CASE STUDIES – – – – – – – region in early 1998, the Commission of Inquiry conducted 246 interviews, entirely with minorities and indigenous peoples. The Government accepted the Recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry in September 1998, but failed to implement them. The 1999 International Labour Conference adopted a Resolution stating that the situation in Burma was incompatible with the conditions and principles governing membership of the ILO, and that the ILO should cease to provide any technical cooperation or assistance to the Government. There was to be one exception to this restriction: assistance to implement the Recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry. The International Labour Conference in June 2000 adopted another Resolution under Article 33 of the ILO Constitution, recommending that if Burma did not take concrete steps to implement the Recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry by 30 November 2000, the ILO would ask its constituent members and other international organizations to review their relations with Burma.62 In October 2000, a technical cooperation team visited Burma to assess the situation and to offer its services to the Government. In November 2000, following the cooperation team’s visit, the ILO’s Governing Body concluded that the Commission of Inquiry’s Recommendations had not been implemented. The Director-General contacted international organizations and requested them to stop any cooperation with Burma, and to cease any activities that could directly or indirectly support the practice of forced labour. All ILO constituents were also urged to review their relations with Burma and to take measures to ensure that Burma could not take advantage of these relations to perpetuate the use of forced labour. In its 2001 report, the Committee of Experts observed that in a letter of 29 October 2000 to the Director-General of the ILO, the Government indicated its ‘political will to ensure that there is no forced labour in Myanmar, both in law and in practice’, and the Committee asked the Government to report in detail on any progress made in implementing the Recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry.63 Burma was discussed again at the International Labour Conference in 2001, and in September 2001 the ILO sent a four-member team to Burma for three weeks to review what progress had been made in implementing the Commission of Inquiry’s Recommendations. The team found that while the Government had made some progress, it was insufficient, and forced labour was still practised widely. – Burma remains under review. 3. Bangladesh his case study demonstrates how continued ILO attention can help to bring pressure on member states, with the help of trade unions and NGOs. • Since Bangladesh first ratified Convention No. 107 in 1972, the ILO supervisory bodies have been addressing the issue of the indigenous peoples in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) region. The two major concerns have been human rights and land. • The Committee of Experts’ comments intensified in the mid-1980s due to continuing reports of gross human rights violations committed by the armed forces, often in collusion with settlers brought in from the plains areas through a government population transfer policy. In 1985, following up on an Observation of the Committee of Experts on persistent reports of human rights abuses, the Applications Committee held detailed discussions with the Government on the subject. In November 1985, a representative of the Director-General visited Bangladesh on a ��Direct Contacts’ visit. • In its 1986 report, the Committee of Experts regretted that ‘only very limited discussions’ were arranged for the Director-General’s representative during the Direct Contacts visit, described by the employers’ members at the Applications Committee as a ‘failure’. The Government was again invited to appear before the Applications Committee and a ‘special paragraph’ was included in the report to indicate the gravity of the situation. During the discussions at the Applications Committee, the duty of the Committee to protect minorities and the weak, in Bangladesh as well as in other countries where the problem arose, was stressed.64 • The Committee of Experts made another Observation in 1987 on the continuing conflicts between the indigenous peoples, and the settlers and the army, referring to reports received from NGOs including Amnesty International and the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA). The Government was again asked to appear before the Applications Committee in June 1987, and a ‘special paragraph’ was adopted urging the Government to adopt concrete measures to resolve the situation. • In 1988, the ILO received a ‘comment’ from the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) regarding reports of human rights violations of the indigenous peoples in the CHT, including their right to life and physical safety. The ICFTU within the T THE INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANIZATION: A HANDBOOK FOR MINORITIES AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLES 37