BurmaNet News June 1, 2005

[Editor]

June 1, 2005 Issue # 2780

INSIDE BURMA
AFP: Myanmar's junta tells opposition NLD it's time "to work together"
Irrawaddy: Bomb blasts decimate growth in Burmese tourism industry
Myanmar Times: Blood bank calls for more donations for blast victims

ON THE BORDER
Irrawaddy: Top of their class

BUSINESS
Japan Economic Newswire: Myanmar earns $300 mil. from teak exports

ASEAN
AP: Indonesian parliament rejects Myanmar's plan to chair ASEAN
Deutsche Presse-Agentur: Philippines counting on Myanmar to prevent
boycott of ASEAN meetings

REGIONAL
Thai Press Reports: Thai unions say liberalization of textile industry
will lead to job losses
Irrawaddy: Even legal migrants face problems

INTERNATIONAL
Irrawaddy: New sanctions loom

OPINION / OTHER
Washington Post: High stakes at the U.N.

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

June 1, Agence France Presse
Myanmar's junta tells opposition NLD it's time "to work together"

Yangon: Myanmar's military rulers on Wednesday made unusually conciliatory
remarks toward the leading opposition party for the second time in as many
weeks, saying the time had come to work together.

The remark was published in the state-run press on a day when regional
politicians from Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines again urged the
regime to move toward national reconciliation and respect human rights.

A commentary published Wednesday in Myanmar's Mirror newspaper, a
government mouthpiece, urged the opposition led by Nobel laureate Aung San
Suu Kyi to cooperate with the junta.

"It is high time that all the national political forces, including the
NLD, regard the Tatmadaw (military) government's recent overtures as
blessings in disguise and work together in the interest of the nation," it
said.

Just days earlier, the Burmese-language paper had published a commentary
calling for dialogue with Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, the
nation's leading opposition party.

Both comments were linked to the 15th anniversary on May 27 of the NLD's
victory in elections that were organized by the military, which never
recognized the results.

"The NLD should regard this as an official overture and respond
positively," one veteran analyst told AFP, calling the remarks both rare
and significant.

NLD spokesman U Lwin said he felt the overtures were "unusual",
considering the security crackdown in Yangon since a triple bombing on May
7 at upscale shopping centers and a convention hall.

"We welcome the remarks and hope they will lead to something more
significant," U Lwin told AFP.

On the election anniversary, the NLD issued a statement that also called
for a "timely" dialogue with the ruling junta and ethnic minority groups
on how to move the country toward democracy.

Lwin said that while he hoped Aung San Suu Kyi and her deputy Tin Oo would
be released from house arrest soon, that was not a pre-condition for
dialogue.

He hinted that negotiations could take place if other NLD executives were
allowed to meet with their top leaders, access that is currently denied.

"I'm taking in good faith the military government's promise that their
house arrest is not indefinite," he said.

Thai Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon said during a visit to
Vietnam Wednesday that both Thailand and Vietnam wanted to see Myanmar
proceed with a seven-step "road map" for democracy Yangon announced in
August 2003.

"Our hope (is) that Myanmar will move as quickly as possible towards
national reconciliation and democratisation," Kantathi told reporters
after meeting Vietnam's premier, Phan Van Khai, and Foreign Minister
Nguyen Dy Nien.

Yangon in March announced that the constitutional talks, the first step on
its "road map", had been suspended until late 2005, with participants
having sat for just six weeks.

The talks have been condemned as flawed by the United States, European
Union and United Nations because they took place without the NLD.

The Philippines' Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo on Wednesday, meanwhile,
said in a statement his government "continues to be gravely concerned over
the situation of human rights in Myanmar".

He said Manila "respects the calls made by parliamentarians from ASEAN
member countries for Myanmar to inhibit itself from the chairmanship of
the ASEAN summit in 2006".

Romulo said ministers of ASEAN -- which also groups Brunei, Cambodia,
Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia and Singapore -- will discuss Myanmar's
scheduled chairmanship again at an ASEAN ministerial meeting in Laos in
July.

An Indonesian parliamentary commission on Wednesday urged the Indonesian
government to boycott ASEAN meetings if Myanmar becomes the bloc's chair
under a rotating timetable.

It also urged Indonesian leaders to clearly demand that Yangon implements
full democracy, parliamentary commission member Joko Susilo told AFP.

