The history of corageous woman:
SU SU NWAY AWARDED OF THE JOHN HUMPREY FREEDOM AWARD 2006

Cecilia Brighi (Cisl Italy)
Member of the ILO GB

It is a real honour to be here today to pay tribute to a simple, strong and courageous woman. To pay tribute to Su Su Nway. .

Here today The John Humprey Freedom Award gathers outstanding political leaders, representatives of the Canadian government, of the Parliament of the trade unions of the NGOs, of civil society, to pay the tribute to a young woman living in a Burmese village far away from here.

We live all in peaceful and democratic countries. All of us are committed for more rights, for decent work, for sustainable development.

We are profoundly committed to the promotion of justice, peace, democracy. But being committed and struggling for values and principles, in a more or less democratic environment has very little to do with the sacrifice, the dedication, the strength, the courage of those, whose destiny made them live in countries like Burma, where all the fundamental values are completely violated.

Su Su Nway is one of these courageous persons. A woman that made the difference. A woman that with a simple but dangerous choice became a symbol of all those other small or not known women, workers, students, priests, monks whose silent gestures represent the peaceful fight for dignity.

This important ceremony, today is an homage to such courage, the courage of simple persons, the courage of simple workers, the courage of many unknown citizens that in Burma resist to one of the most outrageous dictatorships.

Despite what happened to Su Su Nway and despite the fact that since decades in Burma the situation of brutal repression and deep violation of fundamental human and workers rights is a daily tragedy, such a dramatic political, social and environmental situation, denounced once again, also by the former Check President Vaclav Havel and the Nobel Prize Desmund Tutu, seems to remain a forgotten issue.

Why? Because Burma is a key country for the economic, political and military appetites of many governments and businesses in the region and far beyond. Appetites paid with silence and complicity. Yes complicity.

Complicity also because the ILO Commission of Enquiry declared that forced labour in Burma is a crime against humanity. Therefore since any business with Burma is directly or indirectly benefiting the junta, such business build a complicity link between those who do business and the junta iself.

Su Su New and people like her with their courage helps to brake such a silence and to expose such complicity. Even today hundred thousands of men and women, old, young, pregnant are obliged to forced labour. Their stories are collected by the FTUB, the Burmese outlawed trade unions, are gathered and presented to the international institutions and to the ILO as a cry for urgent action and justice.

All know that the power to impose compulsory labour will not cease to be taken for granted, unless those who exercise it are actually brought to face criminal responsibility.

Sue Sue New knew it and decided to oppose with all possible and peaceful and non violent means to the widespread violation of fundamental human and workers rights.

Se used her courage and her liberty against one of the most outrageous forms of exploitation, which is often linked to rape, killings, land confiscation.

She used her liberty to show that every body has to stand up against the abusees against an entire people. Children, women, old persons, workers that continue to be threatened, killed, raped and exploited in a increasingly more and more desperate political, economic and social environment.

No excuses can be accepted, as those used by the Burmese ambassadors at the ILO, who tries to sell the idea that Burma is a “country in transition, striving to become a modern, peaceful and prosperous democratic state and that transition need to be a gradual process”.

In Burma, and Su Su Nway understood it, forced labour is essential to the survival of the army – the biggest army in South East Asia and, only a serious political commitment to completely reverse the general situation, could get the country out of this vicious circle and eliminate what can be called one of the backbone of the survival of the military junta.

A wide set of reliable information, collected by the ITUC, the International Trade Union Confederation, continue to show that even now, when I am speaking, forced labour and the arbitrary arrests of people to be used as prison labourers by the army, prevail in the country, especially in zones when the army is more present, and that the total absence of freedom of association for workers, cannot provide the ability to be informed and organise as a fundamental prerequisite for a substantial change.

For these reasons Sue Sue New was conscious that what she was doing was very risky.

She knew that the price she had to pay was incredibly high. She was aware, that the Burmese jails are full of political dissidents, students, trade unionists, monks, parliamentary representatives All persons who dared to say no despite torture, malnutrition, violence that are the daily recipy of the Burmese jails.

Su Su Nway had the strong example of another powerful heroin. Aung San Suu Kyi. A woman who scarified her freedom, her family, her life to her people and to her country.

Two women from different social background with same strength and will.

Women with no army, no guns, no soldiers, no bombs. No money. But with a strength that comes from the faith of working for justice.

Su Su Nway was even more courageous. She was not coming from a family with such an important political history. She had no heritage to follow, she was not known, but she accepted to jump in the dark.

