Lloyd’s List

[Ed. Note: The source of the following story, transmitted on Dec. 9, 2000, is the online publication BurmaNet News, which notes that Lloyd’s List is an international daily news and intelligence service for the shipping and business communities.]

Burma is Buddhism with a totalitarian face. Its shocking human rights record has earned the military dictatorship international status as a pariah. The country’s democrats-led by Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese Mandela-are demanding a trade boycott.

The world’s maritime industries, however, seem to see Burma as an important business opportunity as the country is a relatively important seafaring labour-supply country internationally, a role dating back to its days as a British colony. The government claims there are more than 47,000 registered seafarers in the country. Most observers believe that this is a somewhat inflated claim and that the true figure is 30,000, which is still considerable. Approximately 10,000 to 20,000 seafarers from Burma are on the international market, often available at some of the lowest pay rates in the world.

Leading ship managers, such as Unimar and Hanseatic, have crewing offices in the country. Shipping’s complicity does not end there, however. Leading Asian container ship operators, such as Cosco and NYK, carry much of Burma’s trade. Moreover, some of the state-owned carrier’s liner services are managed by a subsidiary of Jardine Matheson. German repair yards also dry-dock its ships, and the container terminal at the port of Rangoon is managed by Hutchison Port Holdings.

The hard-nosed response is that this is entirely legal business; but in a world where corporate responsibility is moving more and more up the agenda, this excuse is no longer valid. Doing business with dictators is bad public relations and can lead to targeting by activists. The International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) in particular has campaigned hard for the restoration of democracy in Burma and especially for trade union rights. Savvier ship managers will not touch Burmese seafarers with a barge pole. Acomarit, for instance, said that it regularly received offers of manpower from Burma. However, most of its clients preferred to have ITF agreements, and Burmese crews would not be considered until the union issue was resolved. Acomarit’s Bruce Lucas added that there was an additional risk that Burmese seafarers would jump ship.

‘I remember one company I used to work for where we used them as riding squads,’ he reminisced. ‘They went ashore in Tokyo one night, and we never heard from them again.’

These problems aside, Burmese seafarers are employed by many Western ship owners, both reputable and not so reputable, although few care to advertise the fact. Companies known to use Burmese crews include leading German container ship operator Leonhardt and Blumberg of Hamburg.

In many respects, Burmese seafarers are ideal. They are cheap, their English is good and their seafaring skills are strong. For the less morally conscientious, there are other advantages. Because Burmese crews are afraid to complain for fear of retribution back home, they are open to exploitation of the most naked variety. Even where they are well-treated, Burmese seafarers will be forced to remit earnings to the State. Seen in this light, as a valuable source of hard currency, the government is naturally keen for their numbers to increase.

As a result, Burma’s Department of Marine Administration earlier this year opened the country’s second maritime training school. Those who make the grade are subject to severe restrictions. A clause in their employment contract enjoins them to ‘uphold the dignity of the State.’

Among the list of actions thought to belittle the glory of the dictatorship is contact with the ITF for any reason whatsoever. Those who break this stipulation face confiscation of their passports and seafarers’ certificates. In one case, the government went so far as to publish a list of 14 seafarers branded as troublemakers who should not be hired. There are cases also where the ITF has secured unpaid wages for seafarers only to see the recipients forced by the government to hand the money back to the vessel’s master. In addition, there are numerous documented instances of double bookkeeping with Burmese crew members paid far less than the rates agreed. Deprived of any ability to organise collectively, they can basically be treated in any way a bad employer sees fit.

Lloyd’s List last year reported on how the crew of a vessel called the Ideal were abandoned in Malta by Greek operator Phoenix Ship Management. The seafarers had not been paid for five months and were surviving on charitable donations. In another case, ITF inspectors in Darwin, Australia, in September this year discovered four Burmese crew members on board two cattle boats. They had not been paid for four months and were made to work ashore on local building sites while the boats lay in the mud in a private berth. Accommodation and food were described as appalling. If they had any complaints about the arrangement, they were told that they would be taken to the local police station and sent back to Burma. Such was their fear of that prospect that they kept silent.