_____________________________________

June 1, Irrawaddy
Bomb blasts decimate growth in Burmese tourism industry - Clive Parker

Burma’s recently revived tourism industry reported a widespread downturn
on Tuesday as travelers stayed away in droves following the nearly
simultaneous bomb blasts in Rangoon on May 7.

Tourism revenue had jumped 17.4 percent in 2004, the semi-official The
Myanmar Times reported in February, but the blasts that rocked the capital
have pushed the industry back into decline, sources said.

“Passengers just vanished,” said a spokesperson for one leading
international airline that flies to Rangoon. It reported a 30 percent drop
in traffic.

Burma’s flagship carrier, Myanmar Airways International, said bookings had
dropped by at least 20 percent, while an international hotel in downtown
Rangoon said it has received a succession of cancellations since May 7.

The United States and South Korea are still warning their respective
citizens against travel to Burma.

The junta had been projecting a record 750,000 international tourists for
2005, an industry which is second only to oil and gas as an earner of
foreign exchange for the regime, according to official figures.

Sources in Rangoon say that the traditionally quiet Monsoon tourist
season, which begins in May, looks set to remain stagnant with zero
percent growth now forecasted and prospects dim for the high season
between November and April 2006.

A spokesman for City Mart, one of the two supermarkets bombed, has said it
will re-open in mid-June.

____________________________________

May 30, The Myanmar Times
Blood bank calls for more donations for blast victims - Sandar Linn and
Yan Naing Hein

The National Blood Bank at Yangon [Rangoon] General Hospital has issued a
call for more blood donations to help overcome a shortage following the
May 7 terror bombings. The government said 19 people were killed and 162
injured in the bombings. Some of the injured are still receiving treatment
in hospitals.

"We need more blood from volunteer donors," said Dr Thida Aung, a
pathologist at the blood bank. She told Myanmar [Burma] Times on 23 May
that blood supplies were not always enough to meet everyday demands and
the emergency had left the bank with a shortage.

On 7 May, the centre received 226 units of blood from volunteers, of whom
two thirds were regular donors and the rest were responding to the news of
the blasts. A unit of blood is 450 millilitres.

"It was amazing that we had so many donors in the nine hours immediately
after the bombings. It is the first time we have seen such a response,"
she said.

Most of the donors were doctors, monks, people from meditation centres and
members of the Myanmar Red Cross Society, she said. She said more than 110
units of the blood donated on 7 May have been used.

"I do appreciate it and I am grateful to the volunteers who donated their
blood in a situation of urgent need, and it helped a lot in supplying
blood to those injured," she said. The bank has a rigorous testing
programme to ensure that blood from all donors does not present a health
risk to those who receive transfusions, she said.

Meanwhile, a Buddhist association, Myittabyuhar, is planning to hold a
special blood donation ceremony at Botahtaung Pagoda on 6 June. U Zaw
Aung, the chairman of the association and the deputy director of the
Directorate of Water Resource and Improvement of River Systems, said that
the aim of the ceremony was to ensure that the blood bank had adequate
supplies.

"We used to hold the ceremony every two months but this time it is
important and special because hospitals need extra blood for the patients
who were injured in the blasts," he said. He said more than 60 members of
the association will donate blood at the ceremony.

"It is indeed a noble act to donate blood to save the lives of others and
the satisfaction we get from doing it makes us donate again," he said.
Members of the association began donating blood in 1987 and have so far
provided 19,482 units to the National Blood Bank.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

May 2005, Irrawaddy
Top of their class - Shah Paung

Karen kids seek good education in refugee camp schools

Noh Poe: Students in developing countries often look to distant lands to
fulfill their dreams of a good education and a brighter future. A growing
number of young people in Burma’s Karen State, however, find that schools
operating in refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border offer them the best
chance of achieving these goals. Noh Poe refugee camp in Thailand’s Tak
province is one of them.

“I came to Noh Poe to continue my education because the cost for school in
Burma is too high and the quality of education is poor,” said one student
enrolled in the Karen Economic Development Course (KEDC) at Noh Poe
refugee camp.

