Unocal Feeling the Heat (Part 1/2)

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                      Feeling the Heat

Unocal Defends Myanmar Gas Pipeline Deal.
by Evelyn Iritani
Time Staff Writer
LA Times, Feb 20, 1995

Unical Corp. is no stranger to the volatile mix of foreign dictators, 
political unrest and developing economies.

Over the past three decades, the Southern California enery giant has
weathered a military crackdown in Indonesia after an aborted Communist
rebellion in 1965, the overthrow of Philippine strongman Ferdinand
Marcos in 1986 and a succession of peaceful, and not so peaceful, coups
in Thailand.

Through it all, Unocal kept drilling for oil and natural gas, filling its
corporate coffers and providing jobs and energy for countries now being
enthusiastically courted by other multinationals interested in a piece of
Southeast Asia's rapidly expanding energy market.

Now Unocal - undeterred by the prospect of consumer boycott, shareholder
protests and scathing editorials - is heading straight into another
center-stage controversy. The Los Angles-based company signed a contract
this month giving it a prominent role in a $1-billion natural gas
pipeline across Myanmar (Formerly Burma) that critics say will enrich
a brutal military regime, displace ethnic groups and destroy one of
the country's largest remaining tropical rain forests.

When Unocal President John F. Imle Jr. looks at a map, he sees
a giant infrastructure project promising healthy returns for his
shareholders and a better life fo Myanmar's 43 million people.

His critics see a pact with the devil - one that will boost
the finaces and image of Myanmar State Law and Restoration
Council (SLORC), who leaders are accused of slaughtering
thousand of pro-democracy demonstrators in 1988 and 
waging a war of terror against their political opponents
and rebel ethnic minority groups ever since.