4/2 Unocal protest in San Francisc

[jjerome@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Media Advisory				Contact:  
March 29, 1994					Jane Jerome
							415/424-8634
	
	

PROTEST UNOCAL'S INVESTMENT IN BURMA 

Environmental and human rights activists to decry oil company's 
payments to brutal regime

Saturday, April 2 %  12:00 noon
Unocal Clock Tower % First and Harrison, San Francisco

Activists concerned by Unocal's collaboration with Burma's 
State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) will 
demonstrate at the San Francisco Unocal Clock Tower at noon 
on Saturday, April 2 to draw attention to the oil company's 
investments in Burma (Myanmar).   

Unocal is paying millions in order to secure offshore natural gas 
concessions.  In 1993 SLORC received $600 million in foreign 
exchange, 80% of which came from payments by oil companies 
for offshore exploration and development under agreements 
with SLORC-run Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise.  Currently, 
Unocal has a 47.5% interest in its joint venture with France's 
Total to develop the vast Martaban Field.  

SLORC's construction  of a pipeline that will carry the natural 
gas to Thailand is brutal.  Indigenous peoples have been forcibly 
relocated from their villages in its path and many are 
conscripted as forced labor.  The pipeline also threatens intact 
tropical moist forest.  

Demonstrators believe that Unocal's transfer of funds helps the 
heinous military junta to "legitimize" its rule and pay for 
armaments used in widespread human rights abuses.  Aung San 
Suu Kyi, 1991 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, and other leaders of 
the  pro-democracy movement, which won an 1990 election 
since nullified by SLORC, have called for economic sanctions 
against SLORC.  This call for sanctions has been supported by 
Nobel Laureates including Rev. Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama, 
the American Friends Service Committee, and by the United 
States Congress in passing the U.S. Customs and Trade Act of 
1990.  

The demonstration is organized by the Burma Foundation, a 
non-profit organization based in Larkspur, CA. 

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