Saw Eh Lar Khwe, a young man from Ta Ki village in the Kyar Inn Seik Kyee
Township, Karen State, also studies at Noh Poe. After attending his local
primary school—the only school in his village—he completed his tenth grade
at the Kyar Inn Seik Kyee high school. Khwe considers the camp school his
best option for future success.

“At Noh Poe you can study at all levels depending on your abilities. In
Burma you can only study if you have enough money for tuition.” That
tuition, according to Khwe, is prohibitively expensive for most families.

Students in the tenth grade pay 100,000 kyat (US $96) in tuition fees per
year while in lower standards the annual fees run about 3000 kyat
($2.8)—not crippling by Western standards, but books and study materials
are not included in those sums.

In addition to high costs, the lack of promising employment opportunities
in Burma—where the kyat remains weak compared to the Thai baht—tempts many
students away from school to seek employment and a better life in
neighboring Thailand.

The stark realities facing many students in Karen State seem lost on the
Burmese government, which insists that education in Burma is moving in the
right direction. Education in Burma is a success, Minister of Education
Than Aung told educators in December 2004 after their completion of a
teacher training course in May Myo Township, Mandalay Division.

“The government is successfully nurturing a new generation of young people
in the educational sector to overcome the challenges of the future and to
help increase stability and develop the national economy of the Union of
Myanmar,” Than Aung said.

Naw Tha Maw Klay, a young Karen woman who dreams of becoming a nurse, sees
it differently.

“In my village, only one or two young people out of ten choose to go to
school,” she says.

Klay is currently waiting to enroll in the KEDC program. “Because of so
many problems with school in Burma, I have to postpone my dream,” says
Klay. “But I still hope one day to fulfill it.”

Naw Eh S’khee, who came to Noh Poe because her village did not have any
school beyond the primary level, also complains about the cost of
education and the trouble of traveling great distances to attend high
schools in the larger towns.

“I could not afford to go to the school in town,” says S’khee, from
Kawkareik Township, Karen State. “I chose the school in Noh Poe, even
though life in the camp is difficult and the people are very poor. I will
not trade my education for a more comfortable life somewhere else.”

All the students at Noh Poe share the same objective—to finish their
studies and return to their villages, where they hope to improve the
quality and availability of education locally.

The Burmese Army’s presence in Karen State has—in addition to its many
other abuses—made life even harder for students from rural areas by
putting enormous economic burdens on their families. Farmers in these
rural areas are required to hand over an annual allotment of rice for the
support of Burmese troops stationed nearby.

More than 200 students from Karen State have come to Noh Poe to study
since 2002. They receive assistance from the Karen Women’s Organization
for access to medical services when needed, and Burmese Border Consortium
helps supplement the limited food allowance available in the camps.
However, the students receive no support for additional items such as
toothpaste, soap, and other personal materials.

Noh Poe refugee camp, located in the Umphang district of Tak Province,
near the Thai-Burma border, was established in 1997 to meet the needs of
Karen refugees displaced by fighting between the Burmese Army and Karen
National Union forces.

Six other camps operate along the Thai-Burma border, and these have
attracted more than 100 additional ethnic Karen students to their schools.

According to the 2003 Karen Refugee Committee Report, more than 100,000
refugees live in the seven camps in this region; and of these, more than
10,000 live in Noh Poe.

Saw Sanson A, a coordinator for the KEDC program at Noh Poe, says that
some students in the program eventually leave to study in other countries.
Most, however, return to Burma or remain in the camp school to become
teachers.

KEDC is a two-year program that consists of seven subjects: accounting,
economics, management, social studies, computer skills, Karen history, and
English.

The Karen Educational Project, under the auspices of the Thailand-based
NGO ZOA Refugee Care, administers the KEDC program in an attempt to
enhance the quality of education for more than 25,000 ethnic Karen
children affected by the continuing conflict in Karen State.

Life for the students at Noh Poe has its limitations. Chain cable fences
enclose the camp, and all refugees must get permission from the local Thai
authorities to move beyond its limits. The camp imposes a 9 PM curfew.

Such restrictions mean little to Naw Eh S’khee and the rest of the
students at Noh Poe, who consider the training they receive in the camp
school—and the hope it inspires for the future—worth the temporary
humiliations that characterize life for so many along the Thai-Burma
border.

