Western Oil Cartels and the Burmese Junta
By Kanbawza Win, March 28, 2001
Mizzima News Group (www.mizzima.com )
Oil consumption is often seen as an innocent or even a wholesome activity. Smoking, littering and illegal drug use all receives more negative public censure than filling up the car tank. Reasons for the apparent innocence of oil are understandable, even admirable, as oil is usually associated with progress and comfort despite traffic jams, breakdowns or risky incidents. More often than not driving is commonly viewed as a pleasurable or even a luxurious activity for the third world countries.
However, very few people know of the most tragic consequences in connection with dictatorship. Oil wealth is the biggest single factor sustaining these tyrannies throughout the world. Oil profits give aid to repression and are also of the principal causes of war. To be candid oil is critical to the support of dictatorships since it provides the most abundant form of wealth for a repressive government- income that does not have to be obtained through taxation. On the other hand, the collection of taxes generally requires a high degree of consent from citizens when big money is needed for the repressive apparatus of despotism.
A common feature in the dictatorship countries of the world such as China, Sudan, Libya, Syria. Saudi Arabia, the sultanate of Brunei, Afghanistan, North Korea, Singapore and Burma is the absence of labour unions. Forced labour becomes the prime factor for sustaining of the regime in Burma and no wonder that they were kicked out from the ILO.
It is assumed by the international community that the Burmese Junta used a significant proportion of any foreign income to military expenditure rather than for economic development. Several big oil companies including TOTAL of France, UNOCAL of America, and Premier oil of Britain knowingly invested in Burma. These big companies could not quench their ever-growing thirst for profit, and could easily bypass any ideals their government claim. Perhaps this is the most lamentable aspect of Western democracies.
For an average Burmese, these white firangs usually referred as “Myetnaphyu Inkaleik” (rsufemjzLt*Fvdyf), literally interpreted, “the pale-face English,” often bring back bitter memories of the British colonial days now come back in a more subtle form of economic colonialism. Detailed research made by Southeast Asian Information Network (SAIN) and Earth Rights International (ERI) has revealed that the oil companies are ignoring the democratically-elected officials and local people's repeated calls for a moratorium on international investment in Burma. It has further exposed the ways in which money from this oil is financing the Generals’ efforts to tighten their grip on the country. It has recorded human rights violations committed by troops stationed in the oil pipeline area. Such abuses as extra-judicial killings, torture, rape and extortion in these areas has increased. Another category in relation to the gas pipe line involves labour, portering and forced relocation.
The pipeline project is being implemented in a system, which lacks any semblance of law, and the local people, who have suffered physical and environmental damage, have no legal avenue for relief. These combinations of abuses linked to the oil, and a lack of remedies for those who have been wronged, has created a project, which is harmful and not helpful to the people of Burma.
The potential annual income for the Junta from the Yadana project alone is as much as $400 million US. a year and is the regime's single largest source of foreign currency. Money from such joint ventures flows into the military's budget, financing arms purchases for the army and for those assisting the Junta to stay in power. UNOCAL, TOTAL, PREMIER OIL and a host of other foreign companies working in Burma can easily convince their shareholders that their investments are bringing long-term benefits to the people of Burma, if they do not have to deal with the realities of the horror that hundreds of thousands of people in Burma experience under the Junta. Like the proverbial ostrich with its head in the sand, there is nothing to fear your hand is in the sand. However, the suffering of the people of Burma will not go away simply because companies want to believe all is well, nor because they are turning a healthy profit. The truth is, human rights abuses in Burma are on the increase because of these oil companies.
Routinely, civilians are seized by the military and are forced to work, often without pay or food, on roads and other infrastructure related to the oil project. Soldiers patrolling the pipeline areas also force local Burmese to walk with them and carry their heavy loads.
For the civilian population residing in the oil project, life has become intolerable. To augment the plans to build the gas pipeline from the Andaman Sea through ethnic lands in the Ye-Tavoy township, a new railway line had to be constructed. Obviously, thousands of people a day were being forced to labour on the construction of this railway. In other words, forced labour was associated with foreign investment of the gas companies.
