We Won’t Stop Until There’s Full Transparency in Burma

Last week, we held a press conference in Bangkok to announce the release of an initiative to pressure the oil companies Total, Chevron, and PTTEP to publish the last 18 years of taxes, bonuses, royalties and other payments they’ve made to the Burmese military junta. These companies operate the controversial Yadana natural gas pipeline from Burma to Thailand, in partnership with the Burmese military junta.

You cannot always predict the future, and on the day of the press conference, the leaders of Thailand’s red shirt movement addressed throngs of protesters just outside the front door of the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand (FCCT). We were unsure whether we would even be able to hold our event — rumors swirled that the protesters would disrupt the SkyTrain and other events at the FCCT were cancelled — but despite the massive political uprising unfolding just outside the building, a number of journalists and media outlets recognized the importance of transparency in Burma, attended our event, asked poignant questions, and wrote some excellent stories.

(VIDEO) Press Conference, 27 April 2010

With my ERI colleague Matthew Smith and Shwe Gas Movement colleague Wong Aung, we addressed about 20-30 journalists. We explained why revenue transparency is important for the people of Burma; what it will and will not do for Burma and why these three companies can and should become the first to publish their payments to the notorious ruling junta. We called on the companies to publish taxes, fees, royalties, benefits, and other payments they’ve made to the authorities since 1992.

This initiative has an unprecedented group of endorsers, including ethnic representative groups from Burma, labor unions from the US to South Korea, human rights, environmental, and good-governance NGOs, investment firms, world-class academics, and even world leaders, including Mary Robinson, the former President of Ireland and former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Kjell Magne Bondevik, the two-time former Prime Minister of oil-rich Norway. All these groups and individuals, over 160 in all, endorsed a two-page statement demanding transparency by Total, Chevron, and PTTEP. 

I told them about the lack of freedom of information in Burma, and how the people don’t have access to information about how much money these companies have paid the ruling junta over the last 18 years. I told the media about how the Burmese military government has spent hundreds of millions, if not billions, of US dollars on upgrading their military and defense systems, building underground tunnels to hide themselves from imaginary invaders, all the while spending almost nothing on education and health care for the people of Burma. I explained why the people should have a right to know: because these are payments made to the state, and because these are the peoples’ natural resources. I explained how people are suffering needlessly from the Burmese Army while the generals bank millions upon millions. I told them that revenue transparency won’t change the direct human rights violations against local people around natural gas pipelines — abuses like forced labor, killings, and torture — but that transparency is a step toward more accountability in my country.

My colleague from ERI, Matthew Smith explained why transparency is beneficial not only to the people of Burma, but to the oil companies themselves, and to investors and capital providers, too. “It can improve any company’s shareholder value, it’s a basic element of corporate responsibility, and it’s intrinsically the right thing to do,” he said. He also explained how there’s no legal restrictions preventing these companies from doing the right thing: Through the Doe v. Unocal lawsuit in United States’ courts, ERI obtained the companies’ contracts with the Burmese authorities, and there’s nothing in these contracts that would prevent the companies from practicing full disclosure. “The only thing stopping them would be their own intransigence,” Matthew said, “and that’d be unwise, because secrecy in this case is bad business.”     

My colleague Wong Aung told the crowd about the Shwe gas project, operated by Daewoo International and China’s CNPC. He explained the land confiscation taking place in western Burma to make room for the new pipeline to China, and the complete lack of financial transparency practiced by the companies involved. “Total, Chevron, and PTTEP should practice transparency and set an example for these other companies,” he said. 

While Total, Chevron, or PTTEP have yet to publically respond to our collective call for disclosure of their payments to the Burmese junta, we won’t stop until there’s full revenue and payment transparency in Burma.