EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: "Two western oil companies are currently partnered with the Burmese military regime in a remote corner of southern Burma (Myanmar) on one of the world?s most controversial development projects: The Yadana Gas Project by the France-based Total and the US-based Chevron. "Yadana", which means "treasure" in Burmese, is a large-scale project that transports natural gas from the Andaman Sea across Burma?s Tenasserim region to Thailand, where it generates electricity for the Bangkok metropolitan area. The gas is transported through an overland pipeline that passes through the dense jungle and rugged terrain of a secluded and environmentally sensitive ethnic area in southeast Burma. From the project?s beginning, the Burma Army has been tasked with providing security for the companies and the pipeline and has committed widespread and systematic human rights abuses against local people. EarthRights International (ERI) has been documenting human rights abuses related to the Yadana Project since 1994, and new evidence collected through 2009 attests to the on-going violent abuses committed by the Burma Army providing security for the companies and the project. Abuses include extrajudicial killings, torture, and other forms of ill-treatment; widespread and systematic forced labor; and violations of the rights to freedom of movement and property. Based on new and original evidence, this report further documents the Burma Army?s role in the construction phase of the Yadana Project as well as its continuing connection to the companies and the pipeline. Rather than acknowledge its inherent and close relationship with Burma?s armed forces, Total has traditionally denied the connections between its company and the Burma Army in its project area, raising important ethical questions about the company?s willingness to misrepresent its material risks to investors and shareholders. In addition to the localized human rights impacts in the pipeline region, the Yadana Project has been a significant factor in keeping the Burmese military regime financially solvent. This report documents for the first time the aggregate revenue generated by the Yadana Project for the ruling SPDC, from 2000 to 2008. Rather than contribute to Burma?s economic development, the billion dollar revenues from the project have instead contributed to high-level corruption: the revenue is not accounted for in Burma?s national budget and according to reliable sources it is stored in two offshore banks in Singapore. Moreover, there are apparent correlations between the SPDC?s increasing financial wherewithal and its overall authoritarian behavior. While the severity and seriousness of the human rights and financial impacts of the Yadana Project are logical focal points of concern, the environmental impacts of the project cannot be discounted. This report presents information that details serious problems with Total?s Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), a document which ERI obtained through US courts and which is now part of the public record; details of which are published here for the first time. Villagers in the pipeline corridor also report ongoing adverse impacts associated with an ill-conceived environmental protection group established and supported by Total in the pipeline corridor. Rather than acknowledge or attempt to mitigate these and other known impacts of the Yadana Project, Total CEO Christophe de Margerie has publicly told critics to "go to hell" and instead focused resources on public relations, including claims that the Yadana gas has made neighboring Bangkok a cleaner city. Total has also systematically whitewashed their complicity in abuses and authoritarianism in Burma in three key ways: first, and most directly, Total has commissioned a number of impact assessments by the US-based CDA Collaborative Learning Projects (CDA), which the corporations tout as evidence that the Yadana Project hurts no one and benefits many. These impact assessments and their fundamental flaws are the subject of the ERI report "Getting it Wrong" (2009). Second, the companies repeatedly misuse both these impact assessments and third-party reports and statements, asserting that others support their claims that there are no abuses in the pipeline area. Third, the companies promote their local "socio-economic" program and declare that it provides economic, educational, and health benefits to every person in the pipeline corridor. While many of the companies? socio-economic efforts might be desirable in theory, local villagers argue that these programs have not worked the way the companies claim they do, if at all. Moreover, ERI has found that the true effectiveness of these local projects have never been independently or fully examined and verified; and regardless of the effectiveness of these programs, they do not exonerate the companies from accountability for complicity in human rights violations and they do not erase the deeper national impacts connected to the revenue stream from the Yadana Project to the SPDC. Total and Chevron?s impacts in Burma are profound. ERI makes several specific demands of the companies and calls on the corporate and investment community and policymakers to seriously consider the ethics of Total and Chevron?s operations in Burma, and to heed the recommendations included at the end of this report."