_____________________________________
BUSINESS

June 1, Japan Economic Newswire
Myanmar earns $300 mil. from teak exports

Yangon: Myanmar, a major teak producer, earned $300 million from teak
exports in the 2004 fiscal year, which ended March 31 this year, a weekly
news journal reported Wednesday.

Teak was mostly exported to India, Hong Kong and Europe in the year,
Flower News reported, quoting a Forestry Ministry official. The figure was
up from about $250 million in fiscal 2003.

The government is targeting $300 million from teak sales in the current
fiscal year, the official added. Timber is the country's third largest
export earner after natural gas and agriculture products. Myanmar has more
than 335,896 hectares of teak plantations.

Forests cover 52.3 percent of the country's total area of 677,000 square
kilometers, according to official figures. In April, the Forestry Ministry
said it would plant additional 323,755 hectares for teak during the next
40 years.

_____________________________________
ASEAN

June 1, Associated Press
Indonesian parliament rejects Myanmar's plan to chair ASEAN

Jakarta: Indonesia's parliament Wednesday issued a resolution urging the
government to boycott ASEAN meetings next year if military-ruled Myanmar
takes over the chairmanship of the regional grouping.

The parliament made the move after lawmakers met with two rights activists
from Myanmer on Tuesday, who urged them to do more to persuade Jakarta to
pressure the junta in Rangoon.

"We have issued a resolution calling on (the government) to boycott ASEAN
meetings if Myanmar takes over the chair of the grouping," Djoko Susilo, a
lawmaker from the parliament's commission on defense and foreign affairs,
told The Associated Press.

Susilo told The Jakarta Post that if Myanmar took over the grouping "it
would bring about a negative impact on our country," adding lawmakers
would meet Indonesia's foreign minister next week to discuss the issue.

The junta is due to take over the rotating ASEAN chairmanship from
Malaysia near the end of 2006. The United States and the European Union -
which are trying to isolate Myanmar because of its failure to introduce
democracy - have threatened to boycott ASEAN meetings and stall the bloc's
development funding if Myanmar becomes chairman.

The issue is dogging ASEAN members, which traditionally oppose
interference in one another's internal affairs.

Wednesday parliamentary resolution is nonbinding, but Indonesia's
government will consider it when deciding its stance on the issue. Jakarta
has called on Myanmar to release Suu Kyi but has avoided saying whether it
supports Myanmar's plan to take over ASEAN.

The Myanmarese junta took power in 1988 after brutally crushing a
pro-democracy movement. In 1990, it refused to hand over power when Suu
Kyi's party won a landslide victory in general elections. Suu Kyi has been
under house arrest for much of the past 14 years.

ASEAN's members are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar,
Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam.

____________________________________

June 1, Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Philippines counting on Myanmar to prevent boycott of ASEAN meetings

Manila: The Philippines said Wednesday it was counting on Myanmar (Burma)
to take the necessary action to prevent an escalation of a controversy
over its scheduled chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN).

Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo said the continuing pressure against
Myanmar's turn to lead the ASEAN in 2006 "will ensure that there is a
decision, that there is action by July" when foreign ministers hold their
annual meeting.

ASEAN earlier agreed to let Myanmar decide on whether to give up the
chairmanship, which rotates annually among the group's 10 members, amid
strong opposition by such dialogue partners as the United States and the
European Union.

The U.S. and the E.U. have threatened to boycott ASEAN economic and
security meetings if Myanmar was allowed to host, citing Yangon's dismal
human rights record and failure to carry out credible democratic reforms.

Parliaments of some ASEAN members, such as the Philippines and Indonesia,
have also passed resolutions opposing Myanmar's leadership and calling for
a boycott.

"All these pressure are building up and it should lead to some action by
July and then there would be no cause for other action," Romulo said, when
asked about the resolution recently passed by the Indonesian parliament.

Amid apparent divisions among ASEAN members on the controversy, Romulo
said he was confident that Myanmar would consider the regional group's
stability.

"Myanmar was telling us that they are not a selfish country and they will
take into consideration the larger interest of the ASEAN," he said. "I
take that at face value, that they will do what is right for the ASEAN
people."

Aside from Myanmar, the Philippines and Indonesia, ASEAN also groups
Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

Newer members Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam have backed Myanmar, while the
Philippines, Singapore and Malaysian have stressed the need for Yangon to
give a more concrete timetable for its "roadmap to democracy".

