Comment regarding Myanmar's ruling junta
On May 2, 2008, Cyclone Nargis destroyed Myanmar’s southern coast and southeast regions, killing at least 30,000, and leaving 1.5 million people homeless.
The news media says Myanmar’s ruling military junta will not allow outside aid to reach the victims.
Myanmar’s regime is partly financed by the drug trade, as is the resistance. However its main source of money is (1) oil companies, (2) Thailand’s government, and (3) exporting rice, even as the people starve. (See Claymore's article in the comments section below).
Bush's wife Barbara criticized the Myanmar regime (despite the evil activities of the Bush regime after Hurricane Katrina).
Here are some relevant facts about the relationship between oil companies and the Myanmar junta, gathered from numerous web sites...
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In 1962, General Ne Win led a military coup d'état that took over Burma. The general took control of all aspects of society (business, media, production, even the Boy Scouts) and ruled as a dictator for 26 years.
In 1988, unrest over economic mismanagement and political oppression led to widespread pro-democracy demonstrations known as the 8888 Uprising. Security forces killed hundreds of demonstrators. Then a new general, Saw Maung, staged a coup d'état, declared martial law, changed the country's name to Myanmar, and formed the State Law and Order Restoration Council.
In May 1990, the government held free elections for the first time in almost 30 years. The National League for Democracy, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, won 80 % of the seats. Therefore the junta arrested Aung San Suu Kyi. The junta continues to rule today.
In 1997, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) renamed itself the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC).
The ruling junta’s main cash source is the Yadana gas field, which has confirmed reserves of 5.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The field is expected to produce for the next thirty years.
The Yadana field is 60 km off Myanmar’s coast, and 35 meters under the sea floor. Natural gas is carried through a 256-mile long pipeline (210 miles underwater) to Myanmar's coast, then across Myanmar to a 4,600-megawatt power plant in Thailand’s Ratchaburi province near Bangkok. The Thai power plant was built by the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand.
The Yadana pipeline project was the largest foreign investment ever in Burma.
Since the pipeline runs across Myanmar and into Thailand, the Thai government pays $400 million per year to Myanmar’s ruling junta. This, plus revenue from outside oil companies, is the junta’s main source of funding. (Individuals in the junta also make money through the drug trade.)
WHO OPERATES THE PIPELINE?
The pipeline was began in 1995, and was completed in 1998. It is operated by a consortium of
1. French energy group Total S.A. – 31% ownership
2. Unocal (now Chevron) – 28 % ownership
3. Petroleum Authority of Thailand (state-owned oil and gas company) – 26% ownership
4. The Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (controlled by Myanmar’s military junta) – 15% ownership.
About 40 miles of the pipeline crosses over southern Myanmar in the Tenasserim region, inhabited by the Karen and the Mon ethnic groups. Both groups oppose Myanmar’s ruling junta. They are controlled by the military of Myanmar and Thailand, with help from the CIA and Mossad.
The Thailand section of the pipeline was built by a consortium of Nova Gas (Canada), plus OGP Technical Services (Malaysia) plus the Manessman Company (Germany).
ECOLOGICAL CONCERNS
In Thailand the pipeline runs mostly underground, but is accompanied by a maintenance road that is 80 meters wide. The road runs along a narrow earth ridge bordered by steep ravines on both sides, and cuts through one of the largest protected forest ecosystems in Southeast Asia. This ecosystem includes the Thung Yai Naresuan-Huai Kha Kaeng Wildlife Sanctuary complex, plus the Thong Pha Phum forest area, which is a national park in Thailand.
The pipeline project through Myanmar and Thailand brought increased logging and wildlife poaching -- especially of endangered tigers and elephants. Thailand’s western forest complex supports 120 species of land mammals (half of Thailand's total, and a third of mainland Southeast Asia's total). Forty-five mammal species in Thailand (half of the country's total) are endangered. These include guars, bantengs, wild water buffaloes, white-handed gibbons, Malayan tapirs, clouded leopards, and especially tigers and elephants.
GEOLOGICAL CONCERNS
Almost the entire Thai section of the pipeline runs on top of the Three Pagodas Seismic fault. The Myanmar section is located over two major active faults: Si Sawat and Three Pagodas Fault. This causes concerns about gas leakage (possibly resulting in massive explosions), plus landslides, and severe soil erosion. In March 1959, a quake on the Three Pagoda's Fault produced a ravine that is 300 meters long, 2 meters wide, and 1.5 meters deep. In April 1983, an 5.8 earthquake on the Si Sawat Fault left a crack in the earth more than 4 kilometers in length, and moved entire blocks of rock in opposite directions.
LAWSUIT AGAINST UNOCAL
In the opening phases of the Yadana pipeline project, troops from Myanmar’s junta destroyed eleven villages of the Karen people, and forcibly evicted 10,000 people from the pipeline route. The displaced village people including children, were forced to build the pipeline’s infrastructure, plus new military camps, plus a railroad from the town of Ye in Mon State to the town of Tavoy. The soldier camps and railroad protect the 65 km of pipeline in Myanmar from “terrorists” (i.e. the native resistance to Myanmar tyranny).
In late 1994, military troops launched "Operation Natmin" (Spirit King) to destroy Mon
and other “terrorist” forces along the pipeline route. The natives fought back.
In March 1995, three foreign members of a petroleum exploration team were killed, along with 10 soldiers of the Tatmadaw's (Burmese Army) 410 Light Infantry Battalion, who were escorting the foreigners. This was at Kanbuak, near the western end of the pipeline.
In October 1996, thirteen Burmese villagers filed suit against the pipeline consortium, consisting of Unocal, plus Total, Myanmar’s Oil and Gas Exploration company, and Myanmar’s ruling junta. The lawsuit, filed in a Los Angeles district court, charged that the oil companies used Myanmar’s military, and were therefore liable for murder, rape, torture, extortion, forced labor, and the forced relocation of whole villages during pipeline construction.
A date was set for a jury trial. Since the full panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals would have been involved, and since Unocal did not want its dirt exposed in a jury trial, Unocal agreed on 17 Dec 2004 to settle out of court for an undisclosed amount, a few days before the trial was to begin.
The villagers had sued under Alien Tort Claims Act.
Afterward, John E. Howard, vice president of international policy and programs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said the Act should be repealed, since it threatens U.S. foreign policy interests.
Unocal became so disliked that on August 10, 2005, it merged with Chevron Corporation and became a wholly owned subsidiary. Chevron is headquartered in San Ramon, Calif. Condoleeza Rice is a board member.
In January 2004, Myanmar’s military junta approved a new project called “Shwe” (which means “gold” in Burmese). This project involves a consortium of South Korean and Indian companies, and will develop a natural gas field in the Gulf of Bengal, off Myanmar’s west coast.
According to the human rights groups Earth Rights International, the new Shwe project involves the same abuses that happened with the Yadana pipeline. Whole villages are being wiped out. (Earth Rights International was founded by Ka Hsaw Wa, a Burmese activist, and his wife Katie Redford, a human rights attorney.)
CYCLONE NARGIS
This week, Unocal parent Chevron (headquartered in San Ramon CA) offered $2 Million (tax deductible) to victims of Cyclone Nargis. Two million dollars is nothing for Chevron, which makes $1.8 million in net profit every hour, twenty four hours a day. (Chevron’s reported net income for the first quarter of 2008 was $5.17 billion).
Here’s a mathematical analogy: if Chevron sucks a thousand dollars a day in profit from the people of Myanmar, Chevron will donate a one-time total of only 39 cents in aid (tax deductible) to organizations that promise to forward the money to cyclone victims.
Half of the 39 cents will go to the International Federation of the Red Cross. The other half will be divided among the International Organization for Migration, Mercy Corps, Pact, and Save the Children.
MORE ON UNOCAL / CHEVRON
Unocal (now Chevron) was a key player in the CentGas consortium, which wants to build an 800-mile gas pipeline from Turkmenistan (Caspian Sea area) through Afghanistan and probably Pakistan, to the Indian Ocean.
One of the Afghan consultants to Unocal was Zalmay Khalilzad, who is now the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Another consultant was Hamid Karzai, who is now the U.S. puppet-ruler of Kabul.
Initially, Unocal and the Saudis supported the Taliban, and helped the Taliban take over Afghanistan. Unocal’s security forces, plus the CIA, provided military weapons and instructors to several Taliban militias, working partly through Pakistan's government, then led by Benazir Bhutto.
