ACTU calls for ban on aid to Burma

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AAP NEWSFEED

April 30, 2001, Monday

ACTU* calls for ban on aid to Burma

MELBOURNE, April 30 AAP - Tomorrow's M1 protest union march will
be used as a stage to launch an international campaign highlighting
human rights abuses in Burma.

ACTU president Sharan Burrow and Burma's trade union
president-in-exile U Lla Oo (U Lla Oo) will launch the campaign and
call for a ban on all trade with the Burmese government, when
10,000 union members gather outside Thai Airways in Collins Street,
Melbourne, during the May Day march tomorrow.

Thai Airways was targeted because of the country's close trade
links with Burma.

The campaign is part of an international day of action for Burma
organised by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions.

An ACTU spokesman said the union body supported the M1
anti-globalisation blockade at the Australian Stock Exchange
tomorrow, but would leave that part of the May Day action to
Australia's trades hall councils and focus instead on the issue of
human rights abuses in Burma.

"This is an issue of globalisation, but a more specific one,"
the spokesman said.

"It shows how free trade rules allow international companies to
come in on the back of exploited people."

* [presumably, Australian Confederation of Trade Unions - DA]