Slavery, Genocide, Abuse: The Dark Side of Asia's "Tiger Economies"
Friday, 03 July 2015 11:27 By Walden Bello, Foreign Policy in Focus | News
Analysis
A few years ago, Southeast Asia's rapidly growing "tiger economies" were the
envy of the world. Today, the area is better known for a trio of maladies:
ethnic cleansing, burgeoning inequality, and super-exploited labor.
The sorry state of human rights and labor protections in the region has been
driven home by three events that captured the world's attention.
On the high seas, thousands of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar found
themselves stranded and desperate when neighboring states refused to accept
them. In Indonesia, investigators discovered illegal fish factories run by
captive migrant laborers. And last May in the Philippines, 72 workers
perished in a horrific factory fire.
As the Association of Southeast Asian States, or ASEAN, prepares to
integrate the region's economies by the end of 2015, it's worth asking what
it is these countries will be combining - their markets or their deep-seated
social problems?
Ethnic Cleansing in Myanmar
The plight of the Rohingya is the culmination of three years of riots and
violent attacks directed at Burma's Muslim minority, who make up over 30
percent of the population in the state of Rakhine.
Tensions between the Rohingya and the Buddhist majority have been building
for years. With the easing of military control as the country makes its
jerky transition to democracy, friction has given way to violence,
oftentimes sparked by wild allegations of Rohingya men raping Buddhist
women.
Burmese authorities officially consider the 1.3 million Rohingya to be
stateless intruders from neighboring Bangladesh, largely abandoning them to
the tender mercies of Buddhist mobs often led by monks. The result has been
the region's worst case of ethnic cleansing in modern memory.
To escape brutal persecution, many Rohingya have increasingly resorted to
flight, contracting smugglers and traffickers to bring them by sea and land
to other countries. This option has turned out to be as perilous as staying.
Traffickers have sold many Rohingya, along with other Burmese, as forced
labor to the notorious Thai fishing industry. Others are met with hostile
receptions from neighboring countries.
Last month, an estimated 7,000 Rohingya refugees crammed into fragile boats
bound for friendlier shores. Yet they were repelled by the Thai, Malaysian,
and Indonesian navies and left floating aimlessly in the Indian Ocean and
Andaman Sea.
Under pressure from the United Nations and other international bodies,
Myanmar's neighbors eventually softened their stance toward the refugees.
The Philippines opened its borders to some. And after heavy criticism, so
did Malaysia and Indonesia - if only grudgingly. Thailand, however, made
clear it would not offer asylum to any of them, a hardline stance also
adopted by Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott.
Voices from all over the globe, including the United Nations General
Assembly, have called on the Myanmar government to end the ethnic cleansing
and give citizenship rights to the Rohingya. One voice, however, has been
notably silent: Nobel Prize laureate Aung Sang Suu Kyi.
Never in the last three years has the famed pro-democracy advocate spoken on
behalf of the Rohingya, even if only to ask her Buddhist compatriots to stop
persecuting them. Owing to international pressure, her party, the National
League for Democracy, has - finally and grudgingly - called for citizenship
for the Rohingya. But the statement was not issued in her name.
Observers speculate that Suu Kyi hopes to avoid offending the country's
Buddhist majority, whose votes her party needs in Burma's coming electoral
contests - and which she herself will need if she runs for president. But
the longer "Daw Suu" stays silent, the more people will conclude that she
doesn't believe the Rohingya deserve to be citizens either - and the more
this global moral icon will be regarded as complicit in genocide.
Slave Labor in Thailand's Fishing Industry
This March, a superb Associated Press report on forced labor on the
Indonesian island of Benjina called the world's attention to one of
Southeast Asia's unspoken dirty secrets: the dependence of the Thai fishing
industry on slavery. Over 500 workers were found imprisoned on the island.
The resort to slave labor, according to a report by the International Labor
Organization and Thailand's Chulalongkorn University, comes as profits are
being squeezed by smaller catches, higher fuel costs, and the reluctance of
Thai nationals to work in a low-paying, hazardous industry involving long
periods at sea.
