Washington - The United States will not recognize the outcome of Myanmar's elections scheduled for later this year because of new laws that ban political prisoners and the country's leading democratic activist from participating, the US State Department said Wednesday. The military junta that runs Myanmar, published a law on Wednesday that stated 2,000 imprisoned dissidents cannot participate, effectively sidelining jailed activist Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the National League for Democracy.
"We made clear that, given the tenor of the election laws that they have put forward, there's no hope that this election will be credible," State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said, adding the laws make the election a "mockery of the democratic process."
The regime has yet to announce a date for the election, the last of which took place 20 years ago before the military junta seized power and began rounding up democratic activists. Suu Kyi has been in prison or under house arrest for years.
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/313477,us-wont-accept-legitimacy-of-myanmars-elections.html
The United States has applied sanctions to Myanmar to keep pressure on the regime for democratic reforms, and the Obama administration had reached out to Myanmar hoping to encourage change. But those efforts do not appear to be working.
"Our engagement with Burma will have to continue until we can make clear that the results thus far are not what we had expected and that they are going to have to do better," Crowley said.
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US won't accept legitimacy of Myanmar's elections
Top US officials meet Myanmar junta, Suu Kyi
Top US officials meet Myanmar junta, Suu Kyi
YANGON, Myanmar – The U.S. wants better relations with military-ruled Myanmar if it makes concrete steps toward democracy, a senior American diplomat said Wednesday after holding the highest-level talks with the junta and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in 14 years.
Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said he explained Washington's new policy, which reverses the Bush administration's isolation of Myanmar, also known as Burma, in favor of dialogue with a country that has been ruled by the military since 1962.
The goals of the new policy are "strong support for human rights, the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and all other political prisoners and the promotion of democratic reform," Campbell said in a statement at the end of his two-day visit.
Campbell and his deputy, Scot Marciel, are the highest-level Americans to visit Myanmar since 1995.
Earlier Wednesday, Campbell, the top State Department official for East Asia, greeted Suu Kyi with a handshake after she was driven to his lakeside hotel in Yangon where they met privately for two hours, U.S. Embassy spokesman Richard Mei said. The content of the talks was not immediately known.
Suu Kyi, 64, has been detained for 14 of the past 20 years. Dressed in a pink traditional Burmese jacket, she was upbeat as she emerged from the hotel.
"Hello to you all," she said to photographers before getting into the car that whisked her back to her tightly guarded home.
Myanmar's junta has praised the new U.S. policy, but shown no sign it intends to release Suu Kyi or initiate democratic and electoral reforms demanded by Suu Kyi's party ahead of elections planned for next year.
But the military government has made some gestures, such as loosening the terms of Suu Kyi's house arrest and allowing her more meeting with visitors such as Campbell, in hopes that the U.S. will ease political and economic sanctions.
Campbell said he told junta officials that the U.S. "is prepared to take steps to improve the relationship but that process must be based on reciprocal and concrete efforts by the Burmese government."
Campbell was continuing talks he began in September in New York with senior Myanmar officials, which were the first such high-level contact in nearly a decade. He met Wednesday morning with Prime Minister Gen. Thein Sein, Mei said.
Campbell said he emphasized that Myanmar "should abide by U.N. resolutions with regards to proliferation." He did not elaborate, but was apparently referring to arms purchases from North Korea. There is also some speculation, though no evidence has been made public, that Myanmar is seeking to develop nuclear weapons with North Korea's help.
State television, which on Tuesday ignored the Americans' visit, broadcast footage of Campbell's meetings with both Suu Kyi and the prime minister.
Suu Kyi was recently sentenced to an additional 18 months of house arrest for briefly sheltering an uninvited American, in a trial that drew global condemnation. The sentence means she will not be able to participate in next year's elections, which will be the first in two decades.
U.S. sanctions, first imposed more than a decade ago, failed to force the generals to respect human rights, release jailed political activists and make democratic reforms. The Obama administration decided recently to step up engagement as a way of promoting reforms.
Washington has said it will maintain the sanctions until talks with Myanmar's generals result in change.
Campbell is the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Myanmar since a September 1995 trip by then-U.N. Ambassador Madeleine Albright.
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Endangering the Next Kim Dae-jung
Endangering the Next Kim Dae-jung
Washington sends confusing signals to the people who could bring change from within.
By MICHAEL J. GREEN
Since taking office President Barack Obama has used strong words to describe the importance he places on human rights, democracy and the rule of law. In July, he told China's high-powered delegation to the first U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue that "support for human rights and human dignity is ingrained in America" and that the "religion and culture of all peoples must be respected and protected, and that all people should be free to speak their minds." In his September 24 address to the United Nations General Assembly, he promised "that America will always stand with those who stand up for their dignity and their rights." As the president prepares to travel to Asia this month, should anyone in the region doubt the United States' commitment to these values?
Unfortunately, there is doubt. Despite Mr. Obama's statements, the administration' s specific actions on issues ranging from Burma to Tibet are creating the impression that Washington has a growing list of concerns that trump human rights and democracy. The president and his team deserve support for attempting new approaches to intractable problems. It makes sense to talk directly to the junta in Burma and to broaden the agenda for cooperation with China. The problem is that the administration' s emphasis on engagement is leading the region's autocrats and dictators to see an opening for further repression at home.
The most obvious case is Tibet. The Dalai Lama has met with the American president at the White House during every visit to Washington since 1991. Initially, the Obama administration signaled it would continue this tradition during the Tibetan spiritual leader's planned visit in October, but later changed its mind. The White House may have hoped a subtler approach to the Tibet problem would pave the way for a successful presidential visit to China and yield quiet results for Tibet. Fair enough—but the opposite is happening. The Chinese are raising the ante on the Tibetans, demanding that the Dalai Lama cease all foreign travel and meetings with other international leaders as a precondition for resuming stalled Sino-Tibetan talks. Beijing is also putting pressure on other nations to follow the U.S. example, including India, which politely gave Beijing a firm "no" to its demand that Delhi stop the Dalai Lama from visiting his followers in disputed Arunachal Pradesh.
