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Will Myanmar fall in line with ILO?

The just concluded 88th session of the International Labour Conference has adopted a resolution which has asked Myanmar military rulers to stop the practice of forced labour by November this year, or else face efforts to isolate the country within the in ternational community. The ILO system has never before taken such a step, but the crucial issue is whether the effort will succeed in view of, among other things, Washington's policy of `engagement' vis-a-vis Beijing, writes Ranabir Ray Choudhury.

IN AN unprecedented move in the 81-year history of the Geneva-based International Labour Organisation, the 88th session of the International Labour Conference resolved (by a 257-to-41 vote, with 31 abstentions) to ask the Myanmar Government to ``take con crete action'' to implement the recommendations of a 1998 Commission of Inquiry, which found that resort to forced labour in the country was ``widespread and systematic''. The basic import of this move is that this is for the first time that a member of the UN system faces the prospect of ``sanctions'' for not abiding by the stipulations contained in an ILO Convention, which it has ratified. (The Convention in question is the Forced Labour Convention of 1930, No 29, which came into force in 1932 and was ratified by Myanmar -- then Burma -- in 1955.)

Of course, Yangon still has some time to retrace its wayward steps and fall into line, so to speak, because the International Labour Conference has given the Myanmar leaders time till November 30, 2000 to take legislative, executive and administrative me asures that are ``sufficiently concrete and detailed to demonstrate that the recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry have been satisfied''.

The ILC resolution has authorised the ILO Director-General, Mr. Juan Somavia, ``to respond positively to all requests by Myanmar that are made with the sole purpose of establishing the necessary framework before the November deadline''. Among other thing s, ``these efforts could include further technical cooperation missions, eventually supported by a sustained ILO presence on the spot if the Governing Body confirms that the conditions are met for such presence to be truly useful and effective''. This in dicates that, even at this late stage regarding the issue of Myanmar's violations of Convention No 29, the ILO has extended a cooperative hand to the Yangon authorities, its objective being to ensure that the Convention is truthfully implemented by the m ilitary authorities rather than to punish them for not playing their expected role in the comity of nations.

The 1998 Commission of Inquiry (appointed under Article 26 of the ILO constitution and set up in March 1997) -- of which Justice P. N. Bhagawati was a member -- found that ``the obligation under Article 1, paragraph 1, of the Convention to suppress the u se of forced or compulsory labour is violated in Myanmar in national law, in particular by the Village Act and the Towns Act, as well as in actual practice in a widespread and systematic manner, with total disregard for the human dignity, safety, health and basic needs of the people of Myanmar''.

This apart, the Commission concluded that the Yangon regime ``violates its obligation under Article 25 of the Convention to ensure that the penalties imposed by law for the illegal exaction of forced or compulsory labour are both really adequate and stri ctly enforced''. It found that ``while Section 374 of the Penal Code provides for the punishment of those unlawfully compelling any person to labour against the will of that person, that provision does not appear to be ever applied in practice...''

The Commission concluded that ``a State which supports, instigates, accepts or tolerates forced labour on its territory commits a wrongful act and engages its responsibility for the violation of a peremptory norm in international law''. It added: ``Whate ver be the position in national law with regard to the exaction of forced or compulsory labour and the punishment of those responsible for it, any person who violates the prohibition of recourse to forced labour under the Convention is guilty of an inter national crime that is also, if committed in a widespread or systematic manner, a crime against humanity.''

The rights of labour are an integral part of the rights of Man, and in its last paragraph (No. 543) the Commission declared in bold, sweeping strokes: ``This report reveals a saga of untold misery and suffering, oppression and exploitation of large secti ons of the population inhabiting Myanmar by the Government, military and other public officers. It is a story of gross denial of human rights to which the people of Myanmar have been subjected particularly since 1988 and from which they find no escape ex cept fleeing from the country. The Government, the military and the administration seem oblivious to the human rights of the people and are trampling upon them with impunity. Their actions gravely offend human dignity and have (a) debasing effect on the civil society.

``History shows that where human rights are denied or violated in any part of the world, it is bound to have a chain effect on the other parts of the world and it is therefore of vital interest to the international community that such denial and violatio n of human rights must be effaced from wherever it occurs. Every man, woman and child must be able to live with human dignity and become an equal participant with others in the enjoyment of the fruits of freedom, liberty and development. The Commission h opes and trusts that in the near future the old order will change, yielding place to the new where everyone in Myanmar will have an opportunity to live with human dignity and to develop his or her full potential in a freely chosen manner and there will b e no subjection or enslavement of anyone by others. This can happen only if there is restoration of democracy where people as a whole can wield power for their common good.''

The point will be made that the Commission had no business to talk about the ``big'' picture, as it were, and that it would have been much more helpful had it restricted its focus to the specific terms of reference, which clearly enjoined on the Commissi on to ``make an objective assessment of the situation raised in the complaint'' before it, namely, the ``non-observance of the Forced Labour Convention'' by the Myanmar authorities.

If it is accepted that even a dictatorship can take steps to ensure that forced labour is not practised (no doubt, a difficult proposition to defend because of the inherent positive link between the denial of political democracy, in general, and the deni al to workers their inalienable democratic rights, in particular), the point can then be made that, by bringing in the larger issue of restoring political democracy to Myanmar, the Commission has perhaps made it even more difficult for the Yangon junta t o move in the right direction in the specific sphere of forced labour.

The Commission's report was signed on July 2, 1998, and the indications are that the Yangon regime is in no tearing hurry to reform its policies. It is against this background that the steps taken by the ILO, under Mr. Somavia, to opt for the ``hard line '' -- where ``sanctions'' or the ``threat of sanctions'' play a major role -- will have to be viewed. What, in fact, appears probable is that it will be quite a while before the Myanmar military authorities (who have been successful in putting away Aung San Suu Kyi behind bars for more than a decade now) show any signs of ``falling into line'' with the clearly-indicated wishes of the international community. Given this scenario, it remains to be seen to what extent the ILC resolution (specially the ``sa nctions'' part of it) will ultimately be effective in making Yangon change its ways.

Among the ``series of measures'' that will take effect on November 30 this year, if the ILO is not satisfied with the progress made by the Myanmar authorities, is ``recommending to the (ILO) constituents as a whole -- Governments, employers and workers - - that they review their relations with Myanmar and take appropriate measures to ensure that such relations do not perpetuate or extend the system of forced or compulsory labour in that country and to report back to the ILO Governing Body''.

Second, the ILO Director-General has been asked to ``inform international organisations working with the ILO to reconsider any cooperation they may be engaged in with Myanmar and, if appropriate, to cease as soon as possible any activity that could have the effect of directly or indirectly abetting the practice of forced or compulsory labour''.

These are eminently sensible suggestions. Even so, it will be interesting to see whether the unprecedented move by the International Labour Conference to improve the living conditions in Myanmar of those who are undergoing the rigours of forced labour me ets with the success it deserves. The clear hope is that the ILO should be successful in attaining its target, but the road ahead could turn out to be particularly long and arduous, not only because of the proven obstinacy of the Yangon junta (which is t o be expected), but also because of the respectability accorded to the ``theory of engagement'' by Washington's policy vis-a-vis Beijing. Some might argue that if this method of getting ``errant'' States to toe the line espoused by the international comm unity regarding matters of political democracy and human rights can be tried out between the US and China, there is no reason why the same approach cannot be adopted with regard to Myanmar's violation of an ILO Convention also.