So Thai fishing and canning factories have turned to foreign workers -
especially from Burma and Cambodia, where smuggling networks have sprung up
to recruit workers. Deception is almost invariably involved, with
prospective workers promised higher-paying construction or agriculture jobs
only to be sold to fishing vessels, where they work for a pittance or
nothing at all.
The traffickers treat these undocumented workers with extreme brutality.
Recently discovered mass graves - reportedly containing the remains of
hundreds of people along smuggling routes in Thailand and Malaysia - bear
mute testimony to what happens to those who get sick, suffer accidents, or
resist.
Government officials are often worse than useless. As the ILO-Chulalongkorn
report notes, "The direct involvement and/or facilitation of law enforcement
officials in these crimes is a significant problem that has remained
inadequately addressed. Although authorities reportedly investigated several
cases of complicity by law enforcement officials during 2011-2012, no
prosecutions or convictions were carried through." Not surprisingly, "rather
than seeking out protection for abuses or filing complaints to the proper
authorities, many migrant fishers will choose to keep quiet out of fear of
blacklisting, arrest, or deportation."
The highly publicized recent arrest of a three-star Thai general for human
trafficking underlines how deeply government officials are involved in the
business. Yet few anticipate that he'll be successfully prosecuted.
A Decimated Working Class in the Philippines
Government complicity was also instrumental in the Philippines' worst-ever
factory fire last May.
In interviews with some 30 survivors, I learned that both national and local
authorities had issued safety clearances for the Kentex footwear factory,
despite the fact that it had no emergency exits, the windows were barred, no
fire drills were conducted, and no serious fire inspections were carried
out. The obviously lax enforcement of safety regulations is not accidental.
Kentex incarnates the Philippine government's lenient treatment of the
capitalist enterprises it sees as a source of growth, wealth, and jobs.
According to the survivors, some 20 percent of the workforce at the factory
consisted of casual workers or "pakyawan," including some minors brought in
by their mothers to earn some extra money for the family over the summer.
They received about $4.50 for a day's work, or less than half the current
minimum wage for the national capital region.
Another 40 to 60 percent were contractual workers recruited by a "manpower
agency," an organization devised to allow employers to avoid regularizing
workers who might otherwise vote to form a union. While these non-unionized
workers received the minimum daily wage, the agency skimmed off the required
social security, health, and housing benefits provided by the employer.
"They don't pay our monthly installments," one survivor angrily told me.
At the most, 20 percent of the workers were regular employees who belonged
to a union. But as one of the union members himself volunteered cynically,
"We are a company union."
A Secret No Longer
Kentex is a microcosm of labor-capital relations in Southeast Asia today.
The trend toward contractualization - pushed by local and foreign investors,
accommodated by governments, and legitimized by economists - has led to the
disorganization and de-unionization of the labor force, which in turn makes
rights abuses and disasters all the more likely. Today, only about 10
percent of the Philippine work force is organized, with one prominent labor
leader admitting, "Ironically, labor unions are not as politically strong
today as during the dictatorial regime of President Marcos."
In his "State of the Nation" address last year, President Benigno Aquino III
boasted that there were only two worker strikes in 2013 and just one in
2014. That the president considered this news positive only showed how
detached from reality he was, for the radical reduction of the number of
strikes doesn't come from improving living standards but from the weakening
of labor's bargaining power. It comes from pro-management government
policies, a widespread failure to enforce labor laws, and aggressive
union-busting by employers.
Some labor leaders see a silver lining in the Kentex tragedy. "The 72 lives
lost were a terrible, terrible loss," said Josua Mata, secretary general of
the labor federation Sentro. "But if this tragedy brings to the national
consciousness the unacceptable state to which management and government have
reduced our workers and inaugurates an era of reform, then their sacrifice
might not be in vain."
That remains to be seen. But when it comes to declining workers' rights,
violent labor trafficking, and ethnic cleansing, no one can say the dark
underbelly of the "tiger economies" is a secret any longer.
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not
be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
WALDEN BELLO
Foreign Policy In Focus columnist Walden Bello is a member of the House of
Representatives of the Philippines and a senior analyst at the Bangkok-based
research and advocacy institute Focus on the Global South.
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Slavery, Genocide, Abuse: The Dark Side of Asia's "Tiger Economies"
Friday, 03 July 2015 11:27 By Walden Bello, Foreign Policy in Focus | News
Analysis
. font size Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink
reference not valid.Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink
reference not valid.
