The Burma Campaign UK today warned that ChevronTexaco’s purchase of UNOCAL means it could become a target of human rights campaigners. UNOCAL has significant investments in military ruled Burma.
ChevronTexaco’s $18bn takeover of UNOCAL will make the company a partner of Burma’s military regime in the Yadana gas project in Burma. Earlier this year a global campaign was launched to persuade TOTAL Oil – another partner in the project – to pull out of Burma.
“ChevronTexaco have bought themselves a major headache,” said John Jackson, Director of the Burma Campaign UK. “UNOCAL’s Burma operations means that Chevron will now be close business partners of one of the most brutal regimes in the world. Unless they state that they will sell off the Burma operations as soon as possible, they will come under pressure from investors and human rights groups.”
ChevronTexaco will be placed on the ‘Dirty List’ of companies directly or indirectly funding the regime in Burma, which will next be updated on August 23rd 2005.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won 82% of the seats in the elections in 1990, but the regime refused to hand over power and instead imprisoned and tortured NLD members. Amnesty International and the United Nations have reported a deteriorating human rights situation in Burma in the past year. Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest following a brutal crackdown and massacre of up to 100 of her supporters in May 2003. More than half the population of Burma lives in extreme poverty, while at the same time the regime spends around half of its budget on the military.
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