*EPF403 08/02/01
Text: Senator Harkin Condemns Burmese Regime, Forced Labor
(Urges frequent ILO Inspections for Burma) (1530)
Senator Tom Harkin (Democrat of Iowa), who has introduced legislation to cut off imports from Burma, said that country's military junta is "beyond the pale," in a July 31 speech to the Senate.
Harkin described the Rangoon regime as "morally bankrupt" and "despicable," and urged President Bush to support S. 926.
Burma's military junta, Harkin said, uses forced child labor, has enlisted 50,000 children as soldiers, and traffics drugs on such a scale as to be "the No. 1 source of heroin on our streets in America."
He urged that International Labor Organization (ILO) fact-finding teams be sent to Burma "every six months for the foreseeable future, not a onetime visit."
Every ILO fact-finding team sent to Burma, he added, "should include at least one of the members of the ILO Commission of Inquiry, which compiled the body of evidence of widespread use of forced labor in Burma."
Harkin noted that it was the Commission's report that eventually led to the 175 member nations of the ILO to adopt stronger sanctions against this "outlaw regime."
Following is the text of Senator Harkin's July 31 speech to the Senate:
(begin text)
STOP TRADING AND AIDING THE BURMESE MILITARY JUNTA
Senate
July 31, 2001
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, once in awhile, the world is confronted with a national government so extreme in its violation of basic human rights and worker rights and so morally bankrupt that it requires exceptional, coordinated action on the part of all civilized nations. A case in point is the Burmese military junta that has been in power since 1988 and which continues to terrorize this nation of 48 million people to this day.
This is a despicable military dictatorship that is quite simply beyond the pale.
It uses forced labor as a normal way of conducting business and international trade.
It uses forced child labor to build roads and dams, to transport goods for the military, and to tend the fields.
It exploits 50,000 child soldiers--the most of any nation on Earth.
It is a drug trafficker of the first order--the No. 1 source of heroin on our streets in America.
It routinely confiscates and operates apparel and other factories, directly and indirectly, to earn foreign exchange to keep its brutal grip on power.
It brazenly ignores the democratic yearnings of its own people who overwhelmingly elected the National League for Democracy to power in the national elections in 1990.
It has kept Aung San Suu Kyi, the democratically elected national leader of Burma and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, under house arrest and cutoff from outside communication for most of the past decade, while imprisoning, torturing, and killing tens of thousands of Burmese prodemocracy supporters.
For all of these reasons, I introduced legislation, S. 926, in late May to establish a complete U.S. trade ban with Burma. I am greatly heartened that Senators HELMS, LEAHY, MCCONNELL, HOLLINGS, WELLSTONE, FEINGOLD, SCHUMER, FEINSTEIN, LIEBERMAN, CLINTON, TORRICELLI, DAYTON, CORZINE, and MIKULSKI have already joined as cosponsors of this bill to make more effective the limited sanctions enacted by a bipartisan majority in 1997.
Now we need President Bush to throw his support behind this measure as well. I am hopeful that he will follow his words with action because he wrote to many of us nearly two months ago pledging that ``we strongly support Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's heroic efforts to bring democracy to the Burmese people.''
Now is not the time to hesitate. We already have fresh evidence that even the threat of enactment of this legislation is making life much more difficult for the Burmese generals in several ways.
First, the Wall Street Journal on July 9th carried an in-depth story under the headline, ``Myanmar Faces Dual Blow from U.S. Proposed Ban.'' In this account, a ranking officer of the Myanmar Garment Manufacturing Association reports that orders for Burmese apparel have already begun to decline in the country's largest quasi-private sector industry.
Not surprisingly, Burmese government officials and textile industry executives are denouncing our legislation, claiming that it will hurt tens of thousands of Burmese textile and apparel workers and their families.
But, in fact, S. 926 enjoys the solid support of the Free Trade Union Movement of Burma, FTUB, and it was developed in close consultation with Burmese workers at the village and farm level inside that besieged nation. Small wonder given that the per capita GDP in Burma has now fallen to less than $300 a year and the U.S. Embassy in Rangoon last summer cabled home that wages in the textile and apparel factories typically start at 8 cents an hour for a 48-hour work week.
Second, the Burmese military junta for the first time has recently announced that it will allow a team of investigators from the International Labor Organization (ILO) to visit Burma for three weeks in September to follow up the mountain of evidence compiled about the widespread use of forced labor. I hope this is not a cynical ploy on the part of the Burmese generals whereby ILO officials are carefully steered to sanitized work sites, after which the ILO mission issues a report stating that they saw little first-hand evidence of forced labor or that it is in decline due to the government's efforts to stop it.
To forestall this possibility, the following important precautions need to be taken now to prevent the Burmese generals from "whitewashing" their longstanding use of forced labor:
There should be regular ILO fact-finding teams sent to Burma every six months for the foreseeable future, not a onetime visit.
Every ILO fact-finding team sent into Burma should include at least one of the members of the ILO Commission of Inquiry, which compiled the body of evidence of widespread use of forced labor in Burma. It was that Commission's report which led to the ILO invoking Article 33 procedures for the first time in history in 1999 and twice, since then, calling for the 175 member nations of the ILO to adopt stronger sanctions against this outlaw regime.
Before any ILO inspection team is dispatched, the Burmese generals must rescind their decree, which prohibits any gathering of more than 5 Burmese civilians at one time. This will enable Burmese forced laborers or witnesses on their behalf to feel more secure in coming forward.
The ILO must also insist in advance that other UN agencies help monitor the whereabouts and safety of any Burmese forced laborers or witnesses thereto, once the ILO fact-finding teams leave the country.
Finally, the embassies of Japan and other ASEAN countries who lobbied hard for the dispatch of such ILO fact-finding teams must take on special, added responsibilities and function as conscientious monitors against forced labor and other egregious worker rights violations inside Burma whenever ILO fact-finding teams are not on the ground.
Third, now that more and more American consumers are learning for the first time that U.S. trade with Burma is actually growing, they are bringing their own pressure to bear on this sordid business. Last May 23rd, for example, Wal-Mart executives issued a statement that ``Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. does not source products from Burma and we do not accept merchandise from our suppliers sourced in Burma and Wal-Mart-Canada will also not accept any merchandise sourced from Burma moving forward.'' I hope this claim can be verified soon and that other companies that have been doing business in Burma will follow suit.
Fourth, I am also hopeful that the U.S. Customs Service will move promptly to enforce its recent rulings and make certain that no products enter the U.S. labeled only "Made in Myanmar". Until such time that my trade ban legislation is enacted, it is very important that all American consumers be able to clearly identify whether a garment or other imported product is made in Burma.
In conclusion, Mr. President, it is unconscionable that apparel and textile imports from Burma, for example, have increased by 372 percent since supposedly "tough" sanctions were enacted in the U.S. in 1997. They increased by 118 percent last year alone, providing more than $454 million in hard currency that flows mostly into coffers of the Burmese military dictatorship. By what reasoning, do we currently have quotas on textile and apparel imports from virtually every other country in the world, but not Burma?
We need to promptly cut off the hard currency that is helping sustain the Burmese gulag.
We need to demonstrate anew our solidarity with the pro-democracy in Burma and its leaders.
We need to curb the flow of illegal drugs pouring into our country from Burma. We need to answer the call of the ILO to disassociate our country from the Burmese military junta which routinely uses forced labor and the worst forms of child labor, while defying the community of civilized nations to do anything about it.
We can accomplish all of these worthy policy objectives, the sooner we enact S. 926.
(end text)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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