She as Suu Kyi became with a simple decision, like big rocky mountains that try to embrace and protect their people from the toughest adversities.

If one lives in a prison country the political space is more than narrow. It simply does not exist. Justice and the rule of law are simply a very vague aspiration.

Su Su Nway, knew it the role of the ILO and the obligations of the Burmese government under the ILO Convention 29 on forced labour, that the government of Burma had ratified in 1955.

So she denounced such violations.

For the first time in the Burmese recent history, public officials were found guilty and sentenced to jail.

Even in this case, as usually happens during the international discussions on forced labour in Burma, the accused authorities responded that the labour was not on their orders, but was a voluntary undertaking from consensus agreement among the village people, as from old habits.

This is in fact among the recurrent justifications used even at the ILO, together with the concept that “Burma is a country in transition and that it will take time to eradicate forced labour”.

In the same months the ILO Liaison Officer, in concerted strategy, received 21 death threats. These threats, part of an organized campaign of intimidations, stated that the Liaison Officer should have left the country or he would have been killed. In such a deteriorated climate the junta accused also nine persons for high treason and sentenced them to death because of contacts, communications or information on ILO matters.

Three of these people were part of the FTUB, the outlawed trade union. And again only thanks to the commitment of the ILO they could be released after months of prison. Similarly, Su Su Nway was finally released in June 2006, but as for the other trade unionists, she was not released in recognition of her illegal arrest and in order to resume dialogue and urgent action on forced labour.

Her release was used by the junta to defer the ILO proposal to bring Burma to the International Court of Justice and to support the proposal for a discussion at the UN Security Council. If anything, the junta's position has hardened over the past three years. As recently as 5 July 2006, Burma's military regime warned Aung San Suu Kyi in its official English-language newspaper, The New Light of Myanmar, that "her days are numbered," and "she is heading for a tragic end."

The junta more over hoped and is still hoping today to obtain consensus on the future outcome of the illegitimate National Convention, which is aimed to build a "Disciplined Democracy" which would further legitimize the military rule and their criminal business.

In this framework, many governments, among those who unconditionally support the junta, forgot the real crime of forced labour and have hidden their hypocrite interests behind the liberation of Su Su Nway, thus succeeding to delay further ILO initiative.

Today such an important recognition as the John Humphrey Freedom Award to Su Su Nway is an award to her courage and the courage of all unknown Burmese people who oppose the dictatorship and fight against forced labour.

It is an Award to the non violent struggle for democracy, for human and workers rights.

I am more than sure that if Su Su Nway was here, she would emphasize that the best way to celebrate such a courage would be to take her fight in our hands and to walk side by side with her in the forefront of the struggle for democracy social justice.

The workers and the employers at the ILO, together with the majority of governments, among which the Canadian one, had taken a clear stand against forced labour in Burma. But such condemnation, to be effective, to oblige the military to eradicate forced labour, need coherent follow up at diplomatic, political, and economic level.

We have to respond to this call and we have today to revamp our commitment for Burma and the struggle against forced labour.

Governments, institutions, employers, trade unions, civil society organisations at national and international level should translate words in actions. Governments should transform Declarations in active diplomacy to obtain the widest possible consensus for the adoption of a Resolution in the Security Council.

We know that the only option to peacefully resolve Burma's problems today is to build consensus for the adoption of such a resolution. A Resolution that forces the Burmese generals to cooperate with the United Nations and all the other interested parties, including Aung San Suu Kyi and all the ethnics to initiate a national reconciliation process toward a real democracy putting an end to all human rights and environmental violations.

Along this strategy ,we need to support the ILO decisions to obtain an Advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the violation of the Convention on forced labour engaging also the International Criminal Court on such crime against humanity as forced labour is.

We need to renew the decision taken by the ILO on the targeted economic sanctions. This involve a clear-cut decision from companies to stop doing business, trade and investments in Burma until the situation does not change if they do not want to be accused of complicity with the junta. Governments and employers need to implement the OECD Guidelines on Multinationals and step back until democracy is not restored.

Trade unions at the ILO ask for clear commitment for international cooperation programmes that strengthen the outlawed trade unions and other organisations to strengthen their capacity to fight against forced labour, to promote dignity at work and democracy.

As Aung San Suu Kyi, the Peace Nobel Prize, has asked “please use your liberty to promote ours”, it is time for us to stand up and commit for it.

Let us stand up and say yes to Su Su Nway. We will walk with you.

If we walk hand in hand with such a courage simple worker, I am sure we will obtain what we declare to strive for. Thanks Su Su Nway yu deserve our full commitment.