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FAO BURMA MEETING (IUF FOLLOW-UP)



International Union of food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering,
Tobacco and Allied Workers?Associations (IUF)

Geneva, May 26, 1998

To: Affiliated Organizations

FAO Conference in Burma ? follow up

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

In circular 25 ? 1998 we informed you of our opposition to the choice of
Burma as the venue for a Regional Conference of the Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) of the United Nations to which the IUF had been invited.
In the circular, we urged affiliates to seek to influence their governments
to put pressure on the FAO to change the conference venue and, failing
that, to urge their governments to boycott the conference.

Despite protests from the IUF and its affiliates, international trade
secretariats, national centers, and a large number of NGOs and individuals,
the conference went ahead as planned. The FAO did not respond to our
communications, and we have not been informed of the results of the
conference.

The IUF is disappointed at the FAO?s failure to respond to the sizeable
international protest over the holding of a United Nations conference in
Burma. Nonetheless, the campaign was successful in several important ways.

The Workers? Group of the ILO supported the IUF?s call for a boycott, and
raised the matter at the March session of the ILO Governing Body. At a
March meeting of the UN Administrative Committee on Coordination (the
top-level inter-agency body which regularly reviews the activities of the
UN agencies), the representative of the ILO Director General conveyed the
concerns of the Workers? Group regarding the appropriateness of holding an
official UN meeting in Burma at this time. Mr. Diouf defended the
conference venue on the grounds that the decision had been made at regional
level, and that other UN agencies had also held meetings in Burma last
year. The ILO was supported by other heads of agencies, and there is
therefore good reason to believe that resistance to regional pressures to
legitimize the Burmese military regime by holding official UN conferences
in that country will meet with greater international resistance. The
boycott campaign also served to again highlight the gross violations of
human rights in Burma which take place under the military dictatorship, and
may strengthen support for international action to isolate the regime. 

The National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, representing the
parliament democratically elected in 1990, supported the IUF?s boycott call
in a press release issued on March 17. An interview about the boycott with
IUF General Secretary Ron Oswald was transmitted into Burma by the
Democratic Voice of Burma, the Burmese-language radio station of the
democratic opposition which broadcasts from Norway. 

In addition to the IUF affiliates who responded to our urgent action
appeal, which was posted on the IUF web site (www.iuf.org), numerous NGO?s,
Burma solidarity groups, and individuals contacted their governments. We
warmly thank them for their support.
With very best wishes, I am,

	Yours in solidarity,

	Ron Oswald

	General Secretary