Yangon is also under pressure to free detained opposition leader Aung San
Suu Kyi and allow the special envoy of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan
to return to Myanmar.

Myanmar was admitted into ASEAN in 1997, despite reservations by some
members and criticism from human rights groups. The regional group had
hoped that drawing Yangon out from isolation would hasten its transition
toward democracy.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

June 1, Thai Press Reports
Thai unions say liberalization of textile industry will lead to job losses

Unionists claim that the abolition of international import quotas for
textiles and garments and the implementation of the World Trade
Organisation (WTO) trade initiatives could result in layoffs for 300,000
of the one million Thai textile and garment workers, The Nation reports.

There are about 2,300 textile and garment factories in Thailand, but
experts believe the number will eventually fall to 1,500.

"The workers are almost unable to bear the situation," said Premwadee
Chaijantha, a leading textile union member who has been working for 14
years in the industry and earns Bt207 a day.

Premwadee told fellow workers during a seminar organised by Thai Labour
Campaign, that besides the threat of layoffs, employees are now facing
inhumane working conditions because of sub-contracting and outsourcing.

Rules include requiring workers to meet demanding targets every hour,
limiting toilet breaks and the introduction of standing assembly lines
aimed at increasing productivity, but to the detriment of the worker's
health.

"Employers have said they have to do these things to reduce production
costs," said Premwadee, who added that as a result many garment and
textile workers now hardly have time to take a lunch break.

Wanchai Sornkoi, a union member at Century Textiles Company, said many
workers are now faced with unemployment. Over the past few months, 134
workers have been made redundant at the two factories. Many more factories
are facing gradual layoffs, but there no reliable statistics to indicate
how many people are losing their jobs.

"Some workers did not want to leave but to were told to go," Wanchai said,
adding that workers were expected to become more and more efficient and
that many could not cope.

Labour leaders said that they had been caught off guard and had no plans
to cope with the changing situation, which included growing competition
from China.

They said the changes had become an ideal opportunity for employers to lay
workers off and reduce the levels of welfare, as well as weaken the labour
movement.

But workers from lower-waged countries like China or Cambodia are not
necessarily benefiting.

"The situation is not that different [in Cambodia]," said Oung Supheap, a
Cambodian union leader.

Supheap said that workers are often laid-off without any compensation and
that the government has sent in police to deal with workers who have tried
to demand their rights. In Cambodia, workers in the industry earn an
average of US$ 35 (Bt1,400) to $ 45 dollars per month, compared to $ 60 to
$ 80 dollars in China and $ 100 to $ 150 in Thailand.

Some of the 240,000 textile and garment workers in Cambodia had been fired
only to be re-employed at lower starting salaries later, she said.

Others, like a supplier to one multinational sports brand, kept the
toilets at less than adequate levels so that workers spent less time in
the bathroom.

May Wong, from he Hong Kong-based Asian Monitoring Resource Centre, said
that although China is the best performer in the textile industry, with
20% of the total global export market, its workers are hardly reaping the
rewards.

"There's a highly controlled workforce [in China]," said Wong. "Although
one official state union exists, it is not active and does not genuinely
represent the 15 million workers in the industry.

"China doesn't allow workers to create independent unions. They have no
collective bargaining power. Workers [in China] are not benefiting. They
are heavily exploited and treated as second class citizens," she said.

Over the past few years, about 200 textile factories have been built in
the northern border town of Mae Sod in Chiang Rai Province.

Here, about 100,000 migrant workers from Burma live and work inside some
70 factories - mostly owned by companies in Taiwan or Hong Kong - in
appalling conditions.

Workers are allowed only a few hours off a week and are paid just Bt70 to
Bt80 a day compared to Bt133-Bt169 a day that Thai workers in the industry
receive.

"Once a week, after 5pm on Sundays, they are allowed to leave the factory
for just three hours," said Janya Yimprasert, a labour activist and editor
of Labour Focus Magazine, adding that the rest of the time these workers
are kept in the fenced factory like prisoners.

_____________________________________

June 1, Irrawaddy
Even legal migrants face problems - Hanna Ingber

Migrant workers in Thailand who registered in July 2004 for temporary
identity cards, but not for work permits, have until June 30 to apply for
an official work permit. Even if they do obtain the proper legal
credentials, life for migrants in Thailand is not without its
difficulties.

