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2 Forcing the issue on Myanmar
labor By Clive Parker
CHIANG MAI, Thailand - In an agreement
announced on Monday after months of stalled
negotiations, Myanmar's ruling military junta said
it will allow the United Nations-affiliated
International Labor Organization free access to
the country to vet all allegations of forced
labor, a concession that came less than a month
before the ILO was set to refer Myanmar to the
International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague.
But will the deal lead to a genuine effort
by the hardline regime to
stamp out forced labor, which
in recent years has complicated and compromised
various foreign investments in the poor country?
Compared with the situation just over a year
ago, the deal no doubt marks a degree of progress.
In 2005, the junta had threatened to quit the ILO
altogether after several run-ins with the
organization's Yangon-based representatives. After
the ILO threatened to refer the generals to the
ICJ last May, the regime, which is now actively
courting foreign investment in its underdeveloped
energy sector, apparently panicked.
First
it released prominent labor activist Suu Suu Nway,
quickly followed by another, Aye Myint. Both had
been jailed for publicly supporting accusers of
the regime over its alleged forced-labor
practices. After their release, the government
agreed with the ILO to cease prosecuting those who
reported instances of forced labor, and soon
afterward the prosecution of complainants quietly
ceased.
Still, during negotiations last
year in Geneva, Yangon and the new capital
Naypyidaw, the government refused to allow the ILO
to receive any local allegations of forced labor
anonymously, citing fears that if they were kept
out of the loop the international body could be
manipulated for "political purposes". The main
sticking point was whether the ILO would be
permitted to expand its now-limited in-country
capacity to process and deal with forced-labor
complaints.
The junta had earlier said
that only the ILO's Yangon-based representative
Richard Horsey would be permitted to collect
information on alleged forced-labor practices.
Talks broke down just ahead of the ILO's
tri-annual governing-body meeting in Geneva last
November, prompting the body to prepare its
unprecedented ICJ referral.
Negotiations
resumed in January, in which the junta agreed to
the ILO's main requests, even compromising over
the 12-month trial period of the new arrangement.
Most important, the regime agreed not to take
retaliatory action against forced-labor
complainants, a practice that had caused the ILO
to stop receiving reports in May 2005.
Although the ILO has repeatedly called for
widespread dissemination of the junta's own laws
prohibiting forced labor, introduced in 1999 and
2000 under strong international pressure, the
military government has so far resisted. News of
this week's ILO agreement has notably not been
published in the state-censored local media,
raising questions about the junta's political
commitment to the new deal.
Military
personnel have long told people in ethnic areas,
particularly war-torn Karen state, that the rules
don't apply on the front line. The regime has
historically used forced conscripts to build
roads, to deliver army supplies and to prepare the
ground for major infrastructure projects,
including multinational-invested gas-pipeline
projects. Forced labor was used in the 1990s to
renovate Mandalay Palace, now one of the city's
main international-tourist attractions. And
reports of the use of forced labor continue to
trickle in, international rights monitors say.
Stunted investments The
sustained use of forced labor, even after major
international sanctions, has scared new Western
investments in Myanmar's underdeveloped energy
sector.
International energy giants Total
of France and Unocal, now owned by the United
States' Chevron, have in recent years become
embroiled in protracted and expensive legal
battles over the regime's use of forced labor in
their joint-venture energy
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