HUMAN RIGHTS-BURMA: Unocal Sued Second Time over Burma Project

By Pratap Chatterjee Reprint | | Print |

Pratap Chatterjee

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 5 1996 (IPS) - Fifteen Burmese citizens have filed a lawsuit against Unocal for human rights abuses stemming from a natural gas pipeline joint venture involving the California-based oil company and Burma’s military government.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday, is the second time Unocal has been forced into court to defend its operations in Burma in the past month.

In early September, the exiled National Government of the Union of Burma (NGUB) filed suit in a federal court in Los Angeles, charging the company with “vicarious liability” for abuses committed during the construction of a railroad that will supply materials for building the pipeline.

The new lawsuit has two parts: one based on California contract law, and the other on the Alien Tort Claims Act, an early 19th century statute that has been used successfully in recent years against foreign individuals accused of murder, torture and other serious human rights abuses committed abroad. It says that, in using the Burmese army for security, Unocal became responsible for its abuses against the local population.

The two lawsuits have been filed in the same court by different lawyers on behalf of different plaintiffs.

The new lawsuit was brought by 15 anonymous victims who were allegedly raped, assaulted, pressed into labour, or forcibly relocated, or whose family members were allegedly killed, by the army. All the plaintiffs are ethnic Karens, a minority group who live near the Thai border.

They were joined by Louisa Benson, a representative of the Karen National Union, who now lives in California. The Karen National Union is currently fighting against Burma’s military government, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), despite losing its main headquarters in Manerplaw to the regime’s army in 1995.

Unlike the earlier lawsuit, which was filed only against Unocal, the new complaint includes John Imle and Roger Beach, two of Unocal’s top executives, as well as Total, a French oil company, the SLORC, and the SLORC-controlled petroleum company, Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE), as defendants.

Unocal, Total and MOGE are working together to build a 1.2- billion-dollar 63-km pipeline that will deliver natural gas from the Yandana gas field in the Andaman Sea to an electric power plant in Thailand.

The pipeline will snake across mangrove swamps, then up the Tavoy River valley and down the Zinba River valley before climbing the final 20 kms through densely forested mountains along the Thai border.

Plaintiffs in both lawsuits say that the Burmese army has rounded up villagers to build the railway, roads, airports, and other facilities. No official figures exist, but some observers estimate that 500,000 people have provided unpaid, forced labour on any given day.

That’s not all. “People in the region where that gas pipeline will be constructed have been relocated to areas where they have no means of earning a living. Villages that have existed for decades have been burned and destroyed,” NGUB leader Sein Win told IPS.

Unocal rejects the charges. A statement issued Thursday from Unocal’s Singapore office says: “Everyone who works on the Yadana natural gas project has come to us for employment — every worker on the project has asked for the job. All workers are paid an above average salary. No village in the region of the pipeline has been moved.”

But at a press conference Thursday in Los Angeles, lawyers described how a SLORC officer kicked one of the plaintiffs — a woman, who was nursing her baby — into a fire. The baby allegedly died after SLORC soldiers prevented the mother from getting medical assistance.

Jennie Green, staff attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights which is representing the Karen, says that Unocal and total “entered into an unholy alliance with a military regime whose brutal human rights record is internationally notorious.”

“We want Unocal to withdraw from Burma. We thought the company did not know about the human rights record of SLORC, but it has become evident that they are well aware of it,” Benson told IPS. She contends that the company has broken California’s contract laws.

“California law is very clear that you cannot enter into a contract with someone who is going to commit wrongful acts if you know or should have known about these acts,” says Cristobal Bonifaz, a Boston-based lawyer, who filed the NGUB lawsuit.

Bonifaz recently convinced New York judges to accept a similar lawsuit filed against Texaco for environmental damages allegedly caused by that company’s exploration operations in the Ecuadoran Amazon.

“Companies like Unocal have to understand that they do not live in the ‘Wild West’ or, for that matter, in the ‘Wild Third World’,” she said. “They have to be accountable somewhere and that should be in the courts of their home country.”

Unocal has described both lawsuits as “false, irresponsible and frivolous.”

“We believe that the (NGUB) lawsuit is motivated solely by political considerations,” said David Garcia, a company spokesman.

Garcia sent IPS documents from the Yadana project which describe how Unocal has funded new health care projects in the region, new roads, bridges, and water storage tanks, the creation of goat, pig, poultry and shrimp farms, and the introduction of new livestock varieties to local villages and farms.

In the meantime, SLORC is facing increased international political challenges. On Thursday president Bill Clinton signed an order that would effectively ban many SLORC officials and their families and supporters from entering the United States.

Unocal also faces a growing consumer boycott here.

“We’re telling people to stay away from Unocal as well as other companies that do business in Burma — Texaco and Total of France,” said Pam Wellner of the Free Burma Campaign.

Church groups which hold Unocal stock are preparing resolutions calling for the company’s withdrawal from Burma at its next annual meeting, and the state of Massachusetts and several cities, including San Francisco, Ann Arbor, Berkeley, Madison, and Santa Monica, have banned new contracts with the company until it abandons the project.