Burma Activists Block Unocal Truck in L.A.
12/12/96
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Headline: Burma Activists Block Unocal Truck in L.A.
Source: rainforest@igc.org
Pamela Wellner - pwellner@igc.org
Tamar Hurwitz - ranla@ran.org
Date: 12/12/96
Author: ranmedia@ran.org (Mark Westlund)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Breaking news, Dec. 12, 1996
CONTACT: Pamela Wellner - pwellner@igc.org
Tamar Hurwitz - ranla@ran.org
BURMESE-AMERICANS BLOCK UNOCAL TRUCK TO PROTEST COMPANY'S PIPELINE PROJECT
LOS ANGELES, Dec. 12 -- A family of Burmese refugees chained themselves to
a Unocal gasoline tanker early today to protest human rights abuses and
rainforest destruction linked to construction of the LA-based oil
company's southern Burma pipeline.
Dressed in traditional sarongs and holding their 4-year-old daughter,
Maung and Taw Myo Shwe locked themselves to a truck attempting to leave
the Unocal Los Angeles Terminal Motor Transport facility at 13500 S.
Broadway. They were joined by environmentalists from the International
Rivers Network and other groups, who hung a large banner reading "Unocal
Burma pipeline = forced labor plus forest ruin" and "Torture in Burma and
heroin in the U.S.--Boycott Unocal."
"Unocal's project has provided $20 million in support to a military regime
that maintains its power through torture, rape and forced labor," said
Maung Shwe, 41, of Alhambra, Calif., who fled Burma after the 1988
crackdown by the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). "Until
Unocal stops doing business with Burma, people should stop doing business
with Unocal."
Unocal and its partner, Total of France, are building a natural-gas
pipeline from the Andaman Sea, through the rainforests of southern Burma,
into Thailand. According to a report by Earth Rights International, a
human rights watchdog group, SLORC has secured the development by forcing
members of the Karen and Mon ethnic nationalities to work on pipeline-
related infrastructure, military bases and heliports.
According to Paris-based Geopolitical Drug Watch, Unocal's other partner,
the Myanmar, Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE), has been identified as "the
main channel for laundering revenues of heroin produced and exported under
the control of the Burmese army." Burma, the world's largest producer of
opium, has doubled its production since SLORC's crackdown.
This week, Burma has been rocked by widespread student demonstrations, on
a scale not seen since the 1988 massacre of thousands of pro-democracy
protesters. In 1990 the Burmese people voted to install the National
League for Democracy, led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, as
the legitimate government, but the regime nullified the election and
jailed the NLD leaders.
Aung San Suu Kyi has called for international economic sanctions against
SLORC. Earlier this year, President Clinton signed a bill into law
authorizing U.S. sanctions against the regime, but has yet to implement
any specific measures.