Rather than viewing gestures on Tibet as evidence of goodwill to be rewarded, the Chinese reaction has been to pocket the concessions and demand more—steadily asserting its position that regime behavior and internal affairs are not the business of the international community. In the long run, this will only complicate efforts to encourage China to use its increasing power as a responsible stakeholder.
There are also confusing signals on Burma. After a "Burma policy review," the administration reasonably concluded that neither sanctions nor engagement alone were likely to change the behavior of the regime and announced that the U.S. was going to try a new approach that employed both. In September Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell testified to the Senate that the U.S. would not ease sanctions without meaningful steps by the junta and reserved the right to strengthen sanctions if there is not progress. This was the right basis for beginning the dialogue. But the administration has also stated that engagement will be a sustained and long-term process, implying it would not necessarily hinge on the regime's short-term behavior.
In response, Burma's prime minister, General Thein Sein, announced in late October that the U.S. had "softened its approach." The junta also symbolically allowed international diplomats to have access to Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. However, the junta has concurrently increased its internal suppression of ethnic minorities and democracy activists since the administration' s policy review and engagement strategy began. In June the Burmese military drove 5,000 members of the Karen minority across the border into Thailand, the largest exodus of Karen in a decade. In August the junta sentenced Ms. Suu Kyi to an additional 18 months of house imprisonment. In August and September the junta began a major military offensive against the Kokang people in northern Burma, driving over 30,000 refugees into China. Just last week the regime arrested 50 students, journalists and political activists, even as the U.S. prepared to send its first senior-level delegation to Burma this week for high-level talks with the junta.
Tibet and Burma illustrate the administration' s serious dilemma: how to prevent its commitment to engagement from being perceived as a sign of shifting U.S. priorities and a greater tolerance for repression. It is damaging enough that Beijing and Naypyidaw are receiving this signal, but even minor adjustments in U.S. policy have a major ripple effect among friendly states also grappling with how to encourage greater democracy and human rights in the region. The European Union was poised to activate stronger sanctions against Burma but is now hesitating. Members of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations were engaging in a painful but important internal debate about how to implement the human-rights and democracy principles in their new charter with respect to Burma, but at their most recent summit in Thailand the focus was entirely on what the U.S. would do to help solve the problem.
The president should use his visit to Asia to correct the confusing signals Washington is sending about the U.S. commitment to human rights and democracy. The administration does not need to abandon its aim of seeking results through direct dialogue with Burma's leadership nor curtail its ambitious agenda for cooperation with China. But the administration should not be afraid that a clear stand on human rights and democracy will jeopardize those goals.
President Obama can begin by announcing his clear intention to meet with the Dalai Lama early next year and pressing Chinese President Hu Jintao to resume dialogue with the Dalai Lama's representatives without preconditions. Mr. Obama can use the trip to clarify, in his meetings with Southeast Asian leaders on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, that the U.S. will increase targeted financial sanctions on Burma if repression continues to escalate. The U.S. should also re-engage Burma's neighbors to pressure the regime for change by stating that the U.S. will continue its new approach only if Ms. Suu Kyi is released and there are real opportunities for the democratic opposition and ethnic minorities to participate in a fair political process.
Finally, he should use his public addresses to single out and demonstrate support for those dissidents and prisoners of conscience who will someday emerge as the future Kim Dae-jungs and Vaclav Havels of Asia. For it is they who face the greatest uncertainty if America's intentions remain unclear.
Mr. Green is senior advisor and Japan chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and associate professor at Georgetown University. This is the first article in an occasional series on the Obama administration' s human-rights record. http://online. wsj.com/article/ SB10001424052748 7039329045745101 92259822258. html?mod= googlenews_ wsj
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The Lives of Two Nobel Laureates
The Lives of Two Nobel Laureates
By Nehginpao Kipgen
13 October 2009
http://www.khaleejt imes.com/ DisplayArticleNe w.asp?xfile= /data/opinion/ 2009/October/ opinion_October6 3.xml§ion=opinion
As the season of the world’s prestigious prize announcements are underway, the circumstances of two renowned Nobel Peace Prize recipients are riveting: the stories of Barack Obama of the United States of America and Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma.
Many Americans awoke surprised on October 9 when the five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the 2009 peace prize to the 44th president of the United States of America. In fact, the president himself said he was “surprised and deeply humbled” and does not deserve to be in the company of many other transformative figures who have been honoured. By receiving the prize in less than a year in the White House, Obama has become the fourth sitting US president to be honoured by the Nobel Committee. The other three recipients were: Jimmy Carter in 2002, Woodrow Wilson in 1919, and Theodore Roosevelt in 1906.
Though there are pockets of criticisms and reservations on the selection, the Nobel Committee was convinced that it was too good to ignore Obama’s emphasis on disarmament and diplomacy. The committee was reportedly buoyed by Obama’s vision of a nuclear-free world, laid out in a speech in Prague in April and at the United Nations in September.
In his historic address to the Muslim world from Cairo in June, Obama tried to reinvigorate the relationship between the United States and the Muslims. He offered a new beginning of relationship based upon mutual interest and mutual respect, and common principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.
While the prize may add to his international image, Obama’s popularity at home is declining in recent months. The October 1-5 Associated Press poll showed that 56 per cent of Americans approved his job performance. September 17-20 NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that only half of all Americans backed his handling of foreign policy. According to Gallup poll, Obama had 83 percent approval rating in January.
On the other end of the world, there is another Nobel Peace Laureate who has spent her life under very different circumstances. Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights” in 1991. Suu Kyi has spent 14 of the last 20 years in detention since July 1989.
During the general election in 1990, Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) won 392 of the 485 seats contested in the 492-member assembly. The military-backed National Unity Party (formerly known as Burma Socialist Programme Party) secured only 10 seats. Despite the resounding victory, the party was never allowed to form a government. Obama was privileged to be born in a country where fundamental democratic principles are respected, as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Obama is expected to be in Oslo in person to deliver an acceptance speech in December. In 1991, her son Alexander Aris received Suu Kyi’s prize. In his speech, Aris said: “I know that if she were free today my mother would, in thanking you, also ask you to pray that the oppressors and the oppressed should throw down their weapons and join together to build a nation founded on humanity in the
spirit of peace.”