. A few years ago, Southeast Asia's rapidly growing "tiger economies"
were the envy of the world. Today, the area is better known for a trio of
maladies: ethnic cleansing, burgeoning inequality, and super-exploited
labor.
. The sorry state of human rights and labor protections in the region
has been driven home by three events that captured the world's attention.
On the high seas, thousands of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar found
themselves stranded and desperate when neighboring states refused to accept
them. In Indonesia, investigators discovered illegal fish factories run by
captive migrant laborers. And last May in the Philippines, 72 workers
perished in a horrific factory fire.
As the Association of Southeast Asian States, or ASEAN, prepares to
integrate the region's economies by the end of 2015, it's worth asking what
it is these countries will be combining - their markets or their deep-seated
social problems?
Ethnic Cleansing in Myanmar
The plight of the Rohingya is the culmination of three years of riots and
violent attacks directed at Burma's Muslim minority, who make up over 30
percent of the population in the state of Rakhine.
Tensions between the Rohingya and the Buddhist majority have been building
for years. With the easing of military control as the country makes its
jerky transition to democracy, friction has given way to violence,
oftentimes sparked by wild allegations of Rohingya men raping Buddhist
women.
Burmese authorities officially consider the 1.3 million Rohingya to be
stateless intruders from neighboring Bangladesh, largely abandoning them to
the tender mercies of Buddhist mobs often led by monks. The result has been
the region's worst case of ethnic cleansing in modern memory.
To escape brutal persecution, many Rohingya have increasingly resorted to
flight, contracting smugglers and traffickers to bring them by sea and land
to other countries. This option has turned out to be as perilous as staying.
Traffickers have sold many Rohingya, along with other Burmese, as forced
labor to the notorious Thai fishing industry. Others are met with hostile
receptions from neighboring countries.
Last month, an estimated 7,000 Rohingya refugees crammed into fragile boats
bound for friendlier shores. Yet they were repelled by the Thai, Malaysian,
and Indonesian navies and left floating aimlessly in the Indian Ocean and
Andaman Sea.
Under pressure from the United Nations and other international bodies,
Myanmar's neighbors eventually softened their stance toward the refugees.
The Philippines opened its borders to some. And after heavy criticism, so
did Malaysia and Indonesia - if only grudgingly. Thailand, however, made
clear it would not offer asylum to any of them, a hardline stance also
adopted by Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott.
Voices from all over the globe, including the United Nations General
Assembly, have called on the Myanmar government to end the ethnic cleansing
and give citizenship rights to the Rohingya. One voice, however, has been
notably silent: Nobel Prize laureate Aung Sang Suu Kyi.
Never in the last three years has the famed pro-democracy advocate spoken on
behalf of the Rohingya, even if only to ask her Buddhist compatriots to stop
persecuting them. Owing to international pressure, her party, the National
League for Democracy, has - finally and grudgingly - called for citizenship
for the Rohingya. But the statement was not issued in her name.
Observers speculate that Suu Kyi hopes to avoid offending the country's
Buddhist majority, whose votes her party needs in Burma's coming electoral
contests - and which she herself will need if she runs for president. But
the longer "Daw Suu" stays silent, the more people will conclude that she
doesn't believe the Rohingya deserve to be citizens either - and the more
this global moral icon will be regarded as complicit in genocide.
Slave Labor in Thailand's Fishing Industry
This March, a superb Associated Press report on forced labor on the
Indonesian island of Benjina called the world's attention to one of
Southeast Asia's unspoken dirty secrets: the dependence of the Thai fishing
industry on slavery. Over 500 workers were found imprisoned on the island.
The resort to slave labor, according to a report by the International Labor
Organization and Thailand's Chulalongkorn University, comes as profits are
being squeezed by smaller catches, higher fuel costs, and the reluctance of
Thai nationals to work in a low-paying, hazardous industry involving long
periods at sea.
So Thai fishing and canning factories have turned to foreign workers -
especially from Burma and Cambodia, where smuggling networks have sprung up
to recruit workers. Deception is almost invariably involved, with
prospective workers promised higher-paying construction or agriculture jobs
only to be sold to fishing vessels, where they work for a pittance or
nothing at all.
