Wired News on May 22 & 23, 1995

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Re: Wired News on May 22 & 23, 1995
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Unocal Officials Can't Escape Controversy over Burma at Annual Meeting

By David Ivanovich, Houston Chronicle  Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News  

May 23--Unocal Corp. officials might have figured moving the annual meeting
from downtown Los Angeles to suburban Sugar Land would make for a somewhat
quiet session.  

Any such notions were quickly dispelled Monday when banners reading "Unocal
Supports Slave Labor in Burma" and "Save Burmese Rainforests No Deals with
Dictators" went up along U.S. 59.  

Human rights groups hammered away at company officials Monday, insisting
 Unocal pull out of military-controlled Burma, which is called Myanmar by it
 military rulers and Unocal officials.  

Unocal, France's Total, the Petroleum Authority of Thailand and Myanma Oil
and Gas Enterprise are developing the Yadana Field in the Sea of Andaman,  an
area believed to hold 5.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.  

The group plans to construct a $1 billion, 260-mile pipeline from the Yadana
Field east across Burma to Thailand. Unocal officials made clear Monday the
project is a cornerstone of the company's strategic plan. 

"In Thailand alone, gas markets are projected to grow more than 50 percent by
the year 2000 - and more than double by 2010," Unocal Chief Executive Roger
Beach said. "We intend to be a major player in supplying this growing
market."  

Unocal is not the only U.S. oil company operating in Burma. White Plains,  

N.Y.-based Texaco is exploring for oil and gas off the coast of Burma in the
 Gulf of Martarban.  

But Burma is a pariah in the international community, and its relations with
the United States are strained.  

The country's military government, the State Law and Order Restoration
Council (SLORC) invalidated the results of a 1990 democratic election and
placed opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize Winner Aung San Suu Kyi under
house arrest.  

While American companies remain the largest foreign investors in the country,
the U.S. government - charging that opium and heroin production doubled under
the current rulers - has moved to isolate Burma.  

The Wall Street Journal, a publication not exactly known for its liberal
 politics, noted in a Feb. 10 editorial: "We have argued for commerce and
 investment where it strengthens civil societies vis-a-vis dictators. But
these deals, by putting money directly into SLORC's pocket, only make a
richer prize out of political power. The prospect of vast petrodollars gives
the generals yet another reason to cling to office no matter how many bodies
of their fellow citizens pile up."  

At the annual meeting Monday, protesters told stories of Burmese citizens
 being relocated to make way for the pipeline or being even being forced to
 work in slave labor camps. 

"My home is not very far from the area where Unocal wants to build a
pipeline, " said Nai Ong Mon, secretary general