Aung San Suu Kyi continues to be a staunch advocate and believer of non-violence who likes to resolve the conflicts in Burma peacefully. In the latest sign of positive development, at her request, Suu Kyi was allowed to meet diplomats from the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia on October 9 to discuss their views on sanctions on Burma. This issue, for a while, has been Than Shwe’s (junta chief) key condition for entering a dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi.
Sadly in Burma, there is no independent Gallup poll to gauge the popularity of Suu Kyi. Nevertheless, she remains to be a promising leader who can be widely accepted by the different ethnic groups of the country.
While Obama is building his international image through diplomacy, Suu Kyi in her utmost capacity is working to establish a democratic society
in her country.
Nehginpao Kipgen is a researcher on the rise of political conflicts in modern Burma (1947-2004) and general secretary of the US-based Kuki International Forum.
Myanmar's Suu Kyi welcomes US plan to engage junta
YANGON (AFP) – Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has welcomed US plans to engage diplomatically with the country's military rulers, her lawyer said Thursday.
Her comments came a day after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton raised the possibility of an eventual easing or lifting of sanctions if US engagement produces political changes in Myanmar.
"Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said that direct engagement is good," her lawyer Nyan Win said after meeting her at her home in Yangon to discuss her appeal against her recently extended house arrest.
Win Tin Speaks Out
Win Tin Speaks Out
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
In an article published in the Washington Post on Wednesday, Win Tin hit out at the Burmese regime’s planned election in 2010.
Win Tin has spent 19 years in prison for his political beliefs and is considered to be the country’s most prominent contemporary politicians.
The senior leader of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) wrote: “Some international observers view next year's planned elections as an opportunity. But under the circumstances imposed by the military's constitution, the election will be a sham.”
He stated in his article that his party will not sacrifice the democratic principles for which many millions of Burmese have marched, been arrested, been tortured and died to participate in a process that holds no hope whatsoever for bringing freedom to Burma.
And he reinforced the NLD’s demands that all political prisoners are released, a full review of the constitution is granted and that the opposition be allowed to reopen its offices and have the right to associate and organize.
The former journalist and editor of the well-known Hanthawaddy newspaper wrote: “The regime's answer is the continued jailing of [Aung San] Suu Kyi and 2,000 other activists, massive military offensives against ethnic groups and the enforcement of rules to gag democracy.”
He also criticized US Sen James Webb’s recent and controversial visit to Burma.
Win Tin said that he understands Webb's desire to seek a meaningful dialogue with the Burmese ruling authorities. But, he said, “Unfortunately, his efforts have been damaging to our democracy movement and focus on the wrong issue—the potential for an "election" that Webb wants us to consider participating in next year as part of a long-term political strategy. But the showcase election planned by the military regime makes a mockery of the freedom sought by our people and would make military dictatorship permanent.”
Webb’s visit received mixed reviews among Burmese and international observers. Burma’s military leaders, including junta chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe, received Webb during his visit and allowed the US senator to meet detained democracy leader Suu Kyi.
Many ordinary Burmese in Burma mistakenly thought Webb represented the US government. Therefore, they assumed the US had dramatically shifting its policy on Burma by embracing the repressive regime.
The US government’s policy on Burma is under review and it is believed that the new policy will be a mixture of carrots and sticks.
During a recent visit to Asia, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that neither sanctions nor engagement work with Burma’s military dictatorship.
Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy. org
http://www.irrawadd y.org/article. php?art_id= 16751
U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy dies at age 77
By Scott Malone Scott Malone – 1 hr 5 mins ago
BOSTON (Reuters) – U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy, a towering figure in the Democratic Party who took the helm of one of America's most fabled political families after two older brothers were assassinated, died at age 77, his family said.
"Edward M. Kennedy, the husband, father, grandfather, brother and uncle we loved so deeply, died late Tuesday night at home in Hyannis Port (Massachusetts)," the Kennedy family said in a statement early Wednesday.
One of the most influential and longest-serving senators in U.S. history -- a liberal standard-bearer who was also known as a consummate congressional dealmaker -- Kennedy had been battling brain cancer, which was diagnosed in May 2008.
His death marked the twilight of a political dynasty and dealt a blow to Democrats as they seek to answer President Barack Obama's call for an overhaul of the healthcare system.
Kennedy made healthcare reform his signature cause. He recently urged Massachusetts lawmakers to change state law so the governor, if necessary, could quickly fill a Senate vacancy as the chamber debates the contentious healthcare issue.
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said in a statement, "As we mourn his loss, we rededicate ourselves to the causes for which he so dutifully dedicated his life."
Known as "Teddy," he was the brother of President John Kennedy, assassinated in 1963, Senator Robert Kennedy, fatally shot while campaigning for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination, and Joe Kennedy, a pilot killed in World War Two.
When he first took the Senate seat previously held by John Kennedy in 1962, he was seen as something of a political lightweight who owed his ascent to his famous name.
Yet during his nearly half century in the chamber, Kennedy became known as one of Washington's most effective senators, crafting legislation by working with lawmakers and presidents of both parties, and finding unlikely allies.
At the same time, he held fast to liberal causes deemed anachronistic by the centrist "New Democrats," and was a lightning rod for conservative ire.
He helped enact measures to protect civil and labor rights, expand healthcare, upgrade schools, increase student aid and contain the spread of nuclear weapons.
"There's a lot to do," Kennedy told Reuters in 2006. "I think most of all it's the injustice that I continue to see and the opportunity to have some impact on it."
After Robert Kennedy's death, Edward was expected to waste little time in vying for the presidency. But in 1969, a young woman drowned after a car Kennedy was driving plunged off a bridge on the Massachusetts resort island of Chappaquiddick after a night of partying.
Kennedy's image took a major hit after it emerged he had failed to report the accident to authorities. He pleaded guilty to leaving the scene and received a suspended sentence.
Kennedy eventually ran for his party's presidential nomination in 1980 but lost to then-President Jimmy Carter.
His presidential ambitions thwarted, Kennedy devoted himself to his Senate career.
A 2009 survey by The Hill, a Capitol Hill publication, found that Senate Republicans believed Kennedy was the chamber's easiest Democrat to work with and most bipartisan.
Republican Senator John McCain called Kennedy "the single most effective member of the Senate if you want to get results."
