Shortly ahead of the beginning of construction of gas and oil pipelines from the Bay of Bengal to southwest China, a prominent rights group has called on corporations and governments involved in the project to suspend their activities.
The Shwe Gas Movement, an oil and gas watchdog based in Thailand, on Monday released a report titled “Corridor of Power” in which it claimed to expose how China is “plunging ahead with construction of nearly 4,000 kilometers [6,400 miles] of dual oil and gas pipelines across the heartland of Burma despite financial and political risks from social unrest,” as well as “impending human rights abuses and environmental destruction.”
The group said the pipelines will pass through cozens of villages in Burma, causing forced relocations, environment damage and human rights abuses.
“We are very worried about the human rights abuses that will happen along the route of the pipelines, because this is what happened in the past,” said Wong Aung, a spokesman for the Shwe Gas Movement. “During the construction of the Yadana gas pipeline in Mon State, there was a broad range of human right abuses.”
According to Wong Aung, there are 44 military battalions based along the pipeline route from Kyaukpyu Port in Arakan State to northeastern Shan State.
“We want China to stop this project because the pipeline will destroy the environment, the Burmese troops will confiscate people’s land and it will result in forced relocations and human rights abuses along the route of the pipeline,” he said.
The proposed route for the oil and gas pipelines will pass through Kunming in Yunnan Province and continue through Guizhou Province to Chongqing municipality in southwest China.
The project will include construction of railways, roads and waterways, as well as upgrading the port at Kyaukpyu.
Beijing has also secured a 30-year deal with the Burmese military government for natural gas tapped off the Burmese coast.
Monday’s report said that the project will provide the military junta a minimum of US $29 billion over 30 years. Meanwhile, China is reported to have set up oil refineries in Chongqing in Sichuan Province to process crude oil from the Sino-Burmese pipeline.
“People across Burma are facing severe energy shortages. These resources belong to our people and should be used for the energy needs of our country,” said Wong Aung.
Observers say that China intends to use the pipeline to avoid shipping oil through the Malacca Strait, which is slow and expensive, and tankers are prone to attacks by pirates.
China currently imports 85 percent of its oil from the Middle East and Africa.
Several analysts said they believed that the recent attacks by Burmese government forces against ethnic Kokang troops was a clear attempt to clear the area for the pipeline project. The fighting in the region forced an estimated 37,000 refugees across the Sino-Burmese border.
Last week, China warned the Burmese military leaders to solve the ethnic conflict on the border peacefully.
The Shan Sapawa Environmental Organization and the Salween Watch rights group have claimed that the Burmese government forces wanted to dispose the Kokang army from its stronghold in order to secure a 2,400-megawatt capacity hydroelectric dam project at Kunlong in northeastern Shan State.
Burma’s abundant offshore oil and natural gas reserves have attracted a great deal of interest from foreign investors. The country is estimated to have 3.2 billion barrels of recoverable crude oil.
The oil and gas sector receives the second-largest share of foreign investment in Burma, after hydropower projects.
irrawaddy
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