BANGKOK (AFP) - An international human rights group on Tuesday accused US energy giant Chevron of complicity in rights abuses through its investment in a natural gas pipeline in Myanmar. EarthRights International alleged Myanmar's military was committing widespread abuses including forced labour, rape and killing while hired by Chevron to protect the Yadana pipeline.
Chevron in 2005 acquired US energy giant Unocal and took over its 28 percent stake in the project alongside France's Total, Thailand's PTT Exploration and Production and Myanmar's Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise.
EarthRights settled a separate case in 2005 with Unocal, alleging similar abuses related to the Yadana project.
"Chevron has tried to distance itself from the Yadana project and Burma and tries to create an image that the abuses notorious during Unocal's tenure are not happening anymore," EarthRights director Katie Redford told reporters in Bangkok at the release of a report on the alleged rights abuses.
"But if you are in a continuing agreement with the Burmese military junta there's only so much distance you can get."
The group estimates the ruling junta receives almost one billion dollars a year in revenue from the pipeline and says it is the regime's single largest source of income.
Naing Htoo, programme coordinator for the group's Myanmar project, recently returned from Myanmar where he said 12 military battalions, hired to secure the gas pipeline, were forcing villagers to act as sentries and security personnel for the project.
Farmers were being coopted to provide food for the military instead of earning from their land, he said.
Rape, torture and extrajudicial killings were also taking place, he said, citing the case of a woman who said her husband had been tortured and killed after being accused of having connections with opposition groups.
EarthRights plans to distribute its report to Chevron Corp shareholders at their meeting in San Francisco on May 28, urging them to put pressure on the company to cut ties with Myanmar's military.
Further sanctions against investments in Myanmar are being proposed in the US House of Representatives following the junta's brutal crackdown last year on massive demonstrations led by Buddhist monks.
Chevron, one of the biggest Western firms in Myanmar, has previously declined to comment on allegations of rights abuses but says its socio-economic programmes in the pipeline region have increased healthcare and educational opportunities for the local people.
The United States has already imposed substantial trade, investment and diplomatic sanctions on Myanmar, but Chevron's operations predate an enhanced 2003 US trade embargo.
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