Burma, August 14: The French energy giant Total is at the centre of allegations that Burmese villagers are being used as forced labour to help support a huge gas pipeline that is earning the country’s military regime hundreds of millions of dollars.
Testimony from villagers and former soldiers gathered by human rights workers suggests that Burmese soldiers, who provide security for the Yadana pipeline on behalf of Total, are forcing thousands of people to work portering, carrying wood and repairing roads in the pipeline area. They have also been forced to build police stations and barracks.
One villager, identified pseudonymously as Htay Win Oo, told researchers from the Thailand-based human rights group EarthRights International (ERI): “Since early 2009 I’ve [witnessed] Burmese soldiers … that are stationed near our village ask our village to build a new police camp.
The soldiers ordered villagers to build a new camp in late March. The land where they set up the new camp belongs to local villagers … the soldiers ordered villagers to help build it. Villagers had to cut bamboo, wood, and leaves for the building and at the same time they had to build it.”
–Agencies