BurmaNet News, April 30, 2004

[Editor]

April 30, 2004, Issue # 2467


INSIDE BURMA
AFP: Myanmar opposition says almost certain to attend national convention
Irrawaddy/AP: NLD Will Attend National Convention if Junta Accepts Demands
Xinhua: More anti-gov't armed members surrender in Myanmar

DRUGS
Times (London): Burma's drug lords gamble on new vice
SHAN: Speed smuggled into Thailand -- by cows

BUSINESS
Myanmar Times: Electronic IDs for merchant seamen

REGIONAL
South China Morning Post: A (long, drying) river runs through it

INTERNATIONAL
AFP: Bill introduced in US Senate renewing sanctions against Myanmar
Irrawaddy: A View from South Africa

STATEMENT
ICFTU: Over-optimism about possible Suu Kyi release may be misplaced, says
ICFTU
Federation of Trade Unions – Burma: International Labour Day Statement

PRESS RELEASE
WINTESS releases Online Video Rights Alert:  'Entrenched Abuse' at
www.witness.org - showing continued evidence of widespread forced labor in
Burma


INSIDE BURMA
_____________________________________

April 30, Agence France Presse
Myanmar opposition says almost certain to attend national convention

Yangon: Myanmar's pro-democracy opposition said Friday it was almost
certain to attend a constitutional convention next month as it expected
the ruling junta to accept its proposed changes to the forum.

"We have come to the conclusion that it is in the interests of the people
and the nation for us to attend the national convention," National League
for Democracy (NLD) secretary U Lwin told reporters.

"But this of course is conditional to the military authorities agreeing to
a set of suggestions which we put up to them today," he said.

U Lwin said the proposals thrashed out by party leaders this week
concerned the procedures under which the convention beginning May 17 will
be run, and the opposition's call for "free and open discussions".

"We have been assured that they would consider our suggestions positively.
Therefore, it is more or less certain that we will be attending the
national convention," he said.

U Lwin would not be drawn on the release of detained party leader Aung San
Suu Kyi, but on Thursday he told reporters that if the proposals were
accepted and the NLD attended the convention, he expected her to be freed
before May 17.

Despite U Lwin's upbeat tone, the junta earlier this month ruled out
changing the format of the convention.

The forum, aimed at drafting a new constitution, is the first step in the
regime's "road map to democracy" which it bills as culminating in free and
fair elections after four decades of military rule.

The NLD refused to make a decision on whether to attend until top members
had the chance to talk with Aung San Suu Kyi, and the junta has arranged
two meetings this week on Tuesday and Thursday.

Myanmar's democracy icon and the rest of her party's leadership were taken
into detention during political unrest a year ago but since then most have
been given their liberty.

Hopes were high until recently that Aung San Suu Kyi would be freed before
the convention began, but those prospects faded in recent weeks as the
political atmosphere in Yangon grew tense.

However, U Lwin has said that relations with the government have improved
and that the NLD would continue to push for Aung San Suu Kyi's release.

The convention is expected to assemble government, political party and
ethnic representatives in a forum that, unless reforms are made, would
essentially mirror an earlier convention which collapsed in 1995 when the
NLD walked out.

Analysts have said the revived forum would have no credibility without the
involvement of the NLD.

_____________________________________

April 30, Irrawaddy and Associated Press
NLD Will Attend National Convention if Junta Accepts Demands - Kyaw Zwa
Moe and AP

Burma’s main opposition party will attend a constitutional-drafting
convention scheduled for May 17 if the military junta accepts its demands,
which will be submitted by the party late this afternoon, the party’s
secretary said Friday.

“We will attend,” said U Lwin, secretary of the National League for
Democracy, or NLD, when asked whether the party would go to the convention
if the junta accepts its demands. The convention is scheduled to restart
next month. It was aborted in 1996, shortly after the NLD walked out in
protest, calling the proceedings undemocratic.

The NLD planned to send a letter to the government today asking for a
guarantee that its views would be heard during the National Convention, U
Lwin said. But he did not divulge any details about the letter.

“The response by the NLD whether to attend the National Convention or not
depends on how soon the government responds to our suggestions,” he said
in a telephone interview.

“Everything must be discussed in the convention,” he added. “It doesn’t
matter that they [the military leaders] turn down any proposals. But they
have to listen and give their opinion to them.”