Forcible relocation of the villages had to be done to secure the pipeline and to remove the resistance forces. By the time military offensives against the ethnic forces had been completed, thousands of refugees had fled to the Thai border areas. This is only a small part of the effect of the oil project on the Burmese people.. Once satisfied, the western oil cartels knew that their longevity is now guarantee.
Under the Burmese Junta, foreign investors are allowed to operate free of environmental regulations hence, they can exert absolute control over their own decision-making. In addition, their lack of transparency ensures that these trans-national oil companies will not be held accountable for any environmental damage that they may cause. On the other hand the people at the grassroots level, who arguably have the most immediate stake in protecting the environment, are systematically excluded from the decision- making and policy processes. Their absence not only denies policy-makers the feedback they need to undertake accurate cost/benefit analyses, but assures that any environmental costs from the resulting policy will be borne by those least able to afford it.
Both the offshore and the onshore oil projects have affected the local habitat, marine and wildlife, as well as human populations, in the gas producing area. The waste produced during the exploration stages affected a lot of the environment. The most damaging of these processes is the drilling of mud, which can be made up of many toxic substances, including arsenic, barium, lead, corrosive irons, and radio active materials such as radium 226. This toxic mud is disposed of by simply dumping it in the water, where it descends to the sea bed and robs the water and bottom sediment of oxygen. Obviously, bottom life stops breathing, depleting marine life and plants growing in these waters.
Another form of waste generated in large quantities by natural gas exploration is toxic brine. This toxic substance made up of hydrocarbons, and is left behind when oil, natural gas, and water have been extracted from underground reservoirs. The effect of dumping such toxic matter on wetlands, and on fish and wildlife areas, has proven to be ecologically disastrous is a legacy left behind by the oil industry in many countries. Gas emissions from offshore drilling rigs is another environmental hazard. One rig produces enough gas for 7,000 cars driving 50 miles a day, resulting in a large amount of toxic products polluting the atmosphere.
Burma is a signatory to the Convention Against Forced Labour and as such is obliged under international law to abide by its provisions. An interview with a forced labour at Heinze Island, located on the route that TOTAL worked in said:
"I saw some foreigners from Tavoy joint venture office (Kanbauk) on the island. They came with the army officials and walked around the island. I have seen them before when I was in Tavoy. They had an office there with some other Burmese interpreters for about two years. I saw them come by boat. I saw helicopters flying over the island. The foreigners stayed sometimes overnight to measure with their instruments."
The story of this man reveals that company staff clearly knew that forced labour was going on in their projects. Forced labour is not only confined to adults, but also involves children. A fourteen year old girl, who managed to escape from forced labour, narrated:
"I had to clear the bushes and the men had to level the ground. Two English guys watched us and after work was over, these English gave us K 200 per day."
Whenever an oil company undertakes a project, forced labour is a must. Roads, bridges, and railways are often built to construct and maintain the projects. While such development projects benefit the local communities in most parts of the world, this is not true in Burma as the Junta and their cronies benefit while the people experience only forced labour, increased taxes and suffering.
It is well established that the Burmese cannot move without porters, each soldier typically requires two civilians to carry his assigned load of equipment. Hundreds of thousands of villagers in the ethnic minority areas of Burma have been forcibly conscripted to carry arms, ammunition, and other supplies into civil war zones, especially into the area of oil. In addition, the junta employs abusive recruitment and detention methods, involving severe and sometimes fatal maltreatment of the porters. Porters have died from exhaustion and neglect, and others have been beaten to death or extra-judicially executed for disobeying orders, or for trying to escape. The only way rural villagers can avoid brutal portering duties is to pay large "porter fees" to local military commanders. These fees are extracted from villagers in the pipeline region between one and three times each month. If the village is unable to pay, then the villagers are beaten and subjected to other physical abuse and punishment.
Oil companies have been saying privately "We will not allow these human rights groups to disrupt our projects." Information gathered through interviews by SAIN and ER with villagers from the gas producing region indicate that when the villages are unable to provide the demanded number of porters, or to raise the required porter fees, the soldiers punish the village heads.
Beyond the physical abuse and intimidation the Burmese army routinely intimidates and threatens villagers until they turn over their livestock, crops, and other personal property.
