-
ERI has been documenting earth rights abuses along the Yadana Pipeline since 1994. Our latest reports were published in September, 2009.
On December 10, 2009, International Human Rights Day, EarthRights International co-hosted a panel discussion in the U.S. Capitol on Corporate human rights abuses and Chevron Corporation. The panel discussed a powerful new international campaign focusing on Chevron’s human rights and environmental practices and impacts around the globe. Speakers included Antonia Juhasz, Director of the Chevron Program at Global Exchange, who discussed the emerging network of Chevron affected communities and concerned organizations, Paul Donowitz, Campaigns Director at ERI discussed Chevron’s human rights and financial impacts in Burma, as well as the importance of transparency and accountability in the extractive industry, Kate Watters, Executive Director of Crude Accountability, spoke on Chevron’s impacts in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, & Turkmenistan, and Sowore Omoyele, a Nigerian human rights activists and publisher of SaharaReporters.com, spoke on Chevron’s impacts in the Niger Delta.
Co-sponsors of the event included: Global Exchange, EarthRights International, Crude Accountability, Justice in Nigeria Now, and the Institute for Policy Studies
Today we observe international human rights day, a historic anniversary commemorating the day the nations of the world proclaimed their support for the fundamental human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Today is also the day on which the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded, and this year that honor goes to President Obama, and we all wish him well in the many challenges he faces. Not the least of these challenges are the rights of the poorest and most marginalized people of the world, who often suffer the adverse consequences of globalization. Today we have heard about how corporations, particularly energy companies factor into this dynamic, and specifically how one company, Chevron is affecting the lives of millions of peoples around the world.
When substances of value are found, local people usually suffer, particularly in unstable countries with weak governance and high levels of corruption. This pattern has repeated itself many times over where oil and gas have been found and Chevron has a particularly troubling record of human and environmental harms in areas they operate.
Antonia mentioned the corrosive and pervasive role of big oil in the formation of US policy, and the report put out last year by a coalition of groups, The True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report, detailed harms caused by Chevron's operations around the globe.
Whether through gas flaring in Nigeria - which is a major greenhouse gas emitter while contributing to acid rain and the pollution of the local environment, causing health impacts and the loss of livelihood for people living in the area – or destructive tar sands operations in Canada - turning vast boreal forests into toxic waste tailing ponds and a charred landscape - Chevron is a leading emitter of greenhouse gases contributing to our severe climate crisis. The Alternative Annual Report contains the stories of numerous communities affected by Chevron’s operation, both domestically and around the globe. When CEO David O’Reilly was asked about the report at last years AGM, he said that he had heard of it, not read it, thought it was an insult to his employees and should be thrown in the trash. So much for listening to the communities in which you operate.
I am going to talk for a few minutes about Chevron’s role in Burma. For the last 15 years, ERI has been documenting the human rights impact of Chevron’s Yadana gas project in southern Burma a project that began in the early 1990s. This project, operated by the French oil company Total S.A., in partnership with Chevron, the Petroleum Authority of Thailand Exploration and Production, and the Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE), the Burmese state owned oil company, transports natural gas from the Andaman Sea, across the Tennesarim Division of southern Burma into Thailand, where it provides electricity for the Bangkok area. Collecting information from inside Burma and in the Thai-Burma border areas, ERI has documented systematic and widespread human rights abuses committed against the mostly local Mon, Karen, and Tavoian populations. In the early phases of the project, the Burma Army, providing protection to the project and related infrastructure and personnel, committed severe human rights abuses against the nearby residents, included forced portering, entire villages were displaced, land confiscation, killings, rapes . . .and other abuses. Subsequent to these human rights abuses coming to light, lawsuits were filed against Unocal (now Chevron) and Total in US and French courts by victims of these abuses. Legal settlements followed in 2005.
Since that time, ERI has issued three reports documenting current conditions in the Yadana area. One of the reports, issued this past September, Total Impact, links Chevron and their partners in the Yadana gas project to forced labor, killings, high-level corruption and authoritarianism in Burma. The reports critical findings, based on more than two years of dedicated research and collecting information from 40 villages and hundreds of individuals in the area, indicates that human rights abuses committed by the Burma army providing protection for pipeline security continue.
