WA Post: Rights Victims in Burma Wa

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Subject: WA Post: Rights Victims in Burma Want a U.S. Company to Pay


Rights Victims in Burma Want a U.S. Company to Pay
       Suit Alleges Army Abuses While Pipeline Was Built 
       Posted on 4/13/99, 06:41 AM CST. Email this story to a friend.

       Source: Washington Post.
       Posted by: ShweInc NEWs

       By William Branigin 

       As the Burmese woman told her story to Ka Hsaw Wa, a fellow refugee
and member of the
       Karen ethnic minority, her anger began to build. It was 1992, and
she had been forced to flee
       her village in southern Burma as part of a massive relocation
campaign by the Burmese army
       to ensure security for a natural gas pipeline. 

       She had been holding her 2-month-old baby while cooking in front of
her bamboo-and-thatch
       hut when soldiers ordered her to leave. One of them kicked her hard
in the ribs, and her baby
       fell into the open fire, she told Ka Hsaw Wa, a former student
activist who had fled to the
       Thai-Burmese border earlier. She made her way to the border, but
her baby, suffering from
       severe burns, died shortly afterward. 

       Today the woman, known as Jane Doe I, is one of 14 plaintiffs in a
landmark class-action
       lawsuit that, for the first time, seeks to hold a private U.S.
corporation accountable for human
       rights violations abroad. All the 11 men and three women are
referred to in the suit as John or
       Jane Does because they fear retaliation from Burmese forces. 

       Ka Hsaw Wa collected their stories and those of hundreds of other
victims of human rights
       abuses after he was tortured and forced to flee the capital,
Rangoon, during a crackdown on
       student protests in 1988. His secret reporting from inside Burma
helped form the basis for the
       lawsuit accusing the California-based oil company Unocal and the
French firm Total, partners
       in the pipeline project with the Burmese government, of complicity
in the forced relocation of
       entire villages, the use of slave labor and numerous related
deaths, beatings, rapes and property
       seizures. 


       The suit was filed by EarthRights International, the Center for
Constitutional Law in New
       York and two Los Angeles law firms. 

       The companies deny any wrongdoing. They say their partnership is
with the Burmese state oil
       company, Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise, and that they are not
responsible for actions by
       Burmese troops. 

       Last month in New York, Ka Hsaw Wa was among four recipients of the
annual Reebok
       Human Rights Award. "At great risk to his life," the award citation
said, the 28-year-old exile
       "traveled thousands of miles on foot, living and working
clandestinely" to interview victims
       and document "the forced labor, rape and other human rights abuses
inflicted on villagers" by
       the Burmese army. 

       The lawsuit, one of two such class actions filed in Los Angeles by
different plaintiffs, reflects
       growing efforts by U.S. activists to discourage private sector
involvement in countries that
       allegedly violate labor and civil rights. Massachusetts and at
least 23 cities and towns across
       the country have passed "selective purchasing" laws that bar the
awarding of state or local
       government contracts to companies doing business in Burma. On a
number of U.S. college
       campuses, students are demanding an end to the use of foreign
sweatshop labor in making
       school-licensed apparel. 

       A foreign trade group representing 580 corporations, including
Unocal, last year blocked
       implementation of the Massachusetts law in federal court. An appeal
by the state government
       is scheduled to be heard in May. 

       A federal judge in Los Angeles has rejected Unocal's motion to
dismiss the class-action claims
       against it, ruling that corporations can be held legally
responsible in U.S. courts for human
       rights violations committed abroad by state entities acting as
their agents. The case is expected
       to go to trial early next year, with the two suits combined into
one. 

       In 1997, the Clinton administration barred new U.S. private
investment in Burma, accelerating
       a pullout by companies already there. Among the first to leave was
Levi Strauss & Co.,
       which concluded that its investment was supporting a government it
called "one of the leading
       violators of human rights in the world." 

       Construction of the 416-mile, $1.2 billion pipeline began in 1992
and was completed last
       year, but it is not yet operational because opponents, including Ka
Hsaw Wa, dissuaded the
       World Bank from financing a power plant in Thailand that was to
receive the Burmese natural
       gas. The pipeline starts at the offshore Yadana gas field in the
Andaman Sea and crosses 39
       miles of Burma's Tenasserim region, which is inhabited largely by
ethnic minorities. Among
       them are the Karens, who have been fighting against the central
government for self-rule for
       more than 50 years. 

       The military junta that has ruled Burma since 1988 began flooding
the area with troops when

       construction started, driving villagers away from the pipeline
route and forcing many into
       slave labor on related projects, Ka Hsaw Wa said. Villagers were
forcibly recruited to cut down
       trees for survey roads, build barracks and outposts for troops
guarding the pipeline, clear land
       and plant rice to feed the soldiers and carry weapons and
ammunition on counterinsurgency
       missions. 

       "When they collapsed and couldn't work anymore, the soldiers just
shot them," Ka Hsaw Wa
       said in an interview after opening the Washington office of
EarthRights International, a human
       rights group he co-founded. He said he saw numerous bodies of
forced laborers during his
       travels inside Burma and heard accounts of killings from army
defectors. 

       In a deposition in January, John Imle, the president of Unocal,
denied that "conscript labor"
       helped build the pipeline, but acknowledged that "security forces"
used such workers as porters
       at an early stage of the project. He said this changed after he
told Gen. Khin Nyunt, one of the
       junta leaders, "that the use of conscript labor even for porterage
was not a policy that was
       comfortable for us as an investor in that country." He said Unocal
and Total "insisted upon
       these workers being paid" when the military began providing
security for the pipeline and that
       he personally saw Total officials pay porters during a 1996 trip. 

       According to plaintiffs, however, the military often ordered
dragooned workers to hide in the
       jungle when foreign company officials visited, or confiscated their
pay after the foreigners left.
       One man said he was forced to serve as a porter during military
offensives to secure
       Nat-ein-taung, the site of a metering station on the Burmese-Thai
border, where the Yadana
       natural gas was to be sold by Unocal and Total to a Thai company.
He said in court documents
       that many porters were killed during the offensive, including two
he saw beaten to death by
       soldiers. 

       Another plaintiff said he and about 100 other villagers were forced
to clear a path for the
       pipeline in 1996 and help build a bridge. He said he received the
equivalent of less than $12 for
       20 days' work and signed a receipt, but that an army officer later
took the money.