Oil majors accused of propping up Myanmar regime

Energy giants Total and Chevron are propping up Myanmar’s junta with a gas project that has allowed the regime to stash nearly $5 billion US in Singaporean banks, a rights group said Thursday.

France’s Total and U.S.-based Chevron have also tried to whitewash alleged rights abuses by Myanmar troops guarding the pipeline, including forced labour and killings, two reports by U.S.-based EarthRights International said.
The group urged the international community to exert pressure on the two companies, which have long managed to avoid Western sanctions against the generals who rule the impoverished Southeast Asian nation.

“Total and Chevron’s Yadana gas project has generated $4.83 billion for the Burmese regime,” one of the reports said, adding that the figures for the period 2000-2008 were the first detailed account of the revenues.

“The military elite are hiding billions of dollars of the peoples’ revenue in Singapore while the country needlessly suffers under the lowest social spending in Asia,” said Matthew Smith, a principal author of the reports.

Calgary Herald