Join our mailing list for latest news and information about Burma.
Campaigners Around the World Call to Postpone Destructive Chinese Pipelines in Burma
By Shwe Gas Movement • March 1, 2012130 organizations over 20 countries today held demonstrations and submitted letters calling on Burma’s President Thein Sein to postpone China’s trans-Burma oil and gas pipelines project. The letter expressed serious concerns over human rights abuses as well as social, economic and environmental impacts of the Burmese, Chinese, Korean, and Indian company-led project.
The Shwe Gas Project and trans-Burma oil and gas pipelines are currently under construction, originating off Burma’s western coast and terminating in China’s Yunnan Province, and set to come online in 2013. The project will become the country’s largest source of foreign revenue generating US $29 billion over 30 years.
The open letter to Thein Sein strongly condemns the confiscation of the thousands of acres of farm lands for the project, and the military offensives against ethnic armies in the pipeline corridor in Northern Shan State. The letter references the previous suspension of the Myitsone Dam and Dawei coal-fired plant and “call[s] for a consistent policy of social and environmental accountability, and an immediate postponement of the project”.
The Shwe Gas will be exported to China while around 75% of the population is not receiving electricity from the national grid. “Resentment to these pipelines is growing day by day, Thein Sein should listen to the will of the people” said Wong Aung.
Revenues from oil and gas are not managed transparently in Burma. “Under the current unaccountable structure, gas monies from the project will only feed corruption and not benefit the people” said Wong Aung of the Shwe Gas Movement.
The Shwe Gas Movement advocates for community members’ rights and an equitable benefit sharing system under a framework of sustainable development.
Download the Press Release in Burmese and Thai
Download the Open Letter in English, Burmese and Thai
Contact:
Wong Aung: + 66(0)857133344 [email protected] (English and Burmese)
Phyo Phyo, +66 (0)853283947 [email protected] (Burmese)
This post is in: Business and Human Rights, Environmental and Economic Justice, Press Release
Related PostsNew Report Exposes the Continued Ineffectiveness of the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission
ဝ ျပည္ေသြးစည္းညီညႊတ္ေရးပါတီ ႏွင့္ ကရင္အမ်ဳိးသားအစည္းအရံုး ပူးတြဲေၾကညာခ်က္
ASEAN Peoples’ Forum 2014 Representatives Meet with ASEAN Affairs Department of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Myanmar to Prepare for an Interface Meeting with ASEAN Leaders
ထားဝယ္ေတာင္သူလယ္သမားမ်ား ဆႏၵထုတ္ေဖာ္ျခင္းအေပၚ သေဘာထားထုတ္ျပန္ခ်က္
Statement on Child Soldier
All posts