The party also wants assurances from the government that there will be
opportunity to debate the constitution’s six principles that were approved
by the previous convention, one of which guarantees the military a leading
role in the country’s future government.

U Lwin also said the participants must be allowed to voice their opinions
in the convention.

Burma’s opposition welcomes as a positive sign the release from detention
of seven central executive committee members and the government’s
permission to allow them to meet the committee’s other two members, who
are still under house arrest: party secretary-general Aung San Suu Kyi and
vice-chairman Tin Oo. The nine committee members met on Wednesday and
Thursday.

“I strongly believe that it [the release of Suu Kyi and Tin Oo] will take
place before the National Convention in view of the current improvement of
relations between the NLD and the government,” U Lwin said yesterday after
the committee meeting.

Until last week, he had been saying he did not expect Suu Kyi to be freed
soon.

U Lwin said that Suu Kyi and Tin Oo would not consider attending the
National Convention unless the junta formally invites them, he added.

The junta has issued invitations to dozens of NLD members but has not yet
invited Suu Kyi and Tin Oo. Suu Kyi and Tin Oo did not attend the previous
convention.

Regarding the party’s proposals submitted to the junta, U Lwin said: “If
the government responds positively to our suggestions the NLD will join
the National Convention in the interest of the country. I strongly believe
that we will get a positive response from the government.”

_____________________________________

April 30, Xinhua News Agency
More anti-gov't armed members surrender in Myanmar

Yangon: A total of 54 more members from some anti-government armed groups
in Myanmar laid down their arms to the government forces in last February
and March, official newspaper The New light of Myanmar reported Friday.

These members, who "exchanged arms for peace" with the government, include
those from the Kayin National Union (KNU), Shan United Revolutionary Army
(SURA) and Chin National Army (CNA).

They brought along with them a total of 460 rounds of arms and ammunition
among others, the report said.

Of these armed groups, the KNU is the largest one fighting with the
government for more than five decades. Meanwhile, a renewed peace talks
was held in last February between the government and the KNU. Despite
reaching no formal peace agreement yet, more talks are expected to
continue at an unidentified date.

Official statistics show that up to now, 17 anti-government armed groups
have initiated ceasefire agreements with the government since Myanmar
introduced a policy of national reconciliation in 1989.


DRUGS
_____________________________________

April 30, The Times (London)
Burma's drug lords gamble on new vice - Oliver August

Oliver August reports from the badlands town of Mong Lar on the Burmese
border

The manager of the Mong Lar Golf Club in the Golden Triangle walked across
the neatly raked bunker by the ninth hole dressed in worn-out sandals and
a blue pyjama suit.

"You can wear whatever you want here," Li Ping said. "There aren't any
strict rules on the course. This hole is a par four but we won't tell
anyone if you take a few extra strokes."

The club's lush fairways and putting greens are laid out among the poppy
studded hills of one of the world's most impenetrable and lawless regions.
For decades armed drug traffickers and tribal insurgents have outgunned
the Burmese junta in this high-altitude rainforest, the biggest heroin
source after Afghanistan.

Yet, after international pressure to reduce the drugs trade, the
wedge-shaped territory bordering China, Laos and Thailand is being
transformed into a paradise for golfers and gamblers. Xie Chang, a
restaurateur with a passion for golf, said: "There is a lot of new
business and it's going great."

The course logo is a dollar sign made up of the letter S and two
pencil-thin golf clubs. The nine holes -soon to be expanded to eighteen
-were built two years ago and local labourers are at present working on a
condominium complex and an artificial lake.

At 4pm every day, lieutenants of the local drug lord Sai Lin, who is
wanted by the US Government, practise their swing. They do not have to pay
the green fee of £3, according to the manager, since they finance the
course.

U Sai Lin's Eastern Shan State Army controls a large swath of the Golden
Triangle and has been busy diversifying away from drugs, concentrating on
the sleazier side of tourism. UN officials say that 200,000 mostly male
visitors went to Mong Lar last year, flying from the eastern seaboard to a
Chinese airfield near the border before driving to Burma.

After passing through an archway guided by Eastern Shan State Army
soldiers, they enter Mong Lar's glittering high street lined with
brothels, casinos, loan shark offices and flesh pots peopled by Russian
women and Thai "lady boys".

