Protestors in Los Angles against Bu

[082903@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Subject: Protestors in Los Angles against Burma pipeline. 



	Thursday December 12 9:15 PM EST 

	Protesters in Los Angeles against Burma pipeline
	************************************************


LOS ANGELES, Dec 12 (Reuter) - Police on Thursday arrested 12 
demonstrators who chained themselves to a truck and
climbed storage tanks at a Unocal Corp oil terminal to protest the 
construction of a pipeline through military-ruled Burma. 

About 50 activists, organized by the Los Angeles-based "Free Burma" 
coalition, chanted and waved placards outside the the
company's Los Angeles Terminal Motor Transport Facility before being 
arrested without incident on charges of unlawful
assembly and trespassing. 

The protesters charged that Unocal's $1.2 billion natural gas pipeline, 
now under construction from Burma to Thailand,
destroyed rainforests and yielded financial benefits to what they said 
was a repressive Burmese military government. 

"I'm protesting Unocal. Unocal has slave child labor in Burma," yelled 
Taw Myo Shwe, a former Burmese national chained in
front of a Unocal tanker truck. 

"I want Unocal out of Burma. They are supporting a violent military 
regime," said Adriana Lubenova, 21, who had chained
herself under the truck. 

Unocal issued a statement calling the charges "false," and said the 
project provides Burmese with good jobs, improved medical
care and new schools. 

"The Yadana natural gas pipeline project in Myanmar (Burma) is already 
providing significant benefits to the 35,000 people
who live near the pipeline route," the statement said. 

"When the project is completed, it will become a vital part of Myanmar's 
energy infrastructure, helping to move Myanmar into
the world community," it added. 

[Reuter, 12 December 1996].

------------------------------------------------------------------------------