Amy Goodman: Chevron’s Pipeline is the Burmese Regime’s Lifeline

Chevron’s Pipeline is the Burmese Regime’s Lifeline

Posted on Oct 2, 2007

By Amy Goodman

The image was stunning: tens of thousands of saffron-robed Buddhist monks marching through the streets of Rangoon, protesting the military dictatorship of Burma. The monks marched in front of the home of Nobel Peace Prize-winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who was seen weeping and praying quietly as they passed. She hadn’t been seen for years. The democratically elected leader of Burma, Suu Kyi has been under house arrest since 2003. She is considered the Nelson Mandela of Burma, the Southeast Asian nation renamed Myanmar by the regime.

After almost two weeks of protest, the monks have disappeared. The monasteries have been emptied. One report says thousands of monks are imprisoned in the north of the country.

No one believes that this is the end of the protests, dubbed “The Saffron Revolution.” Nor do they believe the official body count of 10 dead. The trickle of video, photos and oral accounts of the violence that leaked out on Burma’s cellular phone and Internet lines has been largely stifled by government censorship. Still, gruesome images of murdered monks and other activists and accounts of executions make it out to the global public. At the time of this writing, several unconfirmed accounts of prisoners being burned alive have been posted to Burma-solidarity Web sites.

The Bush administration is making headlines with its strong language against the Burmese regime. President Bush declared increased sanctions in his U.N. General Assembly speech. First lady Laura Bush has come out with perhaps the strongest statements. Explaining that she has a cousin who is a Burma activist, Laura Bush said, “The deplorable acts of violence being perpetrated against Buddhist monks and peaceful Burmese demonstrators shame the military regime.”

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, at the meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, said, “The United States is determined to keep an international focus on the travesty that is taking place.” Keeping an international focus is essential, but should not distract from one of the most powerful supporters of the junta, one that is much closer to home. Rice knows it well: Chevron.

Fueling the military junta that has ruled for decades are Burma’s natural-gas reserves, controlled by the Burmese regime in partnership with the U.S. multinational oil giant Chevron, the French oil company Total and a Thai oil firm. Offshore natural-gas facilities deliver their extracted gas to Thailand through Burma’s Yadana pipeline. The pipeline was built with slave labor, forced into servitude by the Burmese military.

more...

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20071002_chevrons_pipeline_is_the_burmese_regimes_lifeline/

This is very interesting and very disturbing. Human beings are in a fight for our lives now, as our humanity is being marginalized in the wake of the race for profits by big business. Our health, our livelihood, even our sanity is at stake now.

This story about Burma has troubled me as much as any hideous story that has happened over the past half decade or so. It's so incredibly shameful.

I've read similar stuff in the past and was looking for a new take on it.
will forward widely

Just need a little refresher on why starving the corporations that feed dictators is a dumb idea...

If anyone takes the time to allow the protesters themselves a voice, you will find that they are not protesting some political ideology - they are protesting hunger and deprivation. The immediate cause of the protests was the reduction of fuel subsidies, which simply raised the price of gasoline across the country. One would hardly expect this to cause marches of protesting monks...but widespread poverty easily becomes widespread hunger when one more social support is removed. I repeat: the protests are against the hunger and deprivation of the people, against the only party they have the means to protest - the government.
Look at this hunger and deprivation, however, and you will find our own hand. Burma has been under international sanctions for twenty years. The theory of such International sanctions are that by reducing the citizenry to poverty will result in this impoverished citizenry to rising up to overthrow its government. "The deplorable acts of violence" are entirely by our design and expected. "The Saffron Revolution" is a media nickname that no one involved would recognize or condone.
So what to expect if we boycott Chevron, end their business in Burma, further isolate and impoverish a country already intentionally impoverished? What a good idea! Maybe that extra boot in the face is just what is needed to get the poor monks and farmers and slave laborers to charge the bayonets and machine guns of the junta!

So why don't we liberate the people of Burma the way we've liberated the people of Iraq? Maybe because we already have the oil and gas?