In January 2008, Kennedy endorsed Obama, who was serving his first term as a senator, for the Democratic presidential nomination. Many saw the endorsement -- Obama went on to win the nomination and the White House -- as the passing of the political torch to a new generation.
'LION' BATTLED ON
Kennedy had been largely sidelined in Congress since becoming ill. The "Lion of the Senate" began to use a cane and often looked tired and drained as he mixed work with treatment.
Yet colleagues and staff said he remained determined to fulfill what he called "the cause of my life," providing health insurance to all Americans. He helped draft legislation to overhaul the $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare system.
Kennedy's interest in healthcare dated from his son's bout with cancer in the 1970s. More recently, he cited his own illness as he made a case for reform.
"I've benefited from the best of medicine, but I've also witnessed the frustration and outrage of patients and doctors alike as they face the challenges of a system that shortchanges millions of Americans," he wrote in a May 28, 2009, issue of the Boston Globe.
His charisma as "the last of the Kennedy brothers" was such that draft-Teddy drives were a feature of U.S. presidential election years from 1968 through the 1980s.
But he never fully escaped the cloud of the Chappaquiddick accident. A decades-long argument arose about whether he tried to cover up his involvement by leaving the scene while Mary Jo Kopechne's body remained submerged and whether police helped sweep such questions under the rug. All involved denied any cover-up.
Later crises involving younger Kennedys, notably the 1991 Palm Beach rape trial of his nephew, William Kennedy Smith, caught a bloated and weary-looking Uncle Ted in a media glare. Reports of heavy drinking and womanizing led to a public apology for "the faults in the conduct of my private life."
Kennedy was remarried soon after that to Victoria Reggie, a 38-year-old lawyer with two young children from her first marriage. He poured renewed energy into the Senate, where he would become the third-longest serving senator in history.
Even his Republican foes recognized Kennedy's dedication as he worked to protect civil rights, give federal help to the poor, contain the spread of nuclear weapons, raise the minimum wage, expand health coverage and improve America's schools.
FAMILY STANDARDS
Born on February 22, 1932, Edward Moore Kennedy was the last of four sons and five daughters born to millionaire businessman Joseph Kennedy, who would later be ambassador to Britain, and his wife, Rose.
The Boston Irish family combined the competitive spirit of nouveau riche immigrants with acquired polish and natural charm. The sons were expected to mature into presidential timber and were groomed for that starting with the oldest, Joseph Jr., a bomber pilot who died in World War Two.
"I think about my brothers every day," Kennedy told Reuters. "They set high standards. Sometimes you measure up, sometimes you don't."
Like his brothers, Kennedy was known for his oratory, delivered in a booming voice at rallies, congressional hearings and in the Senate.
He drew praise from liberals, labor and civil rights groups and scorn from conservatives, big business and anti-abortion and pro-gun activists. His image was often used by Republicans in ads as a money-raising tool.
Tragedies dogged Kennedy throughout his life. They included a 1964 plane crash that damaged his spine and left him with persistent pain; bone cancer that cost son Teddy a leg; first wife Joan's battles with alcoholism that contributed to their divorce, and drug problems involving nephews, one of whom died of an overdose. His nephew, John Kennedy Jr., died in July 1999 when his small plane crashed into the ocean near Cape Cod.
In May 2008, Edward Kennedy collapsed at his Cape Cod home and was flown to hospital in Boston, where he was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. Brain cancer kills half its victims within a year.
Kennedy's illness kept him from attending the funeral of his sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, a leading advocate of the mentally disabled, who died on August 11 at the age of 88.
(Additional reporting by Thomas Ferraro; Editing by Peter Cooney)
Aung San Suu Kyi left to pay the price for John Yettaw’s indiscretion
August 17, 2009
The Times online - Aung San Suu Kyi left to pay the price for John Yettaw’s indiscretion
Richard Lloyd Parry: Analysis
First it was Bill Clinton in North Korea, escorting home two scared US journalists from the clutches of Kim Jong Il. Now, Senator Jim Webb returns from Burma with the hapless American eccentric, John Yettaw.
For a politician, there are few more glorious moments than jetting home from a despotic regime with imprisoned compatriots in tow. But the liberation of Mr Yettaw was the least important and interesting achievement of Mr Webb’s trip.
Whether you regard Mr Yettaw as a well-meaning buffoon or an arrogant busybody, he hardly deserved such a prompt and high-level intervention.
The ironies of his release this weekend are painful. In setting him free, the Burmese junta manages to project an image of magnanimity for cancelling a sentence out of all proportion to Mr Yettaw’s “crimes”. And, as he flies back to obscurity in Missouri, Aung San Suu Kyi and her two female companions are left to pay the price of his fecklessness.
Mr Webb did at least see Ms Suu Kyi and their conversation must have been an interesting one. For the senator is a firm supporter of an approach very different from her uncompromising idealism. In the absence of any ideal solutions for dealing with the regime, he believes in making the most of a bad lot and in engaging with the junta, dropping sanctions, and also backs participation in the bogus-sounding election promised for next year.
These would be highly risky steps, but the time is long overdue for a serious debate about alternatives to the present policies of Ms Suu Kyi and her Western supporters, which have achieved nothing very obvious other than high-minded isolation.
For encouraging such a conversation, Senator Webb deserves credit.
He would have done much to overcome stereotypes about American parochialism, and made a valuable point to the dictatorship, if he had requested Ms Suu Kyi’s release before that of Mr Yettaw, rather than vice versa.
US presses Myanmar on NKorea, Suu Kyi at rare talks
US officials urged Myanmar to obey UN sanctions on North Korea and to review its treatment of Aung San Suu Kyi in a rare meeting between the two countries, a US official said on Thursday.
The talks happened late on Wednesday on the eve of Asia’s biggest security conference in the Thai resort island of Phuket, which US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is attending, a senior State Department official said.
Clinton did not attend the meeting with the representatives from the reclusive, junta-ruled nation. The State Department said the US officials urged Myanmar to implement the terms of UN Security Council resolution 1874, which imposed sanctions on North Korea over its recent missile and nuclear tests.
Clinton had raised concerns earlier on Wednesday over the possible transfer of nuclear technology from Kim Jong-Il’s communist regime to military-ruled Myanmar.
