen buried,” one source quoted an eye-witness as saying.

Estimates of the death toll range from 50 to more than 100, at the time of this writing. (10:30)

The bridge in Talerh (Talay), Chinese-constructed, is also unusable, as there were many cracks and earth on both banks of the river had collapsed.

Most of the people in Tachilek spent the night sleeping outdoors, as exhorted by the town authorities.

[Talerh (Talay): The town and the bridge] The convulsions reached as far as Mongyawng, Mongla, Panghsang and Namkham in the north and Monghsat and Mongton in the west. “I have never experienced an earthquake this strong throughout my whole life,” said a 50-year old native of Mongyang told SHAN.

This appears to be the third biggest natural disaster that has hit Burma. The first was the 2008 Cyclone Nargis and the second, the 2010 Cyclone Giri. http://www.shanland.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3529:quake-death-toll-could-reach-100-and-more&catid=90:environment&Itemid=287
--------------------------------------------------
British activist deported from Burma
By FRANCIS WADE
Published: 25 March 2011

A British human rights campaigner and author of a biography on Burmese junta chief Than Shwe has been deported from the country after officials, suspected to be military intelligence, tracked him to a Rangoon hotel.

Benedict Rogers, East Asia team leader for Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), had been in the country for a week before being ordered onto a Bangkok-bound flight on Wednesday morning.

“In some respects it’s a sign that they’re even more [paranoid] nowadays,” he told DVB from a taxi in Bangkok. “I’ve been in several times before and haven’t had any problem so it suggests that they’re watching people more closely now.”

Rogers, whose book ‘Than Shwe: Unmasking Burma’s Tyrant’ was published last year, had been in the bar of his Rangoon hotel on Tuesday evening when he was notified that authorities wanted to see him.

“I went up to my room and there were six people outside the door who said they were from the immigration department. I found that hard to believe – they were all in plain clothes, and must have been from MI [Military Intelligence]. They said, ‘Mr Rogers, we have instructions from Naypyidaw to deport you tomorrow’.”

Surprised, he asked why, claiming he was just on holiday in Burma. The officials replied that they were just following orders and then began searching the room. “They looked at my camera but I had no sensitive pictures on there.”

They then demanded to copy the photos despite appearing surprised that the only photos were of tourist sites. Questioned why, they said: “We have to show our superiors something”.

They also looked through his Kindle and searched his luggage, and after finding nothing untoward seemed to agree that he was “just a tourist”. But, said Rogers, he noticed one of the men flicking through a file and on one page was a photocopy of the front cover of his book.

The officials left around midnight, but told him to be ready by 7am the next morning and said he was allowed to stay in the hotel.

Rogers said that the cordial treatment he received from the officials reinforced his belief that “the issue is the system and not all the people in the system”.

The next morning at Rangoon airport he was met by large group of people – “MI, I’m sure, as well as genuine immigration officials and police”. He said the consistent photographing of him at the airport was “perhaps the most disappointing and unnerving aspect of the whole experience”.

One of the officials from the previous night then showed up and informed him of the reason for his deportation. “We know that you have written several books about Myanmar, including ‘Than Shwe: Unmaking Burma’s Tyrant’,” Rogers recalled.

Is it a crime to write a book, Rogers asked? And hadn’t Burma had elections in November and isn’t it now a democracy? He said the official was somewhat stumped. “He said, ‘Well, no no, Myanmar will be a democracy one day, but slowly, slowly.’ But I thought Myanmar was changing? is there no change? And he said, ‘No, no change’.”

The official then said: “I would be very interested to read your book – do you have a copy with you?” Rogers replied that he didn’t, but offered to take his address and send one, “and he didn’t respond to that”.

Questioned also whether the Burmese government deports many foreigners, the official smiled and said, “Yes, many”.

The activist, who has monitored the human rights situation in Burma for a number of years, added: “I would like to emphasise that I did not seek media coverage of my deportation, and at no point did I inform the media or request anyone else to do so. I am only commenting on it because somehow the media had already been informed and I then felt it important to clarify what actually happened.”

He finished that his deportation was symptomatic of the fact that it was business as usual in Burma. “From everyone I met, it’s abundantly clear that there’s been no change; that everyone from quite a range of perspectives was of the view that the elections have been incredibly disappointing, even more than people expected, I think.”
http://www.dvb.no/news/british-activist-deported-from-burma/14942
-------------------------------------------
BANGKOK POST
At least 75 killed in Burma quake: officials

* Published: 25/03/2011 at 03:31 PM
* Online news: Asia

At least 75 people were killed when a strong earthquake struck Burma, officials said Friday, with fears that the toll would rise as news filtered through from remote areas still cut off.

