Brussels, 29 April 2008: The International Trade Union Confederation today released a damning report on Burma that shows the limited European Union and international sanctions against the country’s murderous regime are not enough. The report makes the case for sanctions to be extended to finance and oil and gas, the engines which help keep the military in power.
Yet today EU ministers meeting in Luxembourg plan to make minimal changes to those timid sanctions.
Burma hit the world’s headlines in September 2007 as thousands of Buddhist monks and ordinary people demonstrated against extreme poverty and widespread starvation. The ruling military junta cracked down hard: at least 110 were killed, thousands were injured, and people in detention were tortured, or disappeared.
“Rich Pickings: how trade and investment keep the Burmese junta alive and kicking” details how foreign governments, including the EU, have kept that regime in the lap of luxury, and allowed it to expand the army and police that keep it in power. Virtually all Burma’s big foreign business is conducted via government-owned conglomerates, through contracts that explicitly assure the generals and their families a cut of the cash. Natural gas accounts for around half of this, with $2.16 billion worth of exports and $472 million in foreign investment last year.
None of it reaches the people, says the report: 95 per cent of Burmese live on less than a dollar a day. Fully a third of children are malnourished, a third of those severely. Recent food price rises have made starvation more widespread, yet government neglect of agriculture means farmers in what was once “the rice bowl of Asia” grow far less than they could. But the generals have doubled the size of the army, are buying expensive new weapons and spend 28 times more on defense than health and education combined.
Detained Burmese opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and other opposition figures have called on the country’s trading partners to slap sanctions on Burma, to weaken the regime. Yet trade is booming with China, India and Thailand. Rich countries including the US, the EU, Australia, Canada and Japan have imposed a few sanctions, but not enough to make any impact against the background of Burma’s booming trade with its neighbours. After the protests last year the EU banned imports of Burmese timber, metals and gems, arms sales to the country, and visas for leaders and their families, and partially froze the junta’s assets in Europe. But, argues the ITUC, these sanctions mean little as they do not touch the regime’s main money-spinner: oil and gas. The French company Total, for example, is a major player in Burmese gas development. Moreover, while the US prohibits its banking sector from nearly all interaction with Burma, the EU does not.
The renewed sanctions to be rubber-stamped by the General Affairs and External Relations Council of EU ministers 28-29 April in Luxembourg makes few changes to these timid, largely conscience-salving measures. In particular, they do not affect EU investments in oil and gas.
Tougher sanctions on the gas industry and on financial services will hurt the junta, not the people, argues the ITUC, as ordinary people get almost nothing from those sectors. Most Burmese are subsistence farmers, outside the formal, money economy. “The impact of sanctions targeted at the formal economy, particularly oil and gas, would be minimal for the vast majority of Burmese,” says the report.
See the video “Repression on Burma”
See the full report “Rich Pickings: how trade and investment keep the Burmese junta alive and kicking”
Read the Spotlight interview with Maung Maung (FTUB –Burma)
Read the Spotlight interview with Thwel Zin Toe and Khin San Htwe (Burma - Burmese Women’s Union)
The ITUC represents 168 million workers in 155 countries and territories and has 311 national affiliates.
For more information, please contact the ITUC Press Department on: +32 2 224 0204 or +32 476 621 018.