At night, the Las Vegas-style strip is lit with neon and flashing lights,
unrecognisable from the dirt-road township that Mong Lar was a few years
ago.

Chinese visitors are lured with tall tales of elephant polo and exotic
eroticism.

But the main reason why so many come to the Golden Triangle is gambling,
which has been banned in China for 50 years. Visitors relish the chance to
crowd into the 24-hour casinos where stakes at the baijiale tables, a game
similar to blackjack, can be as high as £60,000.

When visitors borrow from local loan sharks and cannot repay, they are
apparently forced to dig a hole in a forest clearing and stand in it.
Every day a little more earth is filled in until they have arranged a
money transfer from China by mobile phone.

Golf may become another mainstay of Mong Lar's economy if the sport's
popularity continues to surge across the border. Mr Li also points out
that while golf is legal in China, dress codes in Beijing and Shanghai can
be stifling.

Despite the growth of the entertainment industry, Mong Lar is still a
drugs hub.

Xie Chang, the golf-loving restaurateur, said: "I have seen heroin
packages this big." He outlined the size of a suitcase with his
grease-stained hands. "The traders go back and forth."

Mong Lar has been a gateway for opium traders since Britain promoted poppy
cultivation under colonial rule more than a century ago. After the defeat
of Qing Dynasty China in the Opium Wars, large-scale production was
sanctioned on the eastern fringes of the Raj and imperial taxes were
levied.

After Burmese independence in 1948 and the 1949 Communist takeover in
Beijing, control of the poppy fields passed first to fleeing Chinese
Nationalist troops, then to Beijing-supported Communists, and finally to
the region's diverse ethnic minorities in 1989.

The Burmese Government, which has been trying to pacify the border lands
ever since, plays down the significance of Mong Lar's illicit economy.
"Some people think the casinos are for laundering drug money," Hkam Awng,
a police colonel, said. "But I don't think so."

In his Home Affairs Ministry office in Rangoon, he charts apparent
reductions in the drug trade with the help of an interactive PowerPoint
presentation sitting below a map of the world.

UN officials have said that the shift from drugs to gambling and
prostitution is barely an improvement for the Golden Triangle, since it
entrenches criminal gangs and may harm the poverty-stricken local
population just as much as smoking opium.

The building of casinos is now being repeated in towns such as Pangsang
and Muse farther north along the border. Some estimates put the number of
Chinese tourists streaming into Burma, a country widely shunned by Western
visitors for political reasons, as high as one million a year.

_____________________________________

30 April, SHAN
Speed smuggled into Thailand -- by cows

Even cows have become accidental drug runners, according to cattle traders
coming to Maehongson, the kingdom's northwestern province.

"The yaba (methamphetamine) in plastic bags are forced down the cows'
throats into their insides before crossing the border," one of the cattle
drovers coming through Boundary Post #14, Mae Sae township, Kayah (Karenni
State)), opposite Maehongson's Khun Yuam district, recently told
border-based Karenni Information Network Group (KING). "They are
slaughtered following their safe passage through Thai checkpoints and the
bags are retrieved to be sold to the dealers in Thailand."

The cross-border trade in cattle whose beef, a huge demand in Thailand,
has become a most convenient cover for drug running, says KING editor.

He quoted disclosures by two recent deserters from Karenni People
Nationalities Liberation Front, a group that enjoys a truce pact with
Rangoon, that it was also involved in drug trafficking. "The pills, mostly
99 and WY brands, are being bought at 350 kyat (17.5 baht) and sold at
400-450 kyat (20-22.50 baht)", KING quoted Saw Say Htoo and Maung Maung as
saying.

The two also reported areas in western Kayah and adjoining southern Shan
State under Faikhun-based Military Operations Command #7 as poppy growing
areas. "Tax is paid to the Army through its intelligence officers," they
claimed.

Seizures of drugs in Thailand have increased since last year when its
all-out War on Drugs was at its height, according to Thai news reports.

