Peace and Environment News* July-August 2005
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Peace and Environment News * July-August 2005 |
from Inter Pares
Burma is a land of striking contrasts—teak forests, mountain landscapes, fertile paddy fields, verdant valleys. The country is richly endowed with natural resources and a diversity of different peoples with different languages and histories.
Despite this natural bounty, the majority of the people of Burma are impoverished. The country's natural resources have been exploited by the military dictatorship. Not only has this wealth been looted for the personal gain of military officers, it has been used to equip one of the largest standing armies in Asia. The military junta's grip on power is further strengthened through partnerships with foreign corporations, including Canadian, which provide expertise and technology to develop resources which are then exported to neighbouring countries.
Ordinary citizens do not share in the benefits of these natural resources. Many areas in Burma, particularly in the border states, lack health and education infrastructure. Much of the industrial development in Burma is directly accompanied by an increase in militarization, forced displacement and human rights violations. An estimated 40 per cent of Burma's GDP is spent on the armed forces, while 0.4 per cent and 0.5 per cent are spent on health and education respectively.
In recent years, massive natural gas deposits have been discovered along Burma's western coastline. Potentially the largest natural gas reserves in Southeast Asia, these deposits could earn the junta up to $US 3 billion annually. A plan to extract these gas reserves is being developed through the Shwe Gas Development project, with corporate partners from India and South Korea. The main buyer of the gas will be India. Potential pipeline routes to India cut through western Burma's Chin and Arakan states, Bangladesh, and the highly militarized northeast region of India.
Communities that will be affected by the construction are strongly opposed to the pipeline. Local people on whose land the pipeline will be built have never been consulted. With no elected representatives, there is no public accountability for decision-making. Beyond extolling its virtues, Burma's heavily censored media has never provided basic information on the project and there have been no social or environmental impact assessments. In a context where dissent with government policy is met with harsh repression, opponents of the project express opposition at their peril.
Many people fear that the experience of an earlier gas pipeline project to Thailand will be repeated. The construction of that pipeline was accompanied by the forced relocation of villages, forced labour, rape and summary executions committed by Burmese troops. Recently, one of the pipeline's US corporate partners, Unocal, settled out of court in a case brought in the US by Burmese villagers seeking damages for the abuses they suffered.
The Arakan region is highly militarized with an estimated 25,000 Burmese troops stationed throughout the state. Fears of repression are well grounded. The region is also desperately poor and local people expect to gain few benefits from the gas reserves. Much of western Burma lacks an electricity grid, and the gas will be exported rather than used to provide energy resources in Burma.
Refugee and displaced people's organizations living on the western borders of Burma have organized to form the Shwe Gas Pipeline Campaign Committee. The committee is collecting information about the project and disseminating it inside Arakan State as well as in India and Bangladesh. The committee is developing alliances with Indian, Bangladeshi and South Korean human rights, student and environmental activists and is campaigning to put a stop to the project.
Inter Pares is supporting the committee in its work to promote the development of the Shwe Gas project in a manner that benefits the Burmese people. Ultimately, the people of Burma will have the power to ensure this only when an elected and democratic government replaces the current military regime.
(Reprinted from Inter Pares Bulletin, June 2005.)
Converted July 31, 2005 - Lg
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