Villagers explain that they are left with little time to farm their lands and earn a living after they have finished their duties for the Burmese army. It is a foregone conclusion that the villagers are forced to make volunteer financial contributions to the railway projects Those who are unable to make the contribution in full are then forced to contribute their labour to the work of clearing bush, building dirt embankments, and laying rails.
There is a growing consensus at the international level that sound environmental policies can only be created in a system which responds to feedback from all those who have a stake in the environment. In many countries, there are even mechanisms by which individuals and groups can advocate for change and participate in the education of the communities surrounding environmental issues. In Burma, under the regime, this is impossible and just the reverse is true.
The Western oil industries have attempted to block their shareholders in the US, Britain and France from obtaining comprehensive information about their projects in Burma. Paradoxically, oil companies working in Burma have succeeded in persuading the US. Securities and Exchange Commission to remove resolutions on human rights and environmental issues aimed at their projects in Burma from their proxy statements. A classic example is that UNOCAL has strongly rejected a call by a group of shareholders for a comprehensive report on the company's activities in Burma. American companies that have invested in Burma have not had any concern about environmental issues such as watershed destruction and deforestation as they know very well that they will be able to operate only if the Junta lasts, and their goal is to maximize the profit as soon as possible .
These accounts demonstrate a widespread, persistent pattern of human rights violations against the people of Burma. Merely entering into a partnership arrangement with such a regime constitutes complicity in these abuses. The level of corporate culpability is much higher in the case of the oil consortium, and these abuses are actually carried out by security personnel for the benefit of the project. The French, the British and the Americans, who always declare their love for freedom, have acted otherwise.
The western oil cartels are just one example of an increasingly common trend that sees governments working in the interest of global corporations, against their own people. This trend is not new Chinese, Latin American, Indonesian and former Soviet governments have all evicted people wholesale and practiced something akin to genocide to make way for massive projects such as dams, and to encourage logging and heavy industries. These extractive industries such as oil and mining and timber are becoming the new epicenter of human right violations, land grab, political de-stabilization, environmental devastation and, increasingly, outright conflict are becoming common. As countries bid to offer the lowest levels of environmental, labour and consumer regulation, abuses are rising. Obviously the first casualty is democracy. The second casualty is the tribal peoples whose land was given to the company both to explore and exploit and naturally these native peoples become homeless in their own homelands. This sort of hit-and-run development leaves communities with little option in ways of developing themselves. These companies claim that they bring jobs and social benefits but in reality the work they offer is unskilled, and the benefits go only to the military and to the people who work with them. The people always suffer.
The American company of UNOCAL, the British Premier Oil and TOTAL of France represent the classic examples of the push for economic liberalization that has resulted in disastrous consequences globally, but particularly for developing nations. The agreement made between corporate powers has resulted in maximum exploitation of the people. Central to this restructuring of power is the establishment of markets catering to the elite while marginalizing massive numbers of people and resulting in widespread poverty, hunger, child and slave labour. Along with the spreading power of multinational corporations comes the modern and devastating trend of developing, bio rich nations being forced to adopt intellectual property rights over life and biological resources. This threatens and undermines traditional systems of knowledge, medicine and food security. Indigenous people not only are having their last remaining refuges invaded and commoditized, but also are subsequently reduced to slave labour, or are destroyed in their attempts to preserve their lands and lifestyles. The export of various technologies into developing nations alters their consumption patterns, social fabric and traditions of individuals and communities. Technology is not neutral. It serves the interests of its manufacturers and has brought with it an increasing global homogenization of culture. But the most important aspect is that it lack a humanitarian concern and has led to the increased militarization of less-privileged nations and the proportional increase in the military sectors of the industrial countries.
Burma is just a classic example of the havoc played by these oil cartels. The greatest threat in this new millennium is not what Samuel Huntington described in his Clash of Civilizations of how the Islamic countries combined with the Chinese and Indians whose religious teaching stress on humility and love will clash with the West but of the dictatorships that have no respect for mankind and environment kept alive by these oil cartels.
(The author is a visiting Professor at the Faculty of International Development Studies, University of Winnipeg Cum Research Fellow at the University of Manitoba at the Institute of Humanities, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada)