Human Cost Of Energy

The Human Cost of Energy:

Chevron’s Continuing Role in Financing Oppression and Profting From Human Rights Abuses in Military-Ruled Burma (Myanmar)

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EarthRights International combines the power of lawand the power of people in defense of human rightsand the environment

Introduction 7Executive Summary and Recommendations 91 Stepping Into Unocal’s Shoes 15

Chevron’s partnership with a repressive regime in the Yadana Project

2 Financing Oppression19

The Yadana Project’s continuing contributions to the military regime

3 With Eyes Wide Open25

Chevron’s knowledge of the abuses on the Yadana Project

4 The Persistence o Abuse 29

Continuation of forced labor and other abuses in recent years

5 No Smiling Faces 41

Conditions of life in the region

6 Sitting Idly By 49

Chevron’s silence during the 2007 demonstrations and crackdown

7 No Sae Harbor53

Chevron’s continuing legal liability after the Unocal settlement

Appendix A: Another Yadana: The Shwe Gas Project 57Appendix B: China in Burma59Endnotes61

Table of ConTenTs

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• The Human Cost of Energy EarthRights International

•

5

Research and Writing Team

•

EarthRights International BurmaProject Field Sta

•

Naing Htoo

•

Chana Maung

•

Marco Simons

•

Matthew F Smith

•

Khun Ko Wein

About EarthRights International

EarthRights International (ERI) is a nongovernmental, nonprot organiza- tion that combines the power o law and the power o people in deense o humanrights and the environment, which wedene as “earth rights.” We specialize inact-nding, legal actions against perpe- trators o earth rights abuses, training grassroots and community leaders, andadvocacy campaigns. Through thesestrategies, ERI seeks to end earth rightsabuses, to provide real solutions or realpeople, and to promote and protect hu-man rights and the environment in thecommunities where we work.

Acknowledgments

EarthRights International would like to thank the generous individual andinstitutional supporters who make theactivities o the Burma Project, includ-ing this report, possible, especially theGeneral Service Foundation, the ParkFoundation, Courtney’s Foundation,Foundation Open Society Institute, andseveral supporters who wish to remainanonymous. We would also like to KatieRedord, Rick Herz, Maggie Schuppert,Paul Donowitz, and Anisha Gade, or their assistance in editing and prepar-ing this report; Sean Turnell, Voravit Suwanvanichkij, Adam Richards, andCatherine Lee or their input; as well asERI’s board members or their support and direction.We could not do our work without the partnership and strategiccollaboration o civil society organiza- tions working all over the world, andespecially on the Thai-Burma border, or human rights and environmental protec- tion in Burma. Thankully, there are toomany o these dedicated groups andindividuals to name here—you know who you are and we are grateul or your ongoing advice, riendship and support.Most importantly, we would like to ac-knowledge the people o Burma, whosesuering is chronicled in this report and whose constant resilience in the aceo oppression is an inspiration. Many individuals rom the pipeline region o Burma took great risks to oer their testimony and provide interviews, or noreward to themselves other than partici-pating in the truth-telling process. Their names have been kept condential or their own saety, but we hope that, in time, they will be among those credited with restoring respect or human rightsand the environment in Burma.

Methodology

EarthRights International began col-lecting on-the-ground inormation about human rights abuses connected to the Yadana gas project in 1994, includ-ing witness and victim testimony inBurma and on the Thai-Burma border. This report draws on original eld data collected by ERI between 2003-2008in Burma and along the Thai-Burma border, as well as desk research. ERIinterviewed residents and recent reu-gees rom the pipeline region, as well asdeected soldiers. This documentationincluded over 70 ormal interviews as well as a number o inormal contactsin order to corroborate inormation. The testimonies represent ourteen villagesin the area o the Yadana pipeline, in-cluding ve o the 25 villages that the Yadana consortium recognizes as “pipe-line villages”: Michaunglaung, Zinba,Eindayaza, Kanbauk, and Kaleinaung.ERI’s research indicates that humanrights abuses perpetrated by pipelinesecurity battalions extend beyond the25 recognized “pipeline villages,” and thereore this report also draws oninterviews with residents and recent reugees rom nine other nearby villages where human rights abuses are perpetrated by pipeline security battalions:Law Ther, Kawlaing, Mayanchaung, Ya Pu, Ahlersekan, Chaungzone, Shin Ta Pi, Natkyizin, and Kywetalin. This report also draws on ERI’s ourteen years o experience documenting human rights abuses in the Yadana pipeline region, as published in previousreports

Total Denial

(1996),

Total Denial Continues

(rst edition 2000; updatedsecond edition 2003), and

More o theSame (Supplemental Report)

(2001). Fi-nally, the report reerences documents that became public through the 2004partial trial o the lawsuit

Doe v. Unocal

,a landmark human rights case in whichERI sued companies in U.S. courts or their complicity in abuses on the Yadana pipeline.