Chevron's Pipeline Is the Burmese Regime's Lifeline

[Lone_Star_Dem]

By Amy Goodman, King Features Syndicate. Posted October 3, 2007.

The barbarous military regime depends on revenue from the nation’s gas reserves and partners such as Chevron, a detail ignored by the Bush administration.

The image was stunning: tens of thousands of saffron-robed Buddhist monks marching through the streets of Rangoon , protesting the military dictatorship of Burma. The monks marched in front of the home of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who was seen weeping and praying quietly as they passed. She hadn't been seen for years. The democratically elected leader of Burma, Suu Kyi has been under house arrest since 2003. She is considered the Nelson Mandela of Burma, the Southeast Asian nation renamed Myanmar by the regime.

<snip>

Fueling the military junta that has ruled for decades are Burma's natural gas reserves, controlled by the Burmese regime in partnership with the U.S. multinational oil giant Chevron, the French oil company Total and a Thai oil firm. Offshore natural gas facilities deliver their extracted gas to Thailand through Burma's Yadana pipeline. The pipeline was built with slave labor, forced into servitude by the Burmese military.

The original pipeline partner, Unocal, was sued by EarthRights International for the use of slave labor. As soon as the suit was settled out of court, Chevron bought Unocal.

Chevron's role in propping up the brutal regime in Burma is clear. According to Marco Simons, U.S. legal director at EarthRights International: "Sanctions haven't worked because gas is the lifeline of the regime. Before Yadana went online, Burma's regime was facing severe shortages of currency. It's really Yadana and gas projects that kept the military regime afloat to buy arms and ammunition and pay its soldiers."


More at link: http://www.alternet.org/rights/64310/

The article goes on to mention how Rice served on the Chevron board of directors for a decade and the atrocities committed by Chevron during that decade.

[IndyOp]

1. Thank you for posting this. (n/t)

[gateley]

7. K&R - I can't even comment I'm so livid and sad. nt

[annabanana]

2. Vital information. Let's get this kicked up to greatest...

The more people who understand the interconnectedness, the clearer the big picture becomes.

[EFerrari]

3. Here's an AP story I found last weekend.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1944532&mesg_id=1945183

[Lone_Star_Dem]

5. Thank you for that

I had missed that thread somehow.

[EFerrari]

6. My memory isn't what it should be but I remembered

that the Bugman was making money in Burma somehow which is why I went fishing for it in the first place. Where ever there is misery, we should just expect to find one or more of these bastards.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

8. I'd say you have an excellent memory

For me, there's so many scandals that they all begin to blur together. I honestly have a hard time keeping them all straight anymore with the way many of them overlap.

[Beausoleil]

4. K & R n/t

[Oilwellian]

9. How special

Has anyone seen Chevron's new "feel good" commercial that's been bombarding our airwaves lately? Disgusting. Perhaps we should write Chevron and let them know, we know.