A total of 1.19 million migrants, including 844,464 from Burma, registered
last year, according to the Thai Office of Foreign Workers Administration
of Employment. Of those, 800,117 registered for a work permit and can
therefore reregister—along with their dependents—this year.

“Previous registration with work permits did not improve the migrants’
quality of life,” said Jackie Pollock, the coordinator of the Chiang
Mai-based Migrant Assistance Program Foundation. “The work permits chain
the employee to the employer. The migrant’s legal status is with that
employer.

With temporary ID cards, migrants are more integrated into mainstream
society and the Thai police cannot harass them simply for being in
Thailand, said Pollock.

Documented migrants are not allowed to travel outside their province, let
alone back to their home country. “The moment you leave the province, you
become illegal again,” said Pollock.

While documented migrants theoretically have protection under Thailand’s
labor laws, they cannot always exercise those rights, said Pranom Somwong,
Project Coordinator for the MAP Foundation’s Act Against Abuse program.

Migrant workers rarely receive the national minimum wage, and they have no
recourse to address poor working conditions. In some factories migrants
have formed unofficial groups to negotiate with their employers, but they
risk being blacklisted.

Often migrants cannot communicate problems to Thai authorities, as
official forms are printed in Thai. The government has had official,
documented migrants working in the country for the past 10 years; only
last month, however, did the Labor Protection Department finally hire a
Burmese-Thai interpreter in Mae Sot.

“One interpreter for 100,000 Burmese workers in Mae Sot!” said Sonwong.
“After 10 years!”

Labor laws in Thailand do not cover domestic workers. With no one to
represent them, domestic workers often suffer long hours and the threat of
physical and/or sexual abuse by employers.  Last month the International
Labour Organization called on Thai officials to take the necessary steps
to protect migrant workers after a 17-year-old Karen girl, employed as a
maid, was allegedly attacked by her Thai employer.

Documented migrants technically have access to the health care system, but
again they often cannot articulate their health problems. Only two
categories exist for migrants on the application for a work permit – labor
and domestic. Non-government organizations have been pressuring the Thai
government for the past four years to include in the registration a
category for health workers so that migrants can give health information
to their colleagues in their own language. So far, this has not happened.

“There need to be health workers who speak Burmese," said Pollock. Similar
problems arise in schools, where teachers are not trained in multilingual
or multicultural teaching methods.

“On paper, Thailand’s immigrant policy looks fine—migrants are covered by
labor laws and by the universal health care system,” said Pollock.

In practice, though, it appears to be a different story.

_____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

May 31, Irrawaddy
New sanctions loom - Aung Lwin Oo

The threat of tough, worldwide trade sanctions loomed over Burma as the
International Labour Organization opened its annual conference in Geneva
on Tuesday. Forced labor practices in Burma—for years, the ILO’s main
concern in the country— will be one of the key issues discussed at the
conference, according to the UN agency’s press release.

Some 4,000 delegates, including labor ministers, workers’ leaders and
employers’ organizations from most of the ILO’s member 178 member states,
gathered for a meeting which could prove to be crunch time for the Rangoon
regime. The ILO has told Rangoon before that it may face sanctions. The US
and EU have already imposed economic and political sanctions against
Burma.

The ILO regards the regime as having failed to tackle the forced-labor
issue, particularly in the military. It has singled out Burma as “the
special case,” a phrase it uses in its latest report entitled “A Global
Alliance against Forced Labor.”  The report charges the junta with failing
to make effective progress against the forced-labor problem “in the
absence of the political will to clamp down on the military and local
authorities,” who exercise the practice.

“When the report identifies Myanmar [Burma] as a serious case of
state-imposed forced labor, it is not to say that there are not other
forms of forced labor in Myanmar,” Rangoon-based ILO liaison officer
Richard Horsey said at a launch of the 87-page global report in Bangkok on
May 11. He is due to update the conference on the Burma labor issue on
June 4.

Rangoon has repeatedly dismissed the ILO’s charge, claiming that western
countries have tried to use the ILO as a tool to put political pressure on
the regime. “The ILO has gone beyond the bounds of the UN Charter and is
interfering in the internal affairs of the country,” Burma’s Labor
Department Director-General Soe Nyunt said in mid-March.