At least 75 people were killed when a strong earthquake struck Myanmar, officials said Friday, with fears that the toll would rise as news filtered through from remote areas still cut off.

Tremors were felt as far away as Bangkok, almost 800 kilometres (500 miles) from the epicentre, Hanoi and parts of China when the earthquake hit late on Thursday, which the US Geological Survey (USGS) measured at magnitude 6.8.

A Burma official said 74 people were killed and 110 were injured in five areas close to the epicentre. More than 240 buildings had collapsed.

"We are trying to reach the remote areas," the official said.

"The military, police and local authorities are trying to find some people injured in those affected areas but the roads are still closed."

Across the border, Thai authorities said a 52-year-old woman was killed in Mae Sai district after a wall in her house collapsed.

Terrified residents across the region fled their homes, tall buildings swayed and hospitals and schools were evacuated.

In Rangoon Chris Herink, Burma country director for the charity World Vision, said there did not appear to be "catastrophic infrastructure damage" in the affected areas of Kengtung and Tachileik, although buildings were cracked and water supplies disrupted in some parts.

"Of real concern though are the more rural areas. There will be more, I am afraid to say, unhappy information coming throughout the day," he said.

"It is a hilly area near the border between Thailand and Laos, the so-called Golden Triangle. There is a lot of commerce that goes on in the area."

World Vision helps care for around 7,000 children sponsored by overseas donors in the affected areas.

"We want to ensure that they and their families are safe, secure and accounted for and to offer assistance to them as a first priority but also to help anyone in the area that has humanitarian needs," he said.

The quake struck 90 kilometres (60 miles) north of Chiang Rai and 235 kilometres (150 miles) north-northeast of Chiang Mai, Thailand's second city and a popular tourist destination.

Thailand's meteorological department on Friday said it had registered six large aftershocks following the initial quake.

Residents in Chiang Rai city raced from their homes again on Friday morning as a large tremor again shook the ground.

Four pagodas in the historic town of Chiang Saen near the northern Thai border were damaged, including Chedi Luang, where its three-metre (10-foot) long pinnacle crashed to the ground.

The shaking was felt throughout China's southwestern province of Yunnan, according to state-run China National Radio, but no casualties or major structural damage had been reported as of Friday morning.

However, the earthquake reportedly caused cracks in some homes and schools in and around the rugged Xishuangbanna region that borders Burma, and fear of aftershocks forced many people in the area to spend the night outdoors.

Some residents of the Vietnamese capital Hanoi fled their homes when the quake shook the city.

Le Huy Minh, assistant director of the national Global Geophysics Institute in the capital, reported no victims or damage.

"There was big panic among the local residents," as high buildings shook for half a minute, said Nguyen Thai Son, of the institute's office in northwestern Dien Bien town, 350 kilometres from the epicentre.

But he added there were "neither victims nor material losses here".

Laos government spokesman Khenthong Nuanthasing said there had been no reports of casualties in his country from the earthquake.

"In Vientiane it was not strong," he said.

The quake comes two weeks after Japan was hit by a monster earthquake and tsunami that left around 27,000 people dead or missing and triggered a crisis at its Fukushima nuclear plant.

Burma and Japan sit on different tectonic plates, separated by the vast Eurasian plate.

No tsunami warning was issued after the Burma quake as US seismologists said it was too far inland to generate a devastating wave in the Indian Ocean.

The USGS initially recorded the quake as magnitude 7.0, but later revised it down to 6.8. http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/asia/228607/at-least-75-killed-in-burma-quake-officials
--------------------------------------------------
Freedom of Association Law a Litmus Test for 'New' Burma
By SIMON ROUGHNEEN Friday, March 25, 2011

BANGKOK—After a one-day strike by factory workers in Rangoon earlier this week proceeded unimpeded by Burmese police, thoughts are turning to the possible introduction of trade union legislation in the military-ruled country.

The recent downing of tools by around 500 mostly female workers at a Rangoon shoe factory follows a number of strikes during 2010 in a country where large public gatherings are rare and peaceful dissent is usually not tolerated.

