Sign on to letter to IOC regarding Burma

Please find below the letter that was send to the IOC concerning the uniforms bought in Burma. It was signed already by many organizations but we will continue to gather signatures for this letter in the event that the IOC does not adopt a position against the purchase and use of products in Burma as requested. Please forward send your signature to info@cleanclothes.org or directly to LEKretzu@aol.com

February 4, 2002

M. Jacques Rogge
President, International Olympic Committee
Chateau de Vidy
CH-1007 Lausanne
Switzerland

Re: Marker Ltd. outsourcing to Burma (Myanmar)

Dear Monsieur Rogge,

We are seeking clarification on the International Olympic Committee’s position regarding their contract with the company Marker Ltd. (Marker Outerwear) as an official supplier to the Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Winter Games. (See http://www.markerltd.com/index2.html) We were shocked to discover that the official Torchbearers’ uniform, manufactured by Marker Ltd., was produced in large part in Burma. (Enclosed is a photograph of the tags on both the Olympic relay jacket and pants.)

It is internationally recognized that Burma’s ruling military regime employs a brutal system of forced labor. From 1996-1998, the International Labor Organization (ILO), a specialized agency of the United Nations, carried out a monumental investigation into forced labor, or what many call “a modern form of slave labor,” in Burma. The ILO investigators, composed of eminent jurists, including two former Chief Justices, were painstaking and meticulous in their fact-finding mission. The ILO investigators received more than 10,000 pages of written documents, held quasi-judicial hearings in Geneva and went on a mission to India, Bangladesh and Thailand where it conducted 246 interviews with recently arrived refugees. In addition, the ILO team received information from governments, various parts of the UN system and many other sources. In July 1998, the ILO produced an authoritative report on forced labor in Burma, calling the system “a saga of untold misery and suffering, oppression and exploitation of large sections of the population inhabiting Myanmar [Burma] by the Government, military and other public officers.”

As a result, in an extraordinary move the ILO invoked article 33 of its constitution for the first time in its 82 year history, recommending that the Organization’s constituents - governments, employers and workers - review their relations with Burma and take appropriate measures to ensure that such relations do not perpetuate or extend the system of forced or compulsory labor in that country. In addition, the ILO effectively suspended Burma from its ranks.

This historical and unprecedented call by the ILO particularly applies to Burma’s garment “industry”. Indeed, the most recent United States Department of State Country Report on Human Rights for Burma, released in February 2001, said: "Forced labor, including forced child labor, has contributed materially to the construction of industrial parks subsequently used largely to produce manufactured exports including garments."

Already, ILO constituents are taking action to end forced labor. Twenty-six clothing companies have cut ties to Burma in the past 19 months. The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions has called on its members to take action against forced labor and labor unions have responded, including refusing to unload goods from Burma at sea ports. Governments around the world have moved to eradicate forced labor in Burma through the ILO, and in January 2001 the United States government issued a list of products barred from federal purchase since they had been produced with forced labor in Burma.

When it was revealed that the United States-based Wal-Mart, the Denmark-based IKEA, and the German-owned Spiegel had sourced production in Burma, the companies publicly announced they would no longer accept merchandise from the country. The companies, which otherwise do business with many countries around the world, recognize that production in Burma is beyond the pale—they refuse to be a part of the country’s brutal system of forced labor. In addition, the 2002 Norwegian Olympic team recently cancelled their Triumph International sponsorship because of the company’s presence in Burma, stating that they refused to use Triumph athletic apparel and equipment until the company ended all ties with Burma. Just this week, Triumph International pulled all production out of Burma.

Throughout the world, the vast majority of companies, governments, and labor unions recognize that slavery is not acceptable in the 21st century. The historical mandate by the ILO ought not be ignored by the International Olympic Committee.

We understand the desire of the International Olympic Committee to operate freely of politics. Clearly, however, slavery is so severely and universally reviled throughout the world it is no longer considered a “political” issue but one pertaining to very basic and fundamental human rights. We also understand it is not the mission of the International Olympic Committee to engage in efforts, no matter how just or universally accepted, that make the world a better place, except those included in its charter.

Given that the Olympic charter calls for the preservation of human dignity, the IOC’s purchase of goods from Burma undermines the very ideals that the Olympic Games promote. We hope that our discovery of the Burmese-made Olympic Torchbearer uniforms was a dramatic oversight by the International Olympic Committee and that now made aware of this egregious violation of human rights, the IOC will make a public statement denouncing the further use of production in Burma.