The US officials also “noted that the outcome of the trial of Aung San Suu Kyi would affect our willingness and ability to take positive steps in our bilateral relationship.”
Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is currently on trial for breaching the terms of her house arrest after an incident in which an American man swam uninvited to her lakeside house in Yangon in May.
She faces up to five years in jail and is being held in the city’s notorious Insein prison.
Clinton said on Wednesday that if Myanmar frees Aung San Suu Kyi “that would open up opportunities at least for my country to expand our relationship with Burma, including investments in Burma,” she said, referring to Myanmar by its former name.
Japanese officials said that Myanmar Foreign Minister Nyan Win had pledged that his country would oblige by the UN sanctions on North Korea when he met his Japanese counterpart Hirofumi Nakasone on Wednesday.
“The Myanmar foreign minister mentioned very clearly that Myanmar is a member of the United Nations, Myanmar also is obliged to fully comply with any UN Security council resolutions, including 1874,” said Kazuo Kodama, the Japanese minister’s press secretary. “That is I think a very reassuring message from the Myanmar foreign minister,” Kodama said.
Obama condemns Suu Kyi's house arrest
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Published: May 27, 2009 at 12:23 AM
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WASHINGTON, May 27 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama, condemning Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest, called for her immediate and unconditional release.
"I call on the Burmese government to release National League for Democracy Secretary-General and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi from detention immediately and unconditionally," the president said in a statement released by the White House Tuesday.
Burma is the former name of Myanmar. Suu Kyi is on trial on subversion charges arising from an incident this month in which an American was accused of swimming across a lake to her house and staying there for at least one night. She has been held under house arrest in 13 of the past 19 years by Myanmar's military junta.
Obama said Suu Kyi's "continued detention, isolation and show trial based on spurious charges" cast serious doubt on the regime's willingness to be a "responsible member of the international community."
He said Suu Kyi, through her action, has represented profound patriotism, sacrifice, and the vision of a democratic and prosperous Burma. He said it is time for the government to drop all charges against her and unconditionally release her and her fellow political prisoners.
© 2009 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
2010 Burmese Election may be Illegitimate: Clinton
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=15692
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By LALIT K JHA Thursday, May 21, 2009
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WASHINGTON — US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday said the Burmese regime’s 2010 national election could be considered illegitimate and not be recognized, if it continues on its current path.
The statement from the US secretary of state may indicate a tougher stand in the Obama administration, which after coming to power had shown earlier signs of considering a softer approach towards the Burmese junta, announcing a review of the US policy on Burma.
Clinton herself had gone on record to say that US economic sanctions against Burma had not worked.
However, the ongoing trial against Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese pro-democracy leader, appears to have resulted in a tougher stand from the US.
“We reject their (junta’s) baseless charges against Aung San Suu Kyi, their continuing resistance to a free and open electoral process,” Clinton told senators at a hearing on Wednesday, in reply to a question while testifying before the Senate Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on State and Foreign Affairs.
“If they stay on the track they're on, their elections in 2010 will be totally illegitimate and without any meaning in the international community,” Clinton said in a warning to the Burmese military.
Referring to the ongoing review of its Burma policy, Clinton said: “We are absolutely committed to trying to come up with an approach that might influence the regime.”
A senator asked if it was time for the US to take more affirmative actions to try to influence the military regime.
Clinton said there are several countries that have influence on the Burmese junta. “We are going to try to do our best to influence them to see that this repressive regime is not one that we should continue to support, and hopefully get a greater international base to take action against them,” she said.
Referring to the response the US has received from these countries, Clinton said: “I have been heartened by the response that we have received. I have spoken to a number of the foreign secretaries of Asean countries, who've issued strong statements.”
The United States is working to get more support in the United Nations, Clinton said.
Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy.org
Open Letter to the President of the United States of America for Free Aung San Suu Kyi
One Nation Under Materialism
http://www.jbs.org/index.php/news-feed-archive/4842
Written by Donald Hank
Thursday, 07 May 2009 01:51
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Whenever I meet someone who identifies himself as a “liberal” or left-winger, I immediately ask them, “What caused the banks to crash?” The answer: “lack of regulation.” When I ask them to elaborate, they say, parroting Tim Geithner, that the problem is “very complex,” implying “you aren’t smart enough to understand.”
But the ultimate implication is that free market principles killed the banks.
But the free market has an alibi. It left the country years ago. Some say it started to decline with the creation of the Fed and income tax in 1913. Others trace the decline to the 30s and FDR’s Keynesian policies.
At any rate, the Western economy has long been an unsavory mixture of government and business, which some call corporatism and others call fascism. Indeed, it is essentially the economic system introduced by Mussolini, with the difference that Mussolini did not use it to harm banks or businesses.
Big business certainly fits this description of a public-private partnership. In the financial service industry, toxic government policies force banks to make bad loans but tacitly guarantee these loans under the aegis of Fanny and Freddy. Gone are the days of mortgages guaranteed by sound financial practices such as credit checks and 20 percent down payments. Common sense and self preservation have been left out of the equation.
Manufacturers like the auto industry have always been manipulated by big government using the levers of labor unions (and, more recently, green policies), to the extent that labor prices average in the $70s per hour per (unskilled) worker. Obviously, the industry is no longer viable, but never fear, the government will prop it up at all costs – to you.
Green policies force manufacturers to hold to unrealistic clean air and water standards that drive prices even higher. Cap and trade will be a new tax more onerous than any government interference heretofore, making CO2 emitters pay fines for emissions that easily pass muster, for example, in China.
And when we buy from the heavily polluting, labor-exploiting Chinese, at prices that make our over-regulated industries incapable of competition, government cynically calls this “free trade.”
Imagine sending an American boxer into the ring with pillows tied to his hands and with hands and feet bound, to fight an unfettered foreign opponent armed with brass knuckles, and calling this a fair fight!
Most would say that labor unions represent the intrusive government side since without government support, in a truly free economy, the law of supply and demand would not tolerate such overpriced labor even for a day. Likewise, most would say that executives represent the "private" side of industry. Yet, in a truly free economy, these high-ranking leeches would also not be tolerated for a day.
The problem is that if big government intervenes on behalf of labor to grant them exorbitant salaries, then, out of "fairness," it is obliged, in any democratic system, to allow management to gouge likewise. We get two evils for the price of one.