For further information, please contact S.H.A.N. at:
Shan Herald Agency for News.
Phone: 66-1-5312837
e-mail: <shan at cm.ksc.co.th>
http://www.shanland.org


BUSINESS / MONEY
_____________________________________

April 30, Myanmar Times
Electronic IDs for merchant seamen - Wai Phyo Myint and Ba Saing

The government has begun issuing the first electronic identity documents
to merchant seamen as part of an international program to strengthen
maritime security.

The first of the documents, which include personal information embedded in
a computer chip, was issued by the Department of Marine Administration,
under the Ministry of Transport, on April 22.

“The issuance of the international standard seafarers’ IDs (SIDs) was done
in accordance with the International Labour Organisation’s Seafarers’
Identity Documents Convention revised in 2003,” U Soe Win, the
department’s director general told Myanmar Times.

The department began accepting applications for the documents last
September and about 2000 had been received until the end of March, U Soe
Win said.

“A total of 1000 SIDS will be issued in the first batch,” he said.

U Soe Win said that the department aimed to issue the documents to about
5000 merchant seamen a month. It would take about a year to issue the
documents to the country’s 50,000 registered merchant seamen.

He said Myanmar was the first member of the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations to issue the document.

U Soe Win said Bagan Cybertech and a Malaysian software company had begun
work on developing the documents 10 months ago.

U Soe Win said that by leaving no doubt about the identity of merchant
seamen, the electronic SIDs would help to maintain the security of ships
and ports.

Another advantage of the documents was that they would make it easier for
those holding them to gain entry to ILO member states.

This was expected to lead to greater demand for Myanmar merchant seamen
because it would eliminate the visa difficulties they encountered in some
countries, including the United States.

“According the ILO’s SID convention, any seafarer who holds a valid SID
can enter any member state without a visa for the purpose of joining their
ship, transferring to another ship, travelling in transit to join their
ship in another country, repatriation or any other purpose approved by the
authorities of the member country,” U Soe Win said.

One of the first merchant seamen to receive the SID, U Myo Than, said it
was a useful and important document.

“It cannot be counterfeited and its security features are important at a
time when there is a heightened international concern about terrorism,”
said U Myo Than, who has four years’ experience as a merchant seamen.


REGIONAL
_____________________________________

April 30, South China Morning Post
A (long, drying) river runs through it

As Southeast Asia bakes in a harsh dry season, China's demand for water
and electricity is being blamed for sending the mighty Mekong River to
record low levels. The river, Southeast Asia's longest, runs for 4,880km
through or between six countries - China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand,
Cambodia and Vietnam.

Only about 16 per cent of the Mekong's water comes from China. But the
Chinese contribution is increasingly important in the dry season, from
November to May, when the river relies for a significant part of its flow
on the melting of glaciers high on the Tibetan plateau.

China has the upper hand in harnessing the waters of the Mekong, which it
calls the Lancang, for power, irrigation and flood control because it is
the upstream country. Chinese engineers and workers are in the middle of
building a third hydroelectric dam on the river. It will be second in size
only to the mammoth Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River. Two Chinese
hydropower plants are already in operation on the Mekong and five more are
planned by 2020.

They will provide electricity not just to Yunnan, one of China's poorest
and least-developed provinces, but also send it via transmission lines to
densely populated industrialised zones on the east coast, including
greater Shanghai and Guangdong, that need power. Already, some officials
and environmental activists are accusing China of taking water at the
expense of downstream states, which is adversely affecting the lives of
many of the 60 million people in the Mekong basin who depend on the river
for agriculture, fishing and navigation.

The Mekong in Southeast Asia is experiencing lower than average flows;
some reports say it is at record lows. But are the Chinese dams really to
blame? A study by the Mekong River Comission says they are not, at least
not so far. It says the cause was a dryer than usual wet season last year.

The analysis is based on river height and rainfall data spanning several
decades. If low flows in the Mekong were caused by retention of water in
dams in China, the dry conditions would be more extreme at sites near
China, since tributaries of the Mekong feed water into the river further
downstream. In fact, the data shows it has been dryer at Pakse in southern
Laos than at Chiang Saen in Thailand, much closer to China.

The two dams already operating on China's section of the Mekong, at Manwan
and Dachaoshan, are relatively small. Moreover, they are hydropower dams,
not dams used for irrigation or water supply. As a result, they release
all the water they retain. In general, hydropower dam operators try to
store excess water in the wet season and release more in the dry season.
So, the two Chinese dams could be expected to increase dry season flows
rather than decrease them.

