[Buddha-l] Development in Arakan, Burma and by formerly Buddhist countries China and Korea

[jkirk]

Subject: Human Rights Impact of Gas Development in Burma


Dear ERI Supporters:


In a March 19
<http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1886304,00.html
> Time Magazine feature-length article, “The Scramble for a Piece
of Burma,” Hannah Beech reports on the impacts of oil and gas
development in the ethnic territories of military-ruled Burma.
The exposé focuses in part on Arakan State in western Burma,
where a consortium led by South Korea’s Daewoo International, in
partnership with the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC)
and the Burmese regime, are developing the Shwe Gas Project,
Burma’s largest ever natural resource extraction project,
intended to transport gas to China via an overland pipeline. The
article notes how the planned Shwe gas pipeline to China “will
likely result in extensive village relocations” and how
dissidents in ethnic Arakan State are currently being rounded up
by the authorities and disappeared. 


Well, hey! Buddhists are only human, right?
Joanna
============== 
 
 ERI [Earth Rights International, an NGO]  and the Shwe Gas
Movement (SGM) – a local ethnic Arakan opposition to the Shwe
project – documented these and other current and potential
impacts of the Shwe Project in a
<http://www.earthrights.org/files/Burma%20Project/Shwe/OECDCompla
int10.29-ENGLISH.pdf> 2008 OECD complaint to the Korean
Government. The complaint focused on violations of international
law and breaches of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational
Enterprises by South Korea’s Daewoo International and the Korea
Gas Corporation (KOGAS), through their involvement in the Shwe
project. Filed in Seoul at the office of the Korean OECD National
Contact Point (NCP) on October 28, 2008, the complaint was
rejected on Nov. 27, 2008,  with the Korean government claiming
that it “finds it hard to assume that the involved corporations
breached the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises
[and]
does not see a necessity to initiate an additional investigation
or an arbitration.” 


The Korean government has the largest, controlling stake in KOGAS
and has provided Daewoo International with sizable loans to
proceed with the Shwe project. The Shwe gas is estimated to be
worth upwards of 40 billion US dollars, according to the Shwe Gas
Movement. Time Magazine quotes ERI co-founder and Executive
Director Ka Hsaw Wa, who commented, "Multinationals are getting
rich off Burma, and so is the military regime
It is the local
people who are suffering and dying."


ERI is working to stop the Shwe project until it can proceed
without adverse human rights and environmental impacts, and is
working to strengthen corporate accountability worldwide.
According to Time Magazine, “In the end, it may be the foreign
participants in this new Great Game, unschooled in how to
navigate ethnic complexities, who will get bitten.”


 
<http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1886304,00.html
> Time Magazine Reports on Human Rights Impacts of Gas
Development in Burma 
For more information on the Shwe Project, see also The Shwe Gas
Movement at  <http://www.shwe.org/> www.shwe.org