BURMA:

CANADIAN COMPLICITY WITH THE BURMESE JUNTA:

Burma is rich in natural resources even though its people are poor, living as they do under a brutal kleptocracy whose official ideology 'Burmese Socialism' is an example of degenerate Maoism under military control. The junta, however, lives on the complicity of international business. International observers may not have been able to enter the country to access the effects of the 2001 tsunami, but "development' agents from many international corporations are more than welcome to take advantage of Burma's "socialist" slave labour regime.

Let's open with a statement from the Canadian Labour Congress via its president Ken Georgetti, on the recent events and Canadian government policy:

"The people of Burma need our vocal and active solidarity. If the demonstrations were triggered by a rise in fuel prices that has left this oil-importing nation devastated, they mostly express a collective frustration with the junta's continued refusal to respond to the cares of its own people.

Over the last eighteen years the Canadian Labour Congress has worked closely with our colleagues from the Federation of Trade Unions of Burma and the National Coalition of the Union of Burma, particularly regarding the use of forced labour. We have called for an end to this criminal policy. With the generous support of a number of our affiliated unions, we have supported FTUB activities inside Burma in the border areas and have been involved with union training on human and workers' rights issues.

The military junta has made Burma the only country ever to be expelled from the International Labour Organization because of its responsibility in the ongoing use of forced labour, a practice that the ILO equates to a crime against humanity. indeed the military has closed and isolated the country with complete disregard for no less than twenty eight UN General Assembly and Commission on Human Rights resolutions calling for national reconciliation and an end to the crisis.

In Canada, Parliament unanimously passed a motion in May 2005 in support of comprehensive economic measures against the military regime. The government has not gone beyond statements discouraging Canadians from doing business there.

While the Canadian Labour Congress acknowledges what has been done in parliament and the steps taken by the government, we much deplore the lack of rigour in preventing the continuous presence in Burma of a number of high-profile Canadian corporations. Their activities there only feed the military regime and aggravate the people's poverty.

There is urgency for strong voices on the side of the people in Burma. Today, as Canadians, we must call for peace and democracy in Burma if we want to remain credible when we make the same call anywhere else."

Despite previous Canadian parliamentary resolutions calling on Canadian business to cease trading with the junta many Canadian corporations continue to deal with the murderers in the junta and help to prop them up. It is not impossible for public pressure to prevent such support from flowing to the junta. In the past few years Sears Canada and the Hudson Bay Corporation have been forced to cease sourcing materials from Burma. Yet far too many Canadian corporations continue to help prop up the regime. The most prominent is Ivanhoe Mines Limited, incorporated in the Yukon for tax and incentive purposes. A visit to their website will show the reader that they claim to have divested themselves of their holdings in Burma, but the reality is merely that they have turned their investments over to the sort of "third party trust" that a politician does when elected to (wink,wink,nudge,nudge) make it seem that they are disinterested. Read the fine print. Ivanhoe Mines is the largest foreign mining corporation active in Burma. Their operations have been implicated in numerous human rights violations. In addition to Ivanhoe Mines here is a Molly list of other Canadian corporations active in Burma despite the pronouncements of our government:

*Aeroground Group services

*Cavern International Industries

*East Asia Gold Corporation

*First Dynasty Mines

*International Bio-Recovery

*Leeward capital Corp

*Marshall Macklin Monaghan

*Northrock Resources

*Prime Resources Management

*Suzuki Canada

Those who wish to question Ivanhoe Mines can access their corporate website above. Molly will try to give the addresses for protest letters for the other corporate actors later.