Burma 'threatening to quit ILO'

Many rights groups complain about Burma's working conditions

Burma has threatened to leave the International Labour Organization (ILO), the UN group has said.

Burma's military junta is apparently angry about ILO reports of forced labour inside the country, which the government has long denied.

The ILO warned of "far-reaching and extremely serious consequences" if Burma carried out its threat to leave.

Human rights groups often accuse Burma of abuses, including forced labour, torture and civilian displacements.

According to Francis Maupan, an adviser to the ILO director general, senior Burmese officials "indicated to us that the authorities had taken the decision to withdraw".

But the Burmese authorities have yet to formally announce any decision.

If they do so, it will still be two years before they can completely leave the organisation.

Only three other countries have quit the ILO in recent decades: South Africa under apartheid, the US in the late 1970s and Vietnam from 1985 to 1992.

Reasons

Burma's decision appears to have been prompted by a series of factors.

According to the ILO, Burma's minister for labour recently told the organisation that its creation of a mechanism for helping victims of forced labour was "unacceptable in principle to the Myanmar (Burmese) authorities, as it constituted an 'invasion of Myanmar's sovereignty'".

According to Mr Maupan, the labour minister was also angry at the choice of speaker at a recent international labour conference.

Relations between the ILO and the Burmese junta have gradually soured over the past year.

Throughout the summer, a series of mass rallies calling on the authorities to withdraw from the ILO have been held around the country, the group said.

The ILO representative in Rangoon also said he had received 21 written death threats in the last few months.

One of the letters said his "head will be cut off, and our people will crush you and poison you".