May 19 - UNOCAL SHAREHOLDER MEETING DEMONSTRATION

"UNOCAL OUT OF BURMA"

WHO: Shareholders, Free Burma supporters, Free Burma groups, women’s rights groups, labor rights groups and human rights groups protest at UNOCAL annual shareholder meeting.

WHAT:
Free Burma, women’s rights and human rights groups will protest outside of California-based UNOCAL’s annual shareholders meeting while concerned shareholders confront UNOCAL board members and officers inside about the company’s business partnership with 
Burma’s brutal and repressive military regime. The junta which rules Burma has been condemned for its human rights violations by the U.S. Congress, U.S. State Department, AFL-CIO, European Union, United Nations, and Amnesty International. The UN’s International Labor Organization, after years of investigation, has called for multilateral sanctions due to the pervasive use of forced labor throughout Burma. The military maintains its stranglehold on Burma’s people with weapons bought with foreign currency gained in partnerships with foreign oil companies. Unocal is one of the last American companies still doing business with Burma’s military regime.

WHEN:
7:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Monday, May 19, 2003
WHERE:
376 Valencia Ave. in Brea (near Los Angeles), CA @ the corner of Imperial Hwy. and Valencia Ave.


JOIN US: We will provide transportation and stay for 1-1/2 days demonstration trip from San Francisco Bay Area to Brea (near Los Angeles; 750+ miles round trip). We will be leaving SF Bay Area on May 18th at 1 p.m., and arriving back on May 19th at 8 p.m. You would need a sleeping bag and some extra cloth -- last year, it rained heavily there. Contact: 415 892 0871 or info@badasf.org

SUPPORT US: If you like to make donation in support of this demonstration trip, you can send checks to us (Payable to "BADA"; Address: "56 Mayfield Avenue, Daly City, CA 94015"). With you valuable support, we will be able to bring more activists to the demonstration. The Burmese American Democratic Alliance (BADA) has public charity, nontaxable, 501(c) (3) status in the United States. We are a non-endowed organization and rely on the annual support of many generous individuals like you.

BACKGROUND: 

1. UNOCAL, A NEW BREED OF ENERGY COMPANY
2. THE DEADLY DEAL
3. THE PIPELINE KILLING FIELD
4. ENVIRONMENTAL RUIN
5. ECONOMIC MELT-DOWN
6. BURMA’S STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRACY
7. A NARCO-REGIME

UNOCAL, A NEW BREED OF ENERGY COMPANY 

Unocal, a California oil corporation, is involved in a joint-venture with Burma’s brutal and repressive military regime. The junta which rules Burma has been condemned for its human rights violations by the U.S. Congress, U.S. State Department, AFL-CIO, European Union, United Nations, and Amnesty International. The UN’s International Labor Organization, after years of investigation, has called for multilateral sanctions due to the pervasive use of forced labor throughout Burma. The military maintains its stranglehold on Burma’s people with weapons bought with foreign currency gained in partnerships with foreign oil companies. Unocal is one of the last American companies still doing business with Burma’s military regime.

THE DEADLY DEAL 


In February 1995 Unocal signed a contract with the junta to extract and transport natural gas using a pipeline from the Yadana Field located off Burma's coast. The pipeline goes from the undersea gas field across southern Burma and into neighboring Thailand. Unocal is a 28.26 % shareholder in this project.

Its project partners are TotalFinaElf of France with 31.24 %, the Petroleum Authority of Thailand (PTT) with 25.5 %, and the Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) with 15 %. MOGE is the energy ministry of the regime. Unocal's initial payments to the junta to gain the concession were roughly $20 million.

THE PIPELINE KILLING FIELD 

Of the gas pipeline’s 218 miles, 41 miles cuts across southern Burma's Tenasserim region to Thailand. The pipeline area is the homeland of the Karen, Mon and Tavoyan peoples. These ethnic minorities have been under attack by the junta’s troops which are seeking to suppress rebellion and use civilians for forced labor on army projects.

To completely control the pipeline region, thousands of people have been forcibly relocated and their homes and farms destroyed by the junta’s troops. Imprisoned in new settlements, these villagers have been forced to work without pay constructing roads, railways, and military bases, and clearing forest along the pipeline route. Many of them have been tortured, raped and murdered by the troops providing security for the pipeline. Unocal executives have been callous when confronted with accounts of this human rights abuse. "If you threaten the pipeline, there's gonna be more military. If forced labor goes hand in glove with military, yes, there will be more forced labor. For every threat to the pipeline there will be a reaction," commented Unocal’s former President John Imle.

A lawsuit against Unocal on behalf of victims of its Burma pipeline scheme, continues in a US Federal Court in California. Extensive testimony from victims and witnesses about abuses related to the pipeline form the basis of the suit. "The allegations of forced labor in this case are sufficient to constitute an allegation of participation in slave trading," stated Federal Judge Richard Paez, the first judge to preside over the case. Later, in a summary judgment,

Federal Judge Ronald Lew found that the evidence suggests that Unocal knew that forced labor was being used and that (Unocal) benefited from the practice.

Unocal and Total boast that their project brings gainful employment, education and health care to Burma’s people. They claim that they provide agricultural assistance and fair wages in the pipeline region. However, thousands of refugees continue to flee the pipeline area. The oil company development projects have been accused of doing little to help people in reality, and there are reports of their payments to civilians being confiscated by the military. Ka Hsaw Wa, Goldman Award winning director of EarthRights International, which has conducted extensive investigations in the pipeline area, comments that villagers there say that these projects are like when the man throws leftover bones at the dog.