In 2004, the ILO warned the Burmese government that it was ready to revive
the prospect of sanctions by all member states. A high-level ILO
delegation cut short its visit to Rangoon in February, when it could not
see junta leader Snr-Gen Than Shwe. Now, the current conference is
expected to decide whether full-scale sanctions will be clamped on the
country.

_____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

May 30, Washington Post
High stakes at the U.N. - Fred Hiatt

Democrats are devoting their energies to delaying the confirmation of John
Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations. Republicans are delving into
U.N. scandals of the 1990s.

Meanwhile, the single most fateful decision for the United Nations'
usefulness over the coming half-decade is being shaped elsewhere. Neither
Washington's politicians nor the State Department nor the small-d
democrats who claim a desire to bend international institutions closer
toward principle are paying much attention.

What's at stake is who will replace Secretary General Kofi Annan when his
second term expires on Dec. 31, 2006. Maybe that seems a long way away,
but in Asia -- which believes its turn has come to pick a U.N. leader --
the politicking has been underway for more than a year.

Or maybe it seems unimportant, since U.N. observers are forever observing
that the secretary general is just a hired hand, with no more authority
than the member states, particularly the five states with veto power on
the Security Council, choose to give him. But a U.N. leader who cares
about human rights (like Annan) can operate very differently, all the
limitations notwithstanding, than would someone who views human rights
concerns as an annoyance or an impediment.

Which brings us back to the politicking now raging, above and below the
surface, in Asia. So far the most active player in the post-Annan
sweepstakes is Thailand's prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, who is
promoting his deputy prime minister for the post.

Thaksin is a prime example of a breed of modern leaders who confound
democracy advocates: democratically elected, genuinely popular, but not
all that committed to democracy. His cousins include Hugo Chavez of
Venezuela and Vladimir Putin of Russia -- leaders who achieve power
through the ballot box and then erode the institutions (free press,
independent judiciary) on which democracies depend.

These leaders tend to reveal themselves and their values in the allies
they embrace: for Chavez, Fidel Castro; for Putin, the dictators of
Belarus and Central Asia; for Thaksin, the corrupt strongmen of
neighboring Burma. After China, in fact, no one provides more comfort to
Burma's regime than Thaksin; meanwhile, he has inflamed the Muslim world
with a counterproductively brutal suppression of Muslim discontent in the
south of his own country.

This doesn't prove that Thaksin's candidate for secretary general, deputy
premier Surakiart Sathirathai, is unqualified. But when the world's
strongmen are so open in their affinities (witness Beijing's welcome to
Uzbekistan's Islam Karimov just days after his version of a Tiananmen
massacre), do the world's true democracies not want at least to play in
this game?

A few years ago, those democracies established a "community" intended to
promote their common interests and then a Democracy Caucus at the United
Nations. They've held meetings, to cheer each other on and develop common
standards, which is fine. But why not unite on a practical objective:
finding a secretary general who really believes in political freedom and
human rights? And why not, in the process, illustrate the virtues of
transparency that the democracies claim to champion, in place of the
behind-closed-door regionalism and favor-swapping that traditionally mark
U.N. elections?

It might then be decided that Annan's replacement need not be Asian. The
last Asian secretary general was Burma's U Thant, from 1961 to 1971. Other
secretaries general have hailed from (in chronological order) Norway,
Sweden, Austria, Peru, Egypt and, now, Ghana. You could make the case that
the formerly communist bloc of Central and Eastern Europe has never had a
chance, and there are many fine democrats in Poland and its neighbors.

But if Asia's claim is accepted, surely there are admirable candidates in
such democracies as Indonesia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, South Korea
and Sri Lanka. And even if Thailand's claim is accepted, the strongman's
choice may not be the best; there are democracy-minded Thais, too, such as
former foreign minister Surin Pitsuwan. As Adrian Karatnycky of Freedom
House notes, an ideal Asian candidate might embody the entrepreneurship of
the continent's vibrant economies with the political values of its young
democracies -- both of which the United Nations needs.

It's easy to complain about the United Nations and its absurdities, such
as Sudan joining the human rights commission. But if democrats want to do
more than complain, they should get to the hard political work of finding
candidates and building coalitions.