Still, by making water levels downstream more variable and reducing
sediment concentrations, the dams will have an impact on fish and other
aquatic life in the Mekong. This is being studied by the commission,
established by the governments of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam in
1995 to help manage the river.

While the commission can be of use with its present membership, it cannot
hope to ensure that the rich resources of the Mekong are developed in the
most rational and sustainable way unless the two upstream states, China
and Myanmar, join the organisation and co-operate fully. Michael
Richardson, a former Asia Editor of the International Herald Tribune, is a
visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian
Studies in Singapore. The views expressed in this column are those of the
author.


INTERNATIONAL
___________________________________

April 29, Agence France Presse
Bill introduced in US Senate renewing sanctions against Myanmar - P.
Parameswaran

Washington: A resolution renewing import sanctions against Myanmar was
introduced Thursday in the US Senate with a warning that the controls may
not be removed even if the country's opposition leader is freed.

Senator Mitch McConnell, one of the bill's 16 sponsors, suggested that the
sanctions remain in place until Myanmar's military rulers embarked "on an
irreversible path towards reconciliation and democracy."

Apparently referring to the junta's recent decision to free several
opposition figures and allow them to meet, McConnell said the junta was
"window dressing" ahead of a convention it planned to hold on May 17 which
he called a "charade."

The junta is keen for as many political parties and ethnic groups as
possible to attend the convention to draft a new constitution, which is
the first step in its so-called "roadmap to democracy".

A previous convention collapsed in 1995 when the opposition walked out.

McConnell said even if Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's opposition leader, were
released before that date, "it is not sufficient"

This is because "there are no guarantees for her security, no assurances
that she will be able to freely express her views to the nation or to meet
with ethnic leaders, and no sure bet that the junta will grant visas to
journalists to travel to Burma," McConnell said, using Myanmar's old name.

The resolution was to renew sanctions imposed last year after Aung San Suu
Kyi's detention following an ambush on her National League for Democracy
(NLD) supporters by a junta-backed mob.

In a statement, the United States Campaign for Burma group, which is
pushing for freedom in that country, called for swift passage of the
sanctions, which include bans on imports and financial services.

"These sanctions will deny my country's military regime part of the hard
currency it needs to stay in power," said U Mya Win, an official of the
group and an elected NLD member of parliament forced to flee Myanmar after
serving nearly 10 years behind bars as a political prisoner.

In a surprise move this week, leaders of the NLD were allowed to meet Aung
San Suu Kyi and several NLD leaders were freed.

NLD secretary U Lwin said Thursday that relations with the government had
improved and that the party would continue to push for Aung San Suu Kyi's
release.

But McConnell said the senators learned from credible sources Wednesday
that 11 NLD supporters arrested in the wake of last year's premeditated
attack were sentenced by the junta from seven to 22 years in prison.

This was in addition to the death sentence given to a Myanmar sports
writer who had complained about soccer related corruption and to three
other men for having contact with the International Labor Organisation, a
UN agency.

Two US legislators last week alleged that the Myanmar government used rape
as a weapon of war, citing a new report by a Thailand-based Burmese
ethnic-minority group, the Karen Women's Organization.

The report documented more than 100 recent rapes by the regime's soldiers.

US President George W. Bush discussed the situation in Myanmar with Thai
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in a telephone conversation Tuesday.

Myanmar had abruptly cancelled plans to attend international talks on
prospects for reform due in Bangkok this month, forcing their
postponement.

___________________________________

April 30, Irrawaddy
A View from South Africa - Yeni

Johannesburg: The last time Dr Thein Win went out to cast his ballot, he
was surprised to see that no military personnel were patrolling the
streets or guarding the ballot box.

“So this is what a free and fair election feels like,” he thought to himself.

It was South Africa’s third democratically held elections, conducted
earlier this month, since the end of apartheid in 1994. And it was the
second time Thein Win had gone to the ballot box in four years—the first
was before he left home. “In 1990, Burma held a free and fair election,”
he recalls, “but the result has never been honored.”

He voted for Burma’s leading opposition party, the National League for
Democracy, or NLD, which overwhelmingly won the elections. But when the
junta ignored the results he knew he it was time to leave the country.

