China’s Burma Oil-Gas Endeavour Continues Skip to main content

China’s Burma Oil-Gas Endeavour Continues

Nava Thakuria
------------------
Dhaka: Despite protest and resentments, the energy-hungry China has advanced construction of a trans-Burma oil and gas pipelines project. Local people are losing their land and fishing grounds because of the project.

They are also being discriminated in the compensation process. Workers are getting very low payment and the women are facing unequal wages and even vulnerability to the growing sex industry around the project, said in a recent report titled Sold Out, prepared by Shwe Gas Movement.


Kyaukphyu-Arakan state The construction site of crude oil tanker port in Madae Island Kyauk Pru. (Photo- Narinjara)
The project includes the construction of a deep sea port, gas terminal and oil transfer point in Burma’s Arakan State as well as laying of nearly 800 kilometers of pipes across the country. The dual pipelines are designed to pump Burma’s quality natural gas reserves as well as oil from the Middle East and Africa to feed China’s energy needs.
“The China National Petroleum Corporation and companies from Korea and Burma are speeding ahead with construction despite outbreaks of armed conflict near the pipeline route. The Burma Army has launched offensives to clear ethnic resistance forces out of resource-rich areas in northern Kachin and Shan states since March 2011. The battles have left an estimated 50,000 newly displaced,” added the report. Speaking to this writer from Chiang Mai of Thailand, the Shwe Gas Movement activist Wong Aung confirmed that thirty-three army battalions are currently deployed along the pipeline corridor, naval patrols guard offshore construction, and a missile complex is being built next to the deep sea port.

“Widespread land confiscation to make way for the pipeline corridor is leaving farmers jobless and fishing grounds are now off-limits, contributing to rising migration. Local people are able to secure only low-wage, temporary, and unsafe jobs on the project and are not able to complain about working conditions or wages without retribution. Companies are ignoring widespread abuses and worsening civil war,” added the young activist.

Resentment against the so-called Shwe project is growing and communities are beginning to stand up against abuses and exploitation. Despite threats and risk of arrest, farmers and local residents are sending complaints to local authorities. Laborers are striking for better pay and working conditions and women running households are demanding electricity.

Shwe Gas Movement, a community based organization campaigning against the Shwe Gas Project and China’s Trans-Burma Pipelines, and for human rights, environmental justice, and revenue transparency in the oil and gas sector, is demanding the investors to pull out before the project blows up in their faces.

If used domestically, the natural gas would transform Burma’s failing economy, addressing chronic energy shortages and unaffordable petrol prices that led to uprisings in 2007. The gas will instead be exported and revenues from the sale of the gas – estimated at US$29 billion – will be swallowed up by a fiscal black hole that omits gas revenues from the national budget, the report argued.

http://www.narinjara.com/details.asp?id=3085

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Sri Bhaddanta Chandramani Mahathera

The Life Story of A Distinguished And Outstanding Bhikkhu The Most Venerable Saradawpharagree Sri Bhaddanta Chandramani Mahathera The Buddhist missionary Saradaw Ashin U Chandramani was endowed with great gifts and led a famous and long life. He was a very well known, distinguished and outstanding Bhikkhu Mahathera. While living in the Kushinagar Monastery, a place close to where the Lord Buddha had passed away to Nirvana, the Government of India had offered, and he had accepted, the highest, most honourable and respected title "Guru Guru MahaGuru". He became the first ever President of all Buddhists in India.A World Buddhist Conference took place in Kathmandu during the reign of King Mahindra of Nepal. The Conference was very well attended by over one hundred thousand Buddhists from various parts of the world and it was opened by King Mahindra himself. As requested by the King, Saradawpharagree blessed all the participants with the power of Triple Gems...

Thai penis whitening trend raises eyebrows

Image copyright LELUXHOSPITAL Image caption Authorities warn the procedure could be quite painful A supposed trend of penis whitening has captivated Thailand in recent days and left it asking if the country's beauty industry is taking things too far. Skin whitening is nothing new in many Asian countries, where darker skin is often associated with outdoor labour, therefore, being poorer. But even so, when a clip of a clinic's latest intriguing procedure was posted online, it quickly went viral. Thailand's health ministry has since issued a warning over the procedure. The BBC Thai service spoke to one patient who had undergone the treatment, who told them: "I wanted to feel more confident in my swimming briefs". The 30-year-old said his first session of several was two months ago, and he had since seen a definite change in the shade. 'What for?' The original Facebook post from the clinic offering the treatment, which uses lasers to break do...

Three Dead, Seven Injured by Artillery Shells in Two Incidents in Myanmar’s Mrauk-U

By MIN AUNG KHINE 2 December 2019 Sittwe, Rakhine State –Three Mrauk-U township residents died and four others were injured when an artillery shell struck their community in the Ale Zay quarter of Mrauk-U town on Monday afternoon after 4 p.m. A month-old girl, a 4-year-old boy and a 30-year-old woman died, according to Dr. Khin Maung Yin, the head of Mrauk-U hospital. He said, “A man and three other women were injured. One of the women sustained severe injures to her left leg and her right knee was dislocated. The injured will be operated on.” Details of what occurred were not yet known. A few hours earlier, three civilians were injured when an artillery shell fell on the village of Na Leik in Mrauk-U Township, Rakhine State, western Myanmar, on Monday at around 1 p.m., according to Yan Aung Pyin village-tract administrator U Sein Hla Aung. Two females, aged 13 and 27, and an 18-year-old male were injured in the incident, he said. Three people were hit by shrapnel and we have...