The traffickers treat these undocumented workers with extreme brutality.
Recently discovered mass graves - reportedly containing the remains of
hundreds of people along smuggling routes in Thailand and Malaysia - bear
mute testimony to what happens to those who get sick, suffer accidents, or
resist.
Government officials are often worse than useless. As the ILO-Chulalongkorn
report notes, "The direct involvement and/or facilitation of law enforcement
officials in these crimes is a significant problem that has remained
inadequately addressed. Although authorities reportedly investigated several
cases of complicity by law enforcement officials during 2011-2012, no
prosecutions or convictions were carried through." Not surprisingly, "rather
than seeking out protection for abuses or filing complaints to the proper
authorities, many migrant fishers will choose to keep quiet out of fear of
blacklisting, arrest, or deportation."
The highly publicized recent arrest of a three-star Thai general for human
trafficking underlines how deeply government officials are involved in the
business. Yet few anticipate that he'll be successfully prosecuted.
A Decimated Working Class in the Philippines
Government complicity was also instrumental in the Philippines' worst-ever
factory fire last May.
In interviews with some 30 survivors, I learned that both national and local
authorities had issued safety clearances for the Kentex footwear factory,
despite the fact that it had no emergency exits, the windows were barred, no
fire drills were conducted, and no serious fire inspections were carried
out. The obviously lax enforcement of safety regulations is not accidental.
Kentex incarnates the Philippine government's lenient treatment of the
capitalist enterprises it sees as a source of growth, wealth, and jobs.
According to the survivors, some 20 percent of the workforce at the factory
consisted of casual workers or "pakyawan," including some minors brought in
by their mothers to earn some extra money for the family over the summer.
They received about $4.50 for a day's work, or less than half the current
minimum wage for the national capital region.
Another 40 to 60 percent were contractual workers recruited by a "manpower
agency," an organization devised to allow employers to avoid regularizing
workers who might otherwise vote to form a union. While these non-unionized
workers received the minimum daily wage, the agency skimmed off the required
social security, health, and housing benefits provided by the employer.
"They don't pay our monthly installments," one survivor angrily told me.
At the most, 20 percent of the workers were regular employees who belonged
to a union. But as one of the union members himself volunteered cynically,
"We are a company union."
A Secret No Longer
Kentex is a microcosm of labor-capital relations in Southeast Asia today.
The trend toward contractualization - pushed by local and foreign investors,
accommodated by governments, and legitimized by economists - has led to the
disorganization and de-unionization of the labor force, which in turn makes
rights abuses and disasters all the more likely. Today, only about 10
percent of the Philippine work force is organized, with one prominent labor
leader admitting, "Ironically, labor unions are not as politically strong
today as during the dictatorial regime of President Marcos."
In his "State of the Nation" address last year, President Benigno Aquino III
boasted that there were only two worker strikes in 2013 and just one in
2014. That the president considered this news positive only showed how
detached from reality he was, for the radical reduction of the number of
strikes doesn't come from improving living standards but from the weakening
of labor's bargaining power. It comes from pro-management government
policies, a widespread failure to enforce labor laws, and aggressive
union-busting by employers.
Some labor leaders see a silver lining in the Kentex tragedy. "The 72 lives
lost were a terrible, terrible loss," said Josua Mata, secretary general of
the labor federation Sentro. "But if this tragedy brings to the national
consciousness the unacceptable state to which management and government have
reduced our workers and inaugurates an era of reform, then their sacrifice
might not be in vain."
That remains to be seen. But when it comes to declining workers' rights,
violent labor trafficking, and ethnic cleansing, no one can say the dark
underbelly of the "tiger economies" is a secret any longer.
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not
be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
Walden Bello
Foreign Policy In Focus columnist Walden Bello is a member of the House of
Representatives of the Philippines and a senior analyst at the Bangkok-based
research and advocacy institute Focus on the Global South.
Related Stories
Pivot for Peace, Not for War
By Staff, Conference Organizing Committee | Press ReleaseAsia Smiles for the
Cameras
By John Feffer, Foreign Policy in Focus | News Analysis
Show Comments