We urge the IOC to adopt a position against the purchase and use of products associated with slavery in Burma. The world stands firmly in favor of the protection of democracy, human rights and human life. The International Olympic Committee should not be tainted by association with the violation of these ideals in the brutal practice of slavery.

A timely written response to this letter is requested.

Sincerely,

Leslie Kretzu
Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Torchbearer in Philadelphia, PA, USA
Educating for Justice, Co-Founder and Director
99 Claremont Avenue, #244
New York, NY 10027 USA

Clean Clothes Campaign
PO Box 11584
1001 GN Amsterdam, Netherlands

Jeremy Woodrum
Free Burma Coalition, Washington Director
1101 Pennsylvania Ave, SE, #204
Washington, DC 20003 USA

Congressman Sherrod Brown (D-OH)
2438 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20003 USA

Neil Kearney
General Secretary
The International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers Federation
8 rue Joseph Stevens
1000 Brussels, Belgium

Yvette Mahon
The Burma Campaign UK, Director
Third Floor, Bickerton House
25/27 Bickerton Road
London N19 5JT United Kingdom

Dennis Brutus
South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (SAN-ROC), President
University of Pittsburgh
4200 Fifth Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15260 USA

United Students Against Sweatshops
888 16th Street NW, Suite 303
Washington, DC 20006 USA

Medea Benjamin
Global Exchange, Co-Founder
2017 Mission Street #303
San Francisco, California 94110 USA

Larry Weiss
Director, Labor, Globalization and Human Rights Project
Resource Center of the Americas
3019 Minnehaha Avenue
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55406 USA

David Moore
American Anti-Slavery Group, Managing Editor
198 Tremont St. #421
Boston, Massachusetts 02116 USA

Daisy Pitkin
Campaign for Labor Rights, National Co-Coordinator
1247 E Street SE
Washington, DC 20003 USA

Tim Connor
NikeWatch, Coordinator
55 Wells Street
Redfern 2016, Australia

Katherine Hoyt
Nicaragua Network, National Co-Coordinator
1247 E Street, SE
Washington, DC 20003 USA
Clean Clothes Campaign
PO Box 11584
1001 GN Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Claire Noonan
Call to Action, Program Organizer
2135 W. Roscoe #1N
Chicago, IL 60618 USA

Sarah Aird
Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala, Executive Director
1830 Connecticut Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20009 USA

Marilyn Clement
Executive Secretary for Economic Justice
Women's Division, United Methodist Church
475 Riverside Drive, Room 1502
New York, NY 10115 USA

East Timor Action Network
1101 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE
Washington, DC 20003 USA

Evert de Boer
Philippine Solidarity Group Netherlands, Coordinator
Korte Jansstraat 2a
3512 GN Utrecht, The Netherlands

Henk Luijt
Burma Centrum Nederland (BCN)
Paulus Potterstraat 20
1071 DA Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Larry Dohrs
Seattle Burma Roundtable
6527 1st Avenue NW
Seattle, Washington 98117 USA

Burma Action Group
University of Washington
Box 352238, HUB 207
Seattle, Washington 98195 USA

Project Maje
3610 NE 70th Avenue
Portland, Oregon 97213 USA

XminY Solidariteitsfonds
Keizersgracht 132-II
1015 CW Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Greetje Lubbi
Novib-Oxfam Netherlands, Director
Postbus 30919, 2500 GX Den Haag
Postbank 100200, The Netherlands

Burma Action Committee
Portland, Oregon USA

Democratic Burmese Students’ Organization
Washington, D.C. USA

Roland Watson
Dictator Watch, Director
P.O. Box 263
Gradyville, Pennsylvania 19039 USA

Richard Hausman
Clean Yield Asset Management
P.O. Box 117 Garvin Hill Road
Greensboro, Vermont 05841 USA

cc.
Juan Somavia
International Labor Organization, Director-General
4, route des Morillons
CH-1211 Geneva 22 Switzerland

Mary Robinson
United Nations, High Commissioner for Human Rights
OHCHR-UNOG
8-14 Avenue de la Paix
1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland

Irene Khan
Amnesty International, Secretary General
99-119 Rosebery Avenue
London EC1R 4RE United Kingdom

Bill Jordan
International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, General Secretary
5 Boulevard du Roi Albert II, Bte 1
1210 Brussels, Belgium

Peter Weaver
Marker Ltd., President and Chief Executive Officer
1070 West 2300 South
Salt Lake City, Utah 84119 USA

Kevin Hardy
MKR Holdings, President and Chief Financial Officer
1070 West 2300 South
Salt Lake City, Utah 84119 USA