Burma

Abuses Rampant Along Gas Pipeline: Rights Group

By MIN LWIN Thursday, May 7, 2009

COMMENTS (3)

TEXT SIZE

A gas pipeline in southern Burma is the scene of widespread rights violations, including forced labor and land confiscation, according to a new report released by the Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM).

The 104-page report, titled “Laid Waste: Human Rights along the Kanbauk to Myaing Kalay gas pipeline,” accuses Burma’s military government of committing “systemic, shocking and ongoing” abuses along the 186-mile (300 km) pipeline.

“The Burmese government’s Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise [MOGE] operates the Kanbauk to Myaing Kalay gas pipeline project, so the government bears responsibility for these human rights violations,” said Aue Mon from HURFOM, speaking to The Irrawaddy on Thursday.

The report details widespread human rights violations ranging from the daily commandeering of motorcycles and chickens to rape and summary executions. It also says that more than 15,000 acres of land have been confiscated to make room for the pipeline and to support 30 army battalions tasked with protecting it since construction began in 2000.

“They have already confiscated many acres of land. My land and plantations cost about 4 million kyat [US $4,000],” said one villager quoted in the report. “They took it without paying me one kyat.”

The report also details the rampant use of forced labor in the area along the pipeline. It says that local people, including children as young as 12, are routinely forced to do maintenance work on the pipeline, and to guard it and carry equipment for soldiers, at all times under threat of violent retribution for accidents or insurgent attacks.

“In one month, I was forced three to four times to be a porter… It was difficult, and we were beaten all the time,” said Nai Lot, 65, from the village of Mihtawhlagyi in Ye Township.

The abuses are “the predictable result of deploying large numbers of soldiers and encouraging them to extract what they can from the countryside, without oversight,” according the report.

“But abuses along the pipeline are also a deliberate, calculated part of the pipeline security effort,” it adds.

“There should be no question: projects like the Kanbauk to Myaing Kalay gas pipeline do not benefit the people of our country,” said Kasauh Mon, the director of HURFOM.

The Kanbauk-Myaing Kalay pipeline begins at the Total Pipeline Center near the town of Kanbauk in Yebyu Township, Tenasserim Division, and passes through five townships in Mon State and Tenasserim Division, ending in Myaing Kalay in Karen State, where the gas is used in government cement factories.

Burma’s pipelines have long been controversial, with rights groups claiming that they are built on land taken from local people, often using their unpaid labor. They also attract a heavy military presence, resulting in further abuses, rights groups say.

The British company Premier Oil, which signed a contract with MOGE in 1990 to extract gas from the Yetagun gas fields in the Andaman Sea, and the French oil giant Total, which signed an agreement to harvest gas from the Yadana gas fields in 1992, have both accused of complicity in the Burmese regime’s routine rights violations.

COMMENTS (3)

Moe Aung Wrote:

09/05/2009

Here's Western capital in action for those who are convinced that sanctions must be lifted for the benefit of the people, and those who buy into the dictum that it's better to be exploited than not to be exploited. Expect more of the same benefiting the junta, its coffers brimming over, its stranglehold on the economy tighter, its army stronger, its grip on power firmer, and its repression on the populace harsher than ever.

Sanctions are just a convenient scapegoat for the hardship and misery inflicted on the peoples of Burma by the junta's policies and actions. Removing the sanctions completely would be like removing the muzzle from its snout, all the better to devour or maim.

nono Wrote:

08/05/2009

I am very tired of hearing that human rights violations, forced labor, land confiscation and killing are normal in Burma since 1948. Rich people become richer, poor people become poorer, powerful people become more powerful. Good people go to hell and bad people go to heaven. The ethnic majority becomes bigger and minority groups become smaller and even lost. That is Burma!

Myo Chit Wrote:

07/05/2009

This is lesson for China's pipeline plan.

The Yetagun gas pipeline has been supplying the gas needs of Thailand's industries for years now. It is a much shorter route over relatively flat land to the Thai-Burma border, compared to the 1,800-mile long gas+oil pipelines that will run a long way across Burma to China. This is to be constructed by a Chinese company, guarded by the Burmese army, and probably serviced by the forced labor. A pipeline passing through jungle terrains, forests, and populated agricultural lands of Central Burma could create many more problems - ecological, environmental and social, in addition to the usual hazards of toxic and flammable chemicals in the pipes.

If the Grand Gas Plan is to be running smooth, operating successfully, and profitably, China really needs a peaceful Burma, never mind whoever or whatever the government is. The Chinese leadership knows the answer to it, for its own benefit, and better still for mutual benefits.