Two years earlier, Thein Win, now 52, treated wounded demonstrators
injured during the government’s lethal crackdown, at North Okkalapa
General Hospital in Rangoon. For his troubles he was detained for 10 days
in Insein Prison and Yegyiaing interrogation center in 1988, over
accusations that he supported the democracy movement.

He resettled in South Africa in November 1991. But before he left, Burmese
military officials forced him to sign a rather one-sided agreement: take
part in anti-military activities overseas and we will seize your house and
property in Rangoon.

And for a few years he heeded the military regime’s warning, first working
at a hospital in KwaZulu-Natal Province, then when his family arrived from
Burma, he packed up and headed for Johannesburg, where he now lives and
works at Edenvale General Hospital.

But one day in 1996, he turned on the radio only to hear some rare news
related to his homeland: students from the University of Durban Westville
were staging a 24-hour hunger strike in support of Burma’s struggle for
democracy. He knew then that he could no longer honor his “agreement” with
Burma’s military. “If the South Africans can actively support our cause,”
he says, “why shouldn’t Burmese?”

He joined up with the Free Burma Campaign in South Africa and in 1996 he
organized a demonstration coinciding with the arrival of then Burmese
Foreign Minister Ohn Gyaw. The Burmese Embassy sent Thein Win a letter
cautioning, “Do not bring shame to the motherland.”

He is somewhat disappointed that Nelson Mandela expressed support for the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ policy of constructive engagement
when he first visited Southeast Asia in 1997. But Thein Win is thankful
his hosts have given him the chance to resettle and start a new life—and
vote.

Asked which party he voted for in South Africa’s recent election, in which
the incumbent African National Congress won by a landslide, he smiled: “I
respect the ANC for its anti-apartheid struggle. But I believe there
should be strong opposition in the parliament. If only one party is
strong, it is a threat to democracy.”

Yeni is a Burmese freelance journalist living in South Africa.


STATEMENT
___________________________________

April 30, International Confederation of Free Trade Unions
Over-optimism about possible Suu Kyi release may be misplaced, says ICFTU

Brussels (ICFTU Online): With renewed speculation on the possible release
of Burmese democratic leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the ICFTU today
cautioned against over-optimism about developments in the military-ruled
country.  In a statement issued today, entitled "Burma - a Very Long Way
to Go" (http://www.icftu.org/displaydocument.asp?Index=991219220), the
world's largest international trade union body pointed to continued gross
violations of human and trade union rights by the junta. While the release
of Suu Kyi and other democracy advocates would be welcome, strong
international pressure on the Burmese military needs to be maintained if
there is to be any real prospect of change.

Referring to a March report of the UN's International Labour Organisation
(ILO), in which the ILO's Committee on Freedom of Association found that
"currently there is no (...) freedom of association" in the country, the
ICFTU statement highlights the plight of several democracy activists
facing death sentences, three of whom were sentenced for simply contacting
the ILO and supplying it with information.  The ILO has therefore decided
to postpone until June a decision on whether to go ahead with a Plan of
Action to help eradicate forced labour in the country.  The ICFTU
statement also points to ongoing flagrant violations of human rights,
including sexual assaults by the army against more than 100 ethnic Karen
women in March, continued use of forced labour by the military, torture
and killings of innocent civilians, a catalogue of administrative and
judicial measures in force to suppress democratic activity, and continued
efforts by the Generals who run the country to deceive public opinion and
maintain their 40-year long iron grip on power.

The ICFTU is calling on the international community to maintain maximum
pressure on the regime, including through avoiding business or trading
relationships with the country, noting that the Burmese military have only
ever made even small steps in the right direction when international
pressure has been at its most intense.

The steps announced by the junta so far, including the convening of a
"National Convention" and other elements of a so-called "road map", fall
far short of what is required for the country to begin the long path back
to democracy and acceptance by the international community.  Both the road
map and the so-called "Bangkok process", an informal forum proposed by
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawat aimed at securing international
support for the junta's plans, have been heavily criticized by the
underground Federation of Trade Unions - Burma (FTUB), with which the
ICFTU maintains close contacts.

Aung San Suu Kyi and other democratically elected leaders must have a
major role to play in the Burma's future, according to the ICFTU.  The
international community must keep up the fullest pressure on the military
regime, to ensure that its reign of terror is brought to an end, and that
the people of the country can take control of Burma's future as a
democracy.

The ICFTU represents over 150 million workers in 233 affiliated
organisations in 152 countries and territories. ICFTU is also a member of
Global Unions: http://www.global-unions.org

For more information, please contact the ICFTU Press Department on +32 2
224 0206 or +32 476 621 018.

___________________________________

May 1, 	Federation of Trade Unions - Burma
International Labour Day Statement

Today is the (114th) Anniversary of the International Labour Day. (1st
May) is observed as the International Labour Day as in recognition to the
efforts, solidarity, and victory of workers of the world.

Workers in many countries are enjoying International Labour Rights,
Freedom and Social Development. But, workers and farmers including all
nationalities of Burma are losing those rights.

The root cause of the country being in this plight is because the junta
has been disregarding the covenant and the democratic and human rights
pledged to the international organizations, violating the rights  of the
working mass including farmers and cultivators, unlawfully restricting
freedom of action and  exploiting the labour of the workers of the
country.

Therefore International Labour Organization-ILO, International
Confederation of Free Trade Unions-ICFTU and all the trade unions of the
world are taking measure against the military junta to regain the rights
of the working mass and the people of Burma.
Today, we call for the immediate release of the unlawfully detained trade
union leaders, members and political prisoners. More over, in solidarity
with the international trade unions, workers of Burma and farmers, we call
for the total abolishment of forced labour in the country.

For the workers and farmers in Burma to enjoy full rights, freedom of
cultivation and life in accord the International Labour Standard-ILS, to
have the benefit of Freedom of Association as stated in the ILO's
Conventions.

On the (114)th anniversary of the International Labour Day, we declare
that we shall endeavour to develop a genuine democratic state that would
ensure equal rights among it citizens and the state free from
discriminations of race, religions, colour, gender and employment.

Federation of Trade Unions- Burma
International Contact:
1313 " L " St, N.W.
SEIU building
Washington, D C 20005

Fax: AUS 61 2 9267 4051
Fax: JPN 81 3 3205 0560
Fax: USA 1 202 898 3407


PRESS RELEASE
___________________________________

April 29, WITNESS
WINTESS releases Online Video Rights Alert:  'Entrenched Abuse' at
www.witness.org -  showing continued evidence of widespread forced labor
in Burma

WITNESS (www.witness.org) has just gone online with its latest video Rights
Alert focusing on the "modern-day slavery" of forced labor in Burma –
where the International Labor Organization (ILO), the UN agency that
monitors this, has denounced the SPDC regime as one of the world's worst
perpetrators. Produced in collaboration with our partners at Burma Issues
(www.burmaissues.org),  'Entrenched Abuse: Forced Labor in Burma,'
includes footage gathered in regime-controlled areas inside Burma,
accompanied by texts and web-links explaining forced labor.

The pervasiveness of forced labor in Burma is stunning, affecting hundreds
of thousands of people across the country  - men, women, children of all
ethnic groups and of all ages. In Entrenched Abuse you'll hear from Karen
and Karenni village leaders and ordinary citizens forced to construct
roads that facilitate repressive military access into their areas, and
forced to fence in their own villages if they will not move to government
relocation camps. Burman prisoners - in jail for minor crimes - describe
how they were made to work as porters carrying supplies for the military
and to act as human mine-sweepers. The incidents of forced labor in this
video show how, despite its claims to have outlawed the practice, the SPDC
has continued to use forced labor. All footage was recorded during 2003
among three different ethnic groups - the Karen, Karenni and Burmans - and
in different regions of Burma.

Forced labor is closely linked to other forms of rights abuses in Burma.
People often flee from their homes, becoming internally displaced, rather
than be subjected to the military's demands, or to escape being forcibly
moved to relocation camps. Burma’s citizens have few options but to run
and hide from the army, or face violence and repression, including the
rape of women. The incidents recorded in Entrenched Abuse are the tip of
the iceberg - human rights monitoring groups have reported numerous other,
more egregious incidents that they were unable to film. To view the video,
learn more about forced labor in Burma, and take action please go to
www.witness.org

For more information contact witness at witness.org

WITNESS supports human rights groups around the world to use video in
their work