While the form of the abuses has changed since the construction phase, our findings indicate that forced labor remains the most common type of abuse. There are four primary types of forced labor: forced security for army barracks and on local roads; forced security in villages and over portions of the pipeline itself (including forced labor to build security facilities such as sentry huts; required attendance at abusive security trainings; forced sentry duties in the villages; and forced sentry duty along the pipeline); forced labor on Burma Army plantations in the area (Jatropha); and forced labor in the form of taxes paid in-kind by local villagers to the army.
While the Yadana companies have exerted some pressure on the local army battalions to reduce the use of forced labor in areas directly adjacent or quite close to the pipeline (what the companies identify as the pipeline corridor), the demand for forced labor remains, and thus we have seen an increase in forced labor in villages just outside of the company designated corridor. We have also documented violations of the right to freedom of movement; violations of property rights; and killings, torture and other ill-treatment. All of these abuses are committed by Burma Army personnel providing security for the Yadana project and companies, and the companies continue to benefit from these abuses while reaping hundreds of millions of dollars in profits.
Total and Chevron claim abuses have stopped in connection to their project but it’s simply untrue. Forced labor, killings and other abuses are being committed by Total and Chevron’s security forces while the companies mislead and lie to the international community about their impacts. The international community must take another look at these companies complicity in these abuses.
We are also very concerned that, as one of the first major foreign run resource extraction projects in Burma, Chevron and its partners are sending a dangerous message to other companies considering projects in Burma. What we know is that major new resource projects cannot go forward without Burma military and security personnel involvement, and that when the Burma Army and related personnel are involved, abuses follow. An area is militarized, villages are relocated closer to the roads and other infrastructure constructed to facilitate ease of security, forced labor, land confiscation, killings and other abuses follow. In fact, we are beginning to see this again now with the Shwe gas pipeline that will transport natural gas from the Bay of Bengal through Burma to China, where it will provide electricity for Yunnan Province. This project has already lead to serious human rights abuses, and we call on the Korean company, Daewoo International, the operator of the gas fields, and the Chinese National Petrolium Corporation, the operator of the pipeline and the buyer of the gas, to suspend the project until safeguards can be put in place to mitigate harms and ensure the local communities living along the pipeline have provided free, prior and informed consent. This is another example of how Chevron and its partners are hurting the people of Burma. In fact, we know from Daewoo itself it has looked at the Yadana project as a model for doing business in Burma.
We want to be clear: ERI is not calling on Total and Chevron to divest, but instead maximize their positive impacts and mitigate their negative ones in Burma. Chevron and its partners should publish all of the payments they has made to the Burmese authorities since 1992, acknowledge their sphere or responsibility is much larger than the 25 villages in the company-defined “pipeline corridor” and pressure their partners, the Burma Army to cease human rights abuses, and facilitate complaints of forced labor to the ILO in Burma. We also support efforts of Chevron shareholders, including the Teamsters who have re-filed a SH resolution that would require Chevron develop and disclose its policy for investment in, continued operations, and withdrawal from countries based on human rights standards. This proposal received over 25% of the votes at last year’s meeting, a strong indicator that Chevron’s own shareholders recognize the importance of these issues to the company’s reputation and long-term financial outlook.
I also want to also speak for a few minutes about the critical role that revenue transparency plays in the promotion and protection of human rights. Often referred to as the resource curse, the concept that massive revenues from natural resources leads to worse development outcomes for local people is not a new concept. Nor is the understanding of the corrosive role these revenues have in terms of corruption and good governance.
