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NEWS- Afghanistan-Rights: Company S
NOTE: Why will the EU not do business with the repressive Taliban regime
but still support activities by the even more repressive Burmese regime
???!!!
Afghanistan-Rights: Company Sacrifices Women for Oil,Say Groups
Inter Press Service
04-JUN-98
WASHINGTON, (June 1) IPS -
Women's rights organizations
accused a U.S. oil company today of
entering into a business partnership
with the Taliban government of
Afghanistan, despite its record of
human rights abuses against women
and girls.
"Stop sacrificing women and girls for
oil," said Kathy Spillar, national
coordinator for the organization
Feminist Majority. "We demand that
UNOCAL cease all business
dealings with the oppressive Taliban
regime until women's and girls' full
human rights have been restored."
Spillar and representatives of other
Washington-based groups, including
the National Organization for Women
the Women's Alliance for Peace and
Freedom in Afghanistan, protested
outside UNOCAL's annual
shareholders meeting in California.
"If it proceeds, UNOCAL will be doing
nothing less than providing hundreds
of millions of dollars in royalties to
keep a brutal regime going -- funding
the continued oppression of half the
population of Afghanistan," Smeal
declared.
UNOCAL, however, denied all
charges that it was dealing with the
Taliban.
"UNOCAL will not conduct business
with any party in Afghanistan until
peace is achieved and a government
recognized by international lending
agencies in place," said an official at
the company's headquarters in Los
Angeles.
Since the fundamentalist Islamic
Taliban seized control of the
Afghanistan capital Kabul in
September 1996, women and girls
have been forbidden to work outside
the home, all schools and
universities have been closed to
female students who have been
forced to be completely veiled.
Women who have defied these
orders reportedly have been shot or
stoned.
The United States, the European
Union and the United Nations said
they would not recognize the Taliban
until women's rights were fully
restored. The World Bank also
decided not to work with the country
to fund development projects.
While the oil giant denied working
with the Taliban, women's groups
said that, according to media reports
in France and Britain, a delegation of
high ranking Taliban officials met
with UNOCAL in Texas in December
to discuss the building of a pipeline.
"UNOCAL is part of a consortium
(CENTGAS) that is negotiating with
the Taliban to build a multi-billion
dollar oil and gas pipeline across
Afghanistan," said a statement
distributed by women's organizations
at the protest in California. Besides
UNOCAL, the CENTGAS consortium
includes Hyundai of South Korea,
Crescent of Pakistan, and others.
In February, company
representatives allegedly visited
Kabul for four days where they held
talks with Taliban authorities on oil
and gas exploration in the country.
After a delegation from CENTGAS
visited Afghanistan, Mawlawi Ahmad
Jan the Taliban mines and industries
minister -- said that preparations to
build the pipeline should begin by the
end of 1998.
UNOCAL had entered a $1 million
contract with the University of
Nebraska to train workers in
Afghanistan specifically for pipeline
construction, Christine Onyango, a
research associate at the Feminist
Majority declared. "Why would
UNOCAL make such an investment
in training workers if they are not
planning on working with the
Taliban?" she said.
The University had no immediate
comment on the allegations.
"How can UNOCAL which says it is
'committed to improving the lives of
the people wherever (it) operates'
conduct business with the brutal
Taliban regime?" asked Mavis Leno,
a writer and community activist in Los
Angeles who testified at a
Washington forum on violations of
women's rights in Afghanistan.
"Many women and girls have been
stoned and shot for violations of the
horrendous edicts by the Taliban,"
she added. "Yet, UNOCAL has
continued to negotiate and deal with
the Taliban."
"We cannot stand silently by as
Afghan women become victims of
inhumane gender apartheid," said
Eleanor Smeal, president of Feminist
Majority,
UNOCAL has also been criticized by
human rights groups and
pro-democracy activists in Burma for
allegedly providing the Burmese
government with $150 million
annually for helping to construct a
pipeline. This money, says Nobel
Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who
is currently under house-arrest, will
"only serve to entrench the regime"
widely known for human rights
abuses.