ENVIRONMENTAL RUIN 


In Burma the gas pipeline cuts through precious ecosystems including dense tropical forest, disrupting the habitat of rare animals such as tigers, rhinoceros and elephants. It has destroyed wetland areas and demolished a wide swath of forest. Logging companies and poachers (including Burmese soldiers hunting elephants) are now able to enter the militarily secured area. A wildlife sanctuary established years ago by ethnic Karens is suffering clear-cutting.

On the Thai side of the border, the pipeline cuts through a rainforest region, defying the protests of Thai environmentalists who objected to its encroachment on protected forests and its harm to some of the last herds of wild Asian elephants. Unocal’s unwillingness to rein in its partners is part of a pattern of irresponsibility, commented Bhinand Jotirosaranee, one of the Thai protest leaders, "They are accountable for this environmental destruction, and are showing disrespect to local people who have cherished elephants for centuries."

ECONOMIC MELT-DOWN 

With a severe economic crisis in Asia decreasing Thailand’s ability to fund large infrastructure projects, the actual need for the pipeline project has come into question. Thailand’s PTT was unable to get the pipeline operating on schedule, and the electric utility company that was supposed to receive the gas has been late in completing its generating plant. It now appears that the gas from Burma is more expensive than, and probably of an inferior quality to, gas from Thailand’s own Gulf of Siam, yet Thai consumers will still be forced to pay for the gas from Burma. In addition, Thailand’s energy needs have decreased due to the slowdown in the nation’s economy. But Unocal has persisted in promoting the pipeline project, and is actively involved in efforts to enhance the image of Burma’s regime while fighting off economic sanctions against the regime.

BURMA’S STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRACY 

Burma’s military bloodily suppressed a popular uprising for democracy in 1988, killing thousands of unarmed demonstrators. In 1990 elections, the people of Burma overwhelmingly voted for the National League for Democracy, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, who in 1991 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. But her party was never allowed to take office, and a junta of generals continues to keep a tight grip on the country. Weapons for the army have been procured with hard currency earned from deals with the multinational oil companies. In addition to providing foreign exchange to the junta, the petroleum deals have given it an incentive to cling to power indefinitely, in hopes of raking in billions of dollars in profits from the sale of gas through the pipeline.

All investment in Burma has been controversial, with the oil company ventures particularly so. "These people are hurrying in to make cozy business deals while pretending that nothing is wrong," Aung San Suu Kyi told The Times Magazine, "They need to be reminded that this is one of the most brutal military regimes in the world and putting money into the country now is simply supporting a system that is severely harmful to the people of Burma." A grassroots movement for corporate withdrawal from Burma, based on South Africa’s anti-apartheid campaigns, has resulted in widespread consumer boycotts, and local selective purchasing laws in over 21 cities. The United States government issued a ban on new American investment in Burma in 1997. Companies which have withdrawn from Burma following public criticism include the oil firms Petro-Canada, Amoco, Texaco, ARCO, and Baker Hughes, as well as Motorola, Apple Computers, Pepsi, and Levi-Strauss.

A NARCO-REGIME 

Unocal’s Burmese government partner, MOGE, has been accused of being a primary money-launderer for the country’s massive heroin trade. Unocal has rejected calls for an investigation of its link to Burma’s drug trade. "It’ s the oil companies who prop up this corrupt narco-regime with lucrative payments and turn a blind eye to widespread heroin trafficking" said Robert E. Wages, President of the 85,000 member Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers trade union.

Unocal’s partnership with the brutal junta of Burma is not its only ugly aspect. Unocal has been involved in some of the worst oil spills and leaks in California history, and in a polluting gas plant on Lubicon Cree land in Canada. Unocal’s cultivation of ties with the Taliban militia of Afghanistan, to promote a gas pipeline through that war-torn country, came under criticism from groups objecting to the Taliban’s gender apartheid abuse of women, support of international terrorism, and involvement in the heroin trade. Unocal project sites in India and Indonesia have been marked by fatal violence against indigenous protesters by security forces in recent years.

In 1998, a petition was submitted to the Attorney General of California by organizations and individuals calling for the revocation of Unocal’s corporate charter, due to the company’s environmental devastation, complicity in crimes against humanity in Burma and elsewhere, and other forms of corporate misconduct. Called a company without a country by Business Week, Unocal has become notorious. Unocal severely downsized its US operations in 1997, selling its refineries and gas stations to another company, Tosco. It should be noted that the Union 76 gas stations are no longer owned by Unocal, so they are not subject to any boycott regarding Burma. After years of weak share prices and selling off assets, Unocal CEO Roger Beach, the high profile defender of the Burma pipeline project, was replaced in December 2000 by Charles Williamson, a longtime Unocal executive.

Other petroleum companies still in Burma include a parallel pipeline group of Premier (UK), Nippon (Japan) and Petronas (Malaysia); as well as Halliburton, a Texas oil services company which Vice President Dick Cheney served as the CEO of until recently. Cheney has been a partner with Unocal in the lobbying groups USA Engage and National Foreign Trade Council which promote continued trade with Burma’s regime.

In support of Burma's democracy movement, we call on Unocal to completely withdraw from Burma. All corporations should cease operations in Burma until genuine democracy is in place.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

* Write to the new CEO of Unocal. Tell the company to withdraw from Burma! Send letters to:
Mr. Charles Williamson, CEO Unocal Corporation 2141 Rosecrans Blvd., Suite 4000 El Segundo, CA 90245

* Get more information on Burma’s pipelines, including the detailed report Total Denial II from EarthRights International: http://www.earthrights.org * Ask your school or investment group to divest any Unocal stock they own. *More information about additional ways you can become involved in the Unocal Campaign. Tel (415) 503-0888 E-mail: campaign@badasf.org