Burma is a text-book example of this theory in practice. The revenues from the Yadana project, estimated at more than $7 billion since payments commenced in the late 1990s, have not been spent on health care or education for the people of Burma, who continue to receive less than 2% of public spending on these sectors, while military spending skyrockets. The IMF this past year said of Burma’s economy, “Per capita GDP has stagnated . . . social development indicators are below regional standards, and poverty remains widespread. Very low levels of public expenditures on health and education limit progress on human capital development.” Instead, revenues have gone to enrich and entrench the generals ruling Burma, expand the military which continues to commit systematic and widespread abuses against the people of Burma, including oppression of dissent (as was seen in the crushing of protests in 2008 over rising gas prices), and criminal mismanagement of the relief operations after cyclone Nargis. ERI has also learned through confidential sources that a significant portion of Burma’s gas revenues ends up in banks in Singapore, further enriching the military and their cronies while the people of Burma continue to suffer.
Here in the US, ERI is proud to be a member of the PWYP US Coalition, a coalition of organizations concerned over the lack of transparency in the extractive sector. We are supporting a bill currently before the US Senate, the Energy Security Through Transparency Act (ESTT), which would require all extractive companies filing with the SEC to disclose their payments to host governments on country-by-country and a disaggregated basis. The bill is before the Senate Banking Committee, and we encourage the Committee and its Chairman, Senator Dodd, to hold hearings on the bill in 2010.
Disclosure of payments by companies to host governments is a critical component of full revenue transparency (including government disclosure of payments received), and we have reached out to Chevron and other energy companies around this bill. I can report that unfortunately, Chevron is opposing this simple measure of corporate accountability, preferring to keep their contracts and payments with host governments out of the hands of the citizens of the countries they operate, ensuring that these revenues and their use remain unknown. We are proud that Newmont Mining has signaled its support for the legislation, and encourage other companies to embrace revenue transparency in their operations as an emerging best practice in the industry.
We ARE pleased that Chevron’s own shareholders understand the importance of these issues. A Shareholder Resolution filed today by Oxfam America will be voted on at the annual shareholder meeting in May that would require Chevron to disclose such information on an annual basis and we encourage shareholder to support this proposal. A copy of the SH resolution is available at the rear of the room.
I will conclude by talking about the critical role remedies and access to justice has for victims of corporate human right abuses. Access to justice ensures that corporations that are complicit in human rights abuses can be held to account for their actions (or inactions). Enforceable mechanisms of accountability, including laws and forums for those who suffer such abuses are developing and we have seen that access to justice and the very real threat of legal and financial liability for complicity in abuses is pushing companies in the extractive industry to adopt policies and practices which limit their liability. While we would like to see this accomplished through changes in practices which lead to better outcomes for affected communities, we see a real divergence between actual changed behavior and public relations campaigns aimed at burnishing a companies’ image. We also see efforts to create complex corporate structures to immunize companies from liability which is of great concern.
In the US, we have the Alien Tort Statute, which allows foreign victims of serious human rights abuses to bring cases against corporations in the US for these abuses. This statute has allowed victims of abuse from Burma to Sudan to seek justice in our courts where none is available in theirs, and has in fact changed corporate practices. We hope other countries will follow suit, so that no company, no matter where it operates or is based, can escape liability for complicity in serious human rights abuses.
Antonia mentioned some of the efforts Chevron has gone to try and convince the public and their shareholders that they are leading the way in sustainable business practices. However, when we look at actual conditions in their areas they operate, we continue to see serious human rights abuses, often committed by State security services protecting their operations. We see a company polluting, emitting greenhouse gases while profiting from the oil extracted from poor and marginalized communities. A company jumping headlong into the dirties source of fuels on the planet in tar sands, and a company that continues to profit to the tunes of hundreds of millions of dollars, from Burmese gas, while enriching a brutal military junta while local people suffer the consequences.
We have an expectation that our biggest corporations, those with the most global reach and influence, will take a leading role in the fight to promote and protect the human rights of those living in areas where they operate, take efforts to promote responsible management of the tremendous revenues their projects generate, and take a leading role in reducing the harmful social and environmental costs of their industry. Today we call on Chevron to put into practice their rhetoric, embrace responsible social, environmental and financial practices, and really listen to the voices of the communities in which they operate. On this day of human rights, we ask Chevron, will you join US?
-end-
Stay connected!