Suitably enough for a country where 1984 author George Orwell once served the British empire as a colonial administrator, many official organisations award themselves Orwellian nomenclature. Thus, Burmese seafarers are marketed internationally through the efforts of the Seafarers Employment Control Department. Burma argues that this agency looks after the welfare of Burmese seafarers and, therefore, trade unions are not needed. Its main role, however, seems to be ensuring that crews do not argue with manning agents and ship owners. Its general stance can be gauged by a letter its deputy director, Ye Myint Tun, wrote to the crew of a striking vessel two years ago.

‘You are advised to make a halt because striking on board is not allowed by our department,’ he admonished. ‘We also heard that your comrades were trying to contact the ITF. You are urged not to make contact with the ITF. Otherwise, our department will take strong action against you.’

Some Burmese seafarers are prepared to stand up to the dictatorship. Since 1994, they have maintained a union in exile in Thailand with the support of the ITF. It is a brave activity. Activists from the Seafarers’ Union of Burma often face government repression. Leader U Khin Kyaw, for instance, is now in prison for ‘life plus a term of years’ after being arrested on fabricated terrorism charges.

As well as supplying labour, Burma is also engaged in world trade, facilitated by both its own efforts and those of other countries. The state-owned shipping line Myanma Five Star Line (MFSL) was established in the early 1960s as Burma Five Star Line (BFSL). When the regime renamed the country Myanmar in 1989, the national shipping company adopted the new title but dropped the final letter.

MFSL directly owns a fleet of 20 vessels that comprise only dry cargo tonnage, although it had previously owned a small tanker. The ships are predominantly general cargo vessels built in the 1960s and 1970s with most purchased as new ships. MFSL’s core business has been a two-monthly liner service to Northern Europe for more than 10 years that is operated with two or three ships. The company has a representative working from the Burmese embassy in London. As most cargo support for the European service originates from Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, the London representative’s main role is to support ships when dry-docked in Germany where most of MFSL’s larger tonnage was constructed.

MFSL’s second liner service is directed at Japan and the Far East with monthly sailings calling at Pusan, Kobe, Yokohama, Hong Kong and Rangoon. The service is operated with three ships and calls are also made at Singapore and Malaysian ports. Cargo for China is transhipped through Singapore. MFSL also has an agreement with NYK for transhipment cargo for delivery to the United States.

In 1993, a Rangoon-Singapore service was initiated. This is managed from Singapore by Jardine Starline Management (JSM), part of Hong Kong’s Jardine Matheson group. JSM is effectively the commercial and container management arm for MFSL, and it has full responsibility for operating the Singapore-Rangoon service.

MFSL owns no containers as there are always sufficient empty boxes in Rangoon awaiting repositioning to enable it to lease them. Containers for its Rangoon-Singapore service are leased in Singapore by JSM. A spokesman for Jardines in London said that JSM acts as an agent only. He defended its involvement with the state-controlled shipping line on the grounds that ‘it is always better to be involved and try to help rather than to exclude.’

An e-mail to JSM in Singapore showed that London was misinformed, however.

‘We confirm JSM is effectively the commercial and container management arm for MFSL,’ it reads. ‘JSM has full responsibility for operating the Singapore-Rangoon service. Our involvement in this business is strictly commercial cooperation, and we do not intend to comment on political questions.’

This was an entirely normal response from the companies contacted by Lloyd’s List, if they answered at all.

One expatriate shipping employee observed that the Asian attitude to such matters is rather different from that of the effete Western liberal.

‘Generally speaking, companies here have no qualms about anything,’ he noted. ‘It all comes under the ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] banner of ‘constructive engagement.’’

NYK responded: ‘Our basic policy is that we are in favour of the protection of human rights, but we do not take particular positions when it comes to individual countries.’

In short, no one thinks the picture in Burma is pretty, but, as David Osler reports, there are those who find it attractive doing maritime business with a thuggish and brutal regime.