I’m prepared to give Bush-Cheney 2004 officials the benefit of the doubt when they say they had no idea some of the clothing they were selling on their web site was manufactured in Burma, home to some of the world’s most brutal and repressive labor practices.
But was it something they cared about before they got embarrassed by this disclosure?
To his credit President Bush signed a law last year outlawing imports from Burma. Is anyone trying to enforce it? Why was it so easy for the campaign’s clothing supplier to obtain Burmese merchandise– intentionally or otherwise?
Meanwhile the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions reports that Burmese authorities have sentenced to death nine workers on charges of high treason.
…Charges were brought against some individuals on the grounds of making contact with the United Nations’ International Labour Organization.
One defendant received the death sentence having been found in possession of the report of the ILO Commission of Inquiry on Forced Labour in Burma, and ‘other sheets of paper’, including the business card of an ILO official currently serving in Rangoon.
(Via LabourStart.)