In 1996 Unocal opened an office in Kandahar Afghanistan, near Osama bin Laden’s camp. The Kandahar office taught Pashtuns the technical skills needed to build a pipeline. Unocal provided the money, but training was ostensibly done through the University of Nebraska. Many Taliban members were brought to the USA (especially Texas) to meet government officials.
However, everything turned sour when CentGas and the Taliban could not agree on sharing the wealth. Therefore Mossad and the Bush regime staged 9 /11, and the USA immediately invaded Afghanistan to destroy “terrorists” from the (mythical) “Al-Qaeda,” (which has nothing to do with the Taliban). A side benefit for the CIA and for israeli gangsters is that the war has made Afghanistan into the world’s top producer of opium and heroin.
Several countries want the Afghan resistance eliminated, as can be seen by the members of the CentGas consortium....
Delta Oil Company, Ltd., privately owned by Badr M. Al-Aiban (Saudi Arabia)
Chevron Oil (USA)
Gazprom (Russia)
Turkmenrusgas (Turkmenistan)
Indonesia Petroleum , Ltd. (Japan)
ITOCHU Oil Exploration Co., Ltd. (Japan)
Hyundai Engineering and Construction (South Korea)
Crescent Group (Pakistan)
When all resistance is crushed in Afghanistan, the pipeline can be built.
NOTE: Gazprom of Russia is a member of the CentGas consortium, but Russia also supports activities that thwart the CentGas consortium.
Reason: the CentGas pipeline was supposed to start in the Dauletabad gas field of Turkmenistan. Currently this gas is exported to Russia through a Gazprom-controlled system of pipelines. On 20 December 2007, Russia, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan agreed to build a new pipeline to Russia.
Unocal (now Chevron) is also the third largest member of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline from the Caspian Sea to Turkey.
Myanmar exports rice as cyclone victims starve
Thanks for that article. I missed it.
I thought this was a really good article, right up until this point:
"Therefore the U.S. government staged 9 /11"
the US govt helped in staging 9/11, yes. but to say they staged it makes it seem as tho you are supporting the 'Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld' bullshit chant we hear coming from the Alex Jones crowd, etc.
this was obviously and blatantly a Mossad job. Israeli fingerprints are all over it, more so i would say than the US. other than the fact that it happend there and they allowed it to, helping it along the way possibly. but not stageing it.
just wanted to point that out. otherwise the write up is great. :)
I changed the words above to read, "...Mossad and the Bush regime staged 9 / 11."
Burma was the number one food exporting area in the world prior to WWII. They have tremendous potential for more export if they reduce their surplus domestic population. That is the way the Junta thinks. That and oil and gas prospects on land in the Irawaddy Delta - it all points to a New Orleans style "clearance" of the area for greater export purposes.
The bad blood between the Cheney neocons and the Burmese generals is all about opium, don't ya know. Bringing Afghanistan back online as the number one producer has damaged the triangle market.
They are like tentacles on a leviathan, and they ALL helped in staging 911. To this day we have uncool tom obombo pledging allegiance to israel!! hill and mcracker; same shit. WTF!!
How many high-up uS officials have condemned the wars AND the (9*11) lies that lead us there?
Have we forgotten already that the uK and their masonic mi6/police force did 7/7?!! ALL PART OF IT. Were there not bombings in Spain and India? Sri-Lanka? Purposely starving Africa? That's the cheapest way, you know.
Even RP is a mason! He barely touches on 9/11. Make excuses for him all we want, because he says "no to war", but KNOWING the track record of politicians and the beasts they ride..
He'll recall the army, and the next war will be for GOLD.
In our backyards, sweet serendipity nonetheless.
Heck, if things go the way i've been seeing them since 9/11, the uS will have several 'presidents'.
Collapse israel, usa, commonwealth leviathan.. and à la 1930's depression, escape with their ill gotten gains to russia or some other place that's ripe for colonization, hmm?
wow, good stuff! now it is perfect!
Heh heh heh....
Indeed, we must always remember that the israelis and this sickness called "israel" and its gang-land terrorists M O S S A D, are always the C A N C E R that is raging - a hidden cancer the world does not see nor realize, or perhaps does not want to come to terms with. They are the root disease for what is wrong with the world.