Environment Panel During Earth Summ

[burma1un@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Subject:       Environment Panel During Earth Summit

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  June 25, 1997	
Contact:   Dr. Thaung Htun, (212) 338-0048


The issue of the destruction of Burma's environment was highlighted 
today at a public session organized by the Burma UN Service Office 
during the Earth Summit.

Forty people gathered across from the United Nations to hear about 
the environmental and human rights abuses of the military regime 
currently in power in Burma (Myanmar), called the State Law and 
Order Restoration Council, or SLORC.

The speakers included Dr. Thaung Htun, Representative for UN Affairs 
for the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma; Edith 
Mirante, Director of Project Maje and author of Burmese Looking Glass; 
and Tim Keating, Director of Rainforest Relief, NY.

Dr. Htun also read a statement from Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader 
of the National League for Democracy, the main opposition party to 
the SLORC. Suu Kyi is a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and was kept under 
house arrest by the generals for six years to prevent her organizing 
the people against the military regime. She has been a strong critic 
of the SLORC's style of development saying that it benefits the rich 
and powerful generals and their friends, while having a negative 
affect on the people as a whole.

In her statement, Ms. Suu Kyi said, "I doubt that under the present 
circumstances that you can do anything very effectively, in the way 
of conservation," referring to the way in which the military constrains 
all debate and impoverishes the people of Burma.

"About 80% of our population live in the rural areas," she added. 
". . .conservation is important for their livelihood as well as for 
their happiness and for developing their aesthetic sense."

According to the panelists, the SLORC is in the midst of a massive 
sell-off of the natural heritage of Burma and is using torture, 
forced labor, forced relocation and summary execution to achieve 
their ends.

Dr. Thaung Thun gave an overview of the style of development that 
would be acceptable to the NCGUB if they were able to assume the 
office into which they were voted by the people of Burma. Quoting 
James Gustave Speth, Htun said, "'Development that fails to benefit 
the poor has no soul. Development that fails to safeguard the 
environment has no vision. Sustainable development doesn't take place 
in a political or social vacuum but depends both on effective governance 
and on the empowerment of communities in civil society to participate 
in the decisions that effect their lives.'"

Dr. Htun went on to say that "Burma is the obvious example of a nation 
in which, as the preamble to the draft declaration states, where 
'human rights violations lead to environmental degradation and 
environmental degradation leads to human rights violations.'"

Dr. Htun went on to outline some of the ways in which the NCGUB would 
sustain the environment.

Edith Mirante gave a slide presentation that showed massive 
environmental destruction under the SLORC including unregulated logging, 
strategic deforestation, gas and oil exploration and gold  mining, 
tin dredging, conversion of mangroves to shrimp farms and cutting 
for charcoal, the use of dangerous pesticides such as paraquot and 
increases in pollution. Much of Ms. Mirante's slides focused on 
excessive logging, the spoils of which are flowing night and day 
over the borders into China, Thailand and India.

Ms. Mirante also spoke about the gas pipeline being pushed through 
Burma into Thailand by Total of France and Unocal of the U.S. Ms. 
Mirante speculated that part of SLORC's plan for the project was to 
strategically deforest and militarize the southern part of Burma 
which had been under the control of the Karen ethnic minority who 
opposed the SLORC. "It's not impossible that stopping the pipeline 
might be accomplished by groups in Thailand who are opposed to it," 
she said. "They've stopped projects like this before. Thailand is 
an open society with a free press."

Tim Keating gave a report on the use of forced labor for logging and 
described a systemic and widespread use of coercion and force by the 
army to denude the forests above and around local villages. Logs from 
these operations are sold illegally by army personnel for their own 
financial gains. The villagers themselves are forced to cut their own 
trees (upon which their livelihoods depend) and sometimes saw them 
into lumber. They are left with a barren landscape, dried streams and 
ponds and faced with an inability to grow food. SLORC is systematically 
pulling the rug out from under the people for their own personal profit.

Mr. Keating read from his report, quoting a farmer who fled into 
Thailand to escape the horrors of SLORC's forced labor, "They have 
been cutting so many trees that the climate is now changin here and 
it has become drier, so every year the rice harvest is worse." Another 
farmer was quoted as saying, "All the trees around the water ponds 
were cut down so the ponds have all dried up, and so have most of the 
streams and wells. We can't understand why they're doing it. . . from 
Kengtung up to Mong La. . . there's only a small bit of forest left. . . 
they'll never stop cutting down the trees."

The panelists together said that the deforestation of Burma has 
increased threefold since the SLORC took power. Forest cover has 
gone from 48% in 1988 to as little as 20% by some estimates, with 
others putting the figure closer to 35%. Teak makes up 50% of the 
hardwood exports from Burma, and timber is the second largest legal 
export by value (not including opium).

Panelists called for increasing pressure on the oil companies Unocal, 
Texaco and Arco to cease their projects in Burma. In an effort to stop 
the abuses of local people and the forests, the panelists called for 
an international boycott of teak from Burma. Activists plan to 
demonstrate at numerous teak re-sellers across the U.S. between 
July 1 - 7.