• JOIN activists from New Delhi to New York, Dhaka to Seoul, and tell Daewoo they’re Dirty. Contact us now to join activists in your city on November 15th (email the person nearest you from the list below).
• PROTEST the severe human rights and environmental risks associated with Daewoo’s gas project in Burma, and tell Daewoo International and its corporate partners, including the governments of India and South Korea, that their corporate behavior and investments in Burma are intolerable.
• STAND in solidarity with the people of Burma as they reject South Korea and India’s support for the military regime in Burma, support which entrenches military rule.
• PARTICIPATE in the global struggle for human rights, environmental rights, and corporate responsibility.
• FIGHT the world’s addiction to oil and gas before it’s too late, and encourage governments and corporations to use alternative energy sources.

For more info see www.shwe.org and www.earthrights.org

Background 

 

In August 2000, Daewoo International partnered with Burma’s military junta, and in 2004, Daewoo announced that they had discovered a “world class commercial scale gas deposit” in Burma’s Bay of Bengal, with an estimated value at over US$40 billion.  This gas is being developed by private and state-owned companies from South Korea and India, led by Daewoo International, and it will most likely be sold to India and China through overland pipelines.

These parties are now negotiating the construction of at least one gas pipeline to India, which will carry the gas through Arakan and Chin states in Burma and through India’s northeast, landing in Bihar, India. This will displace thousands of local people in Burma and India and entrench one of the world’s most repressive and violent regimes: The ruling military regime in Burma.

Burma’s notorious military junta could earn between US$12-17 billion from the gas, funding their tyranny, while Daewoo stands to earn US$190 million annually for twenty years, funding their complicity. Not only will local people living along the pipeline route(s) not benefit from this project, they will be irreversibly impacted, suffering displacement and other imminent human rights abuses.

There are already reports that local fishing rights have been revoked to make room for gas exploration and development, and there are widespread reports of forced labor and other human rights abuses in Arakan and Chin states.

Pipeline construction and natural gas development projects in Burma result in land confiscation and displacement of thousands of local people, rape, torture, murder, and forced labor. (For more information on previous pipelines in Burma, see www.earthrights.org ).

Daewoo International, Korean Gas Corporation (KOGAS), ONGC Videsh Ltd., and GAIL will be complicit in these severe human rights abuses. Most recently, Daewoo International is now under investigation in Korea for illegally selling arms to Burma’s military junta, offering material support that in turn terrorizes and impoverishes over 50 million people of Burma.  

Help us prevent these devastating abuses and stop the Shwe gas project now. Do not simply read this, but please take action. This is the third Day of Action, taking place bi-yearly.