Now conservatives have traditionally defended management's right to excessive remuneration, perceiving themselves as defenders of the “private sector” and the CEOs as their protégés, while the left sees itself as the defender of labor.
But both sides are wrong, in two ways – neither side fully understands that big business has long been a State-private partnership, heavy on State, with the free market being shackled. And neither side understands that the malaise is largely cultural, not political, nor economic.
In a healthy culture of honorable people with common sense (like the Japanese, for example), no labor union would be capable of negotiating terms that would make their business unprofitable to the point of destroying their jobs. Yet union after union has done just that in America, with workers blithely accepting the demise of their jobs, dutifully blaming management and now, in the Obama Age the free market itself, ignoring that free market capitalism has been extinct for years.
No decent CEO would demand an exorbitant salary knowing that in so doing he or she was destroying the business that sustains himself, his family and his workers. They would see the danger to themselves if nothing else. But seeing themselves as defenders of the illusory “free market,” they guiltlessly accept the exorbitant unearned fruits of others' labor and watch passively as their unprofitable industries fail – as though they had no say in the matter.
Nor, in a hypothetical sound and honorable culture based on common sense, would the media neglect to warn the public of the imminent loss of thousands of jobs as a result of reckless labor negotiations. But the media, staffed by far too many eager left-leaning polemicists, would not think of double crossing their comrades in the labor unions.
Further, education and academe would cultivate common sense and honor in workers, journalists, business managers, politicians and future educators, all of whom would join forces to keep America sound. But no such thing has happened in the United States for many, many years.
Japan comes closest to an honor-based, less egocentric culture, with workers at Toyota, for example, all showing up for work in their new Toyotas and management politely declining excessive raises. Accordingly, unemployment there has been running at half (a little over 4 percent) the Western rate (over 8 percent in the United States and EU both).
A half-century of relentless globalist-leftist activism in education, journalism, labor, management, media, education, religion and government has brainwashed Americans into accepting as inevitable – and moral – that more and more jobs go to the Third World and illegal immigrants, knowing that it is a death blow to the economy of their own nation and people, who grimly march unaware of their own destruction, fueled by political slogans disconnected from reality or science. Millions of Americans have succumbed to the spiritual and psychological onslaught.
If there is a unifying idea in the West, it is materialism, with both left and right shot through with its common threads — Engels’ notion on the left and materialist consumerism on the right.
The unifying philosophy of our forefathers has been almost completely surrendered to this self-destructive ideology.
Donald Hank is a former language teacher, currently operating a technical translation agency in Wrightsville, PA. A former language teacher, he holds an undergraduate degree in French and German from Millersville State University (PA), a Master’s degree in Russian language and literature from Kutztown State College (also in PA), has studied Chinese for 3 years in Taiwan at the Mandarin Training Center, and is self-taught in other languages, having logged a total of 8 years abroad in total immersion situations. He is also the founder of Lancaster-York Non-Custodial Parents, a volunteer organization that provides Christian counseling for non-custodial parents.
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Letter from the All Burma Monks' Alliance and the 88 Generation Students to U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton
Suu Kyi's US backers plead to keep sanctions
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/5477015
WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Congress supporters of Myanmar's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi pleaded to keep sanctions on the military regime as a key senator said efforts to isolate the junta had failed.
President Barack Obama's administration is reviewing strategy on Myanmar , also known as Burma , whose ruling junta has crushed dissent and kept Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest for 19 years.
In a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton , 17 members of Congress said they were "greatly concerned" by indications that the United States was considering lifting sanctions on Myanmar .
The lawmakers, led by longtime Aung San Suu Kyi champion Joseph Crowley, said that Myanmar's leader Than Shwe had shown no desire to engage with the world's only detained Nobel laureate.
"Than Shwe's regime continues to perpetuate crimes against humanity and war crimes so severe that Burma has been called 'Southeast Asia's Darfur,'" they wrote.
They noted that Congress approved a law last year subjecting the Myanmar junta to sanctions until it releases all political prisoners and starts dialogue on bringing in democracy.
"We urge you to join us in standing firmly alongside Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma's democracy movement," they said.
But Jim Webb, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Asia, said the United States needed a more "constructive" policy on Myanmar .
"Certainly the way that we approach it now I don't believe has had the results that people want it to have," Webb, a member of Obama's Democratic Party, told a luncheon at the Council on Foreign Relations.
"What I think we should be doing in Burma is trying to open up diplomatic avenues where you can have confidence builders... and through that process work toward some way where you can remove sanctions," he said.
State Department official Stephen Blake last week paid the first visit by a senior US envoy to Myanmar in more than seven years, quietly holding talks both with the junta and the opposition.
The State Department played down the significance of the meeting, stressing that the Obama team was still reviewing policy on Myanmar .
Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg said Wednesday the United States was seeking a common approach with Asia on Myanmar and said the six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear program could serve as a model.
Nearly all Asian nations maintain full relations and trade with Myanmar , distancing themselves from the sanctions policy of the United States and the European Union.
China is the key commercial and military partner of the junta, which crushed 2007 protests led by Buddhist monks.
The previous US administration of George W. Bush strengthened decade-old sanctions against Myanmar -- imposed under his predecessor Bill Clinton -- while his wife Laura was an outspoken critic of the military regime.
Senator Webb -- a Vietnam veteran who has also been a journalist -- said the United States should take a lesson from how it opened relations with China and Vietnam despite human rights and other concerns in the two communist states.
Webb said that when he returned to Vietnam in 1991 -- four years before Washington and Hanoi established relations -- the situation was worse than when he visited Myanmar in 2001.