What form the trade union laws take remains to be seen, however, with the terms currently undecided. On March 23, the International Labor Organization (ILO) asked the Burmese Government “to transmit to the Office, without delay, the draft law on Labor Organizations currently under preparation so as to allow a full and meaningful consultation.”

The request came after a June 2010 complaint sent to the ILO regarding Burma's violations of conventions regarding freedom of association and the rights of workers and others to organize. The complainants said that that there “is no legal framework to ensure freedom of association and, in practice, trade unionists are severely persecuted, including through the violation of their basic civil liberties.” The Burmese government labels the Federation of Trade Unions of Burma as a terrorist organization, with union figures among the country's more than 2100 political prisoners.

After requesting the Burmese authorities to submit the draft laws on freedom of association for review, the ILO deferred to Nov 2011 a decision on setting-up a Commission of Inquiry into Burma's alleged breaches of the freedom of association norms. This week's decision came after a late February “high-level” visit to Burma by an ILO delegation, which “received the full cooperation of the Government of Myanmar [Burma] in the organization and conduct of its program,” according to the ILO., which “was able to meet and hold a valuable discussion with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi” during the February 22-25 trip.

The Burmese government told the ILO that the proposed law is based on the country's 2008 Constitution, which contains provisions allowing for freedom of association. The Constitution is a much-criticized document that opponents say underpins continued military rule under a quasi-civilian guise. In what was widely seen as a rigged referendum, the Constitution was controversially voted upon in in the days and weeks after the 2008 Cyclone Nargis devastated the Irrawaddy Delta region of Burma, leaving an estimated 147,000 people dead and 3 million homeless.

During the visit, when asked about the proposed legislation, the Burmese government said that it had consulted the state-backed Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI) on the draft law, “which would be presented to Parliament at its second or third session and would be in full conformity with Convention No. 87.”

However whether or not the Burmese Parliament will be allowed debate the new law or will be able to propose amendments remains to be seen. So far, opposition parties have had to submit topics for discussion 15 days in advance, with just 15 minutes allotted to date for individual house sittings. The Shan Nationalities Development Party (SNDP) has submitted a motion seeking to establish a procedure for forming private associations. However, according to Mizzima, the speaker of the Upper House of Parliament has said that motions featured in the media prior to their discussion in parliament will be dismissed.

The Burmese Home Affairs minister has already said that a motion seeking amnesty for Burma's political prisoners cannot be discussed in the new parliament, which was elected on Nov 7, 2010 in a vote dismissed as unfree by most observers. The army and the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), which is dominated by retired soldiers, holds over 80% of seats at national and regional parliamentary levels. The amnesty motion was proposed by the National Democratic Force (NDF), a minor opposition party comprised of former members of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD), which broke away after the NLD decided to boycott the 2010 elections, which it regarded as a facade aimed at perpetuating army rule in a civilian guise.

In the complaint against the Burmese government lodged at the ILO, ten union-affiliated political prisoners were mentioned. In response, the Burmese government told the ILO that the detainees are all criminals, in keeping with the official position that there are no political prisoners in Burma.The Burmese statement added that the prisoners are all being well-treated and are in good health. However the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) told The Irrawaddy that some of the names listed in the ILO documentation are in poor health and have been denied medical treatment in the various prisons across Burma where they are jailed. The AAPP is a Thailand-based organization which keeps track of prisoners of conscience in Burma.

While workers rights are routinely violated in Burma, according to human rights organizations, the ILO is working with the Burmese government to eradicate forced labor, one of the many transgressions noted in the latest ILO country report on Burma. According to the ILO statement, there are many forced-labor abuses taking place in Burma, such as “the exaction of forced labor by the civilian authorities and by the military, prison labor, forced labor related to the right to land use/occupancy, trafficking for forced labor and forced labor associated with both formal and informal sector commercial activities.”

The ILO notes that Burmese petitions to a complaints mechanism established in 2007 are increasing, reflecting what it believes is growing public awareness that some redress against worker rights violations is possible. The ILO says that “during the period from 21 October 2010 to 21 February 2011, a total of 127 new complaints were received, bringing the total number of complaints received since the inception of the complaints mechanism to 630.”

However, in a cautionary note, the ILO says that the government complaints concerning forced labor do not appear to be given the same level of priority as those about underage recruitment into the army, citing “ considerable delays being experienced before any response is received.” The ILO lamented that “in the case of complaints concerning the armed forces, the responses that are received usually make reference to voluntary community work or to citizens’ duties, or do not accept the complaint as genuine.”
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21011