Six-party Talks on Burma Proposal Gets US Support
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By WAI MOE
Thursday, April 2, 2009
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The US is prepared to tackle the Burma issue by joining six-party talks along the lines of those held to discuss North Korea ’s nuclear program, according to a senior State Department official. Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg told the National Bureau of Asian Research think tank on Wednesday that the US wanted a “collaborative and constructive” approach on Burma , saying nations with sway over the junta should avoid “recreating a mini version of the Great Game.” Steinberg said: “Viewing relations with a notorious authoritarian regime like Burma as a zero-sum game is in no nation’s interest. We want to discuss a common approach with Asean [the Association of Southeast Asian Nations], with China , with India and with Japan to find a policy that will improve the lives of the people of Burma and promote stability in this key region.” The US was open to setting up new “flexible” frameworks similar to the six party talks on Pyongyang ’s nuclear program, Steinberg said. Some analysts are skeptical, however, pointing out that the six-party talks on North Korea had not halted Pyongyang ’s nuclear program. The talks brought together the US , China , Japan , Russia and the two Koreas . “I do not think it [six party talks on Burma] is a promising idea to resolve the issues, but it could be very useful in making sure that this is an issue that gets the global attention it deserves,” said Jeff Kingston, professor of Asian Studies at Temple University, Japan. Kingston said he was not optimistic that the US could forge a common strategy with Asia, given that its concerns about human rights and democracy are not shared by India , China and Asean. President Barrack Obama’s administration is conducting a review of US policy towards Burma .
Japan's management approaches offer lessons for U.S. corporations
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2008936833_opinb29jacoby.html
While Japan has been used as a cautionary tale in the U.S. economic downturn, guest columnists Sanford M. Jacoby and Sally Kohn argue that management approaches common in Japan offer lessons for U.S. companies as they recover.
By Sanford M. Jacoby and Sally Kohn
RECENTLY, auditors for General Motors raised substantial doubt about whether the automaker will survive. But while Japanese automaker Toyota is also taking a hit as global auto sales slump, analysts expect Toyota to ultimately prevail. It's not just the Prius. Another type of hybrid built into Japan's economic model blends corporate interest with the common good. Japan's cooperative capitalism is the key to Toyota's future — and ideally America's, too.
Promoting his stimulus package, President Obama said, "If you delay acting on an economy of this severity, [it potentially] becomes much more difficult for us to get out of. We saw this happen in Japan in the 1990s, where they suffered what was called the 'lost decade.' "
Yet while Japan has been used as a cautionary tale, in many ways even at the peak of its recession Japan remained better off than the United States today. Japan did not see its middle class disappear into swelling rates of poverty and unemployment. And Japan was not plagued by growing class resentment. Its inequality remained modest and its large corporations did not have bloated CEO salaries, including at those firms receiving government aid.
Why? Despite some changes in recent years, most large Japanese corporations still practice a form of capitalism in which different groups with a stake in the enterprise — owners, employees, managers, suppliers, creditors — work together to create value. Cooperation is possible because the various stakeholders have made long-term commitments to the firm. The result is a more holistic corporation, balancing short-term opportunities with long-term needs.
A large company in Japan is less likely to lay off thousands of employees simply to help its share price or to gut pension benefits to pay out higher dividends. In other words, Japanese corporations contribute to the common good rather than compete with it.
American corporations (including banks), under pressure from speculative investors, prioritize driving up short-term stock prices and dividends. Executives are "aligned" with shareholder interests through stock-based compensation. But this creates an incentive for executives to boost their own compensation by taking excessive risks and by manipulating share prices. Ultimately this harms the long-term health of companies and thus the long-term health of America's economy.
Toyota, for instance, refused to line investors' pockets and instead reinvested profits in capital improvements and in research and development, which led to the hybrid. By contrast, through the late 1990s, GM funneled billions of its profits to shareholders — as dividends and share buybacks — a fact often overlooked in discussions of what went wrong in Detroit.
In stakeholder capitalism, employees participate in corporate decision-making. While unions in both Japan and the United States have declined in recent years, the level of unionization in the United States today is about half that in Japan. And in nonunion Japanese corporations, human capital still is valued more deeply. Senior human-resource executives are far more influential than in comparable American companies, where it is chief financial officers who rule the roost.
And when corporations function as teams, fairness becomes an instinctive priority. In the United States in 2006, the average CEO earned more than 364 times the average U.S. worker — a huge increase from, say, 1980, when the differential was just 40 times more. Japan, on the other hand, has one of the lowest CEO pay gaps in the world, with chief executives earning on average 10 times more than the average worker.
Measurements of economic inequality find that wealth, too, is less unequally distributed in Japan. The United States ranks among the worst nations in terms of wealth inequality, at the end of the scale with South Africa and Iran.
Of course, Japan is not an economic paradise. About a third of the population works in "atypical" jobs that carry no promise of employment security. These workers, mainly women and young people, don't receive the same benefits the Japanese business model provides others. Just as women and African-American and Latino men face disproportionate discrimination in the U.S. labor market, Japan's inequities, while lower overall, still exist.
Nevertheless, lessons from Japan could strengthen the U.S. economy for generations to come. We can cut the gap between CEO and worker pay by giving shareholders a say in executive compensation, an idea that ideally will be ratified now that the SEC is under new management.
But we need to go further. For example, we need to revamp corporate charter laws to mandate stakeholder governance and corporate accountability, to adopt laws like the Employee Free Choice Act to strengthen employee representation and to tax unearned income at the same rates applied to wages and salaries.
Toyota, like Japan, is not a perfect example. The days of Japan as No. 1 are over. But it's worth noting that the first plank in the Toyota Way is: "Base your management decisions on a long-term philosophy, even at the expense of short-term goals." That's a good place to start as we rethink the American corporation.
Sanford M. Jacoby is professor of management and public policy in the UCLA Anderson School. He is author of "The Embedded Corporation: Corporate Governance & Employment Relations in Japan and the United States." Sally Kohn is senior campaign strategist for the Center for Community Change and a blogger for the Huffington Post.
Copyright © 2009 The Seattle Times Company
Suu Kyi a ‘Beacon of Hope’: Clinton
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=15294
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By LALIT K JHA Friday, March 13, 2009
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WASHINGTON — US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday called the iconic Burmese pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, a beacon of hope for people around the world.
Clinton’s comments occurred at a function at the State Department on the occasion of Women’s History Month.
“Aung San Suu Kyi, whom I mentioned yesterday and I mention as often as I can because having been in prison now for most of the past two decades, she still remains a beacon of hope, strength, and liberty for people around the world,” Clinton said.
The secretary also mentioned Mukhtar Mai of Pakistan, who survived a horrific assault in what is euphemistically called an “honor crime,” and then used the money she received in a court settlement to help educate the rural poor in Pakistan.
“These women are not just improving the world for other women,” Clinton said. “Their courage and actions are helping to create societies where every boy and girl, every man and woman, has the opportunity to live up to his or her God-given potential.”
She said these women understand that the struggle for women’s rights in the 21st century is no longer limited to fighting for the ballot, or equal pay for equal work, or the end of domestic violence, or the right to speak out, or the right to worship or associate.
“All of these items are critical and necessary, but they are no longer sufficient. In order to secure the full spectrum of women’s rights, we have to create economic opportunity and economic security,” Clinton said.
“It is essential that we improve access to healthcare and that we protect Mother Earth from our assaults, so that we can guarantee a better future, and that we do all that we can to help improve education so that we will have more allies and partners and fewer adversaries,” she said.
Clinton said wherever there is oppression, women need to stand against it. “Wherever there is violence, we as women must work to end it. Wherever there is poverty or sickness, we as women must work to cure it. And wherever our planet is in danger, we as women must work to protect it,” she said.
Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy.org
General Information on Labor Rights Abuses in Burma
http://olympicflame.org/faq/828
01 January 2001
General Information on Labor Rights Abuses in Burma Burma (Myanmar) is arguably one of the most oppressive and egregious abuses of labor rights in the late 20th century. Despite the fact that it has ratified ILO Convention 87 (Freedom of Association) and ILO Convention 29 (Forced Labor), it systematically violates these conventions on a daily basis. In 1989, the U.S. Government suspended Burma from eligibility for trade concessions under the Generalized System of Preferences Program (GSP) because of its violation of labor rights.
The U.S. State Department annual human rights report for 1998 found that freedom of association was severely limited. It noted that:
"The Government restricts freedom of association. Aside from officially sanctioned organizations like the USDA, the right of association existed only for organizations, including trade associations and professional bodies, permitted by law and duly registered with the Government, such as the Myanmar Women's Entrepreneur Association….Free trade unions do not exist, and even former government-controlled ones were dormant. Because of its longstanding violation of ILO Convention 87 on Freedom of Association, Burma was cited for continued failure to implement the convention by the June 1998 ILO Conference. The Conference criticized the lack of progress and the absence of cooperation on the part of the Government."
SLORC Order 2/88, issued in 1988 and still in effect, states clearly that:
"(b) Gathering, walking, marching in processions, chanting slogans, delivering speeches, agitating, and creating disturbances on the streets by a group of five or more people is banned regardless of whether the act is with the intention of creating disturbances or of committing a crime or not."
Order 2/88 is often supplemented by use of the Unlawful Associations Act which provides for detention up to three years for any person who is found to be a member of an unlawful organization. (1)Among the ways an organization can be found to be unlawful is if it is one which "has been declared to be unlawful by the President or the Union under the powers hereby conferred", giving the SPDC the widest possible latitude to declare unlawful any organization it finds to be inconvenient. The natural result, as the US State Department found in its report, is
" Workers do not have the right to organize and bargain collectively to set wages and benefits ."
The SLORC/SPDC's horrendous record on forced labor is well known to many labor activists around the world. The SPDC military junta is, quite simply, worst abuser of forced labor on the planet at this time, and the ILO has taken clear cognizance of that fact. In March 1997, the European Union suspended Burma indefinitely from its GSP program because of its continued and systematic use of forced labor in virtually all aspects of the economy.
The US State Department human rights report found that:
"Forced or compulsory labor remains a serious problem. At widespread locations throughout the country, international observers have confirmed that the Government routinely coerces forced labor by citizens for local projects...From 1992 to 1996, the Government supplemented declining gross investment with a significant increase in uncompensated citizen "contributions," chiefly of forced labor, to build or maintain irrigation, transportation, and tourism infrastructure projects…the use of forced labor remains widespread."
After years of condemnation of Burma's forced labor record, the ILO finally agreed in July 1997 to set up an official ILO Commission of Inquiry under article 26 of the ILO Constitution. After months of intensive study, fact finding and interviews, the ILO Commission of Inquiry made a strong set of conclusions which stated:
"There is abundant evidence before the Commission showing the pervasive use of forced labor imposed on the civilian population throughout Myanmar by the authorities…In actual practice, the manifold exactions of forced labor often give rise to the extortion of money in exchange for temporary alleviation of the burden, but also to threats to the life and security and extrajudicial punishment of those unwilling, slow or unable to comply with a demand for forced labor; such punishment or reprisals range from the money demands to physical abuse, beatings, torture, rape, and murder…Forced labor is widely performed by women, children, and elderly persons as well as persons otherwise unfit for work…All the information and evidence before the Commission shows utter disregard by the authorities for the safety and health as well as the basic needs of the people performing forced or compulsory labor…Porters, including women, are often sent ahead in particularly dangerous situations as in suspected minefields, and many are killed or injured in this way…Forced laborers, including those sick and injured, are frequently beaten or otherwise physically abused by soldiers, resulting in serious injuries; some are killed; and women performing compulsory labor are raped or otherwise sexually abuses by soldiers." (2)
The Commission made a number of recommendations for the SPDC to bring their laws and practice into compliance with ILO Convention no. 29. Unfortunately, the SPDC failed to implement those recommendations. As a result, during its annual conference in June 1999, the ILO passed a resolution that found the attitude and behavior of the government of Burma (Myanmar) "are grossly incompatible with the conditions and principles governing membership in the organization." The resolution continued that "the Government of Myanmar (Burma) should henceforth cease to benefit from any technical cooperation or assistance from the ILO" and "should henceforth not receive any invitation to attend meetings, symposia, and seminars organized by the ILO, until such time as it has implemented the conclusions of the Commission of Inquiry."
source: AFL-CIO Solidarity Center, Thailand, January 2001
Notes
(1) Article 17.1 of the Unlawful Associations Act states "Whoever is a member of an unlawful association or takes part in meetings or any such association or contributes or receives or solicits contributions for any such association, or in any way assists the operations of any such association, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term of not less than two years or more than three years."
(2) In the U.S., where apparel imports from Burma have risen by 272% since 1995, the Free Burma Coalition and other national groups have launched a legislative and grassroots campaign to ban apparel imports from Burma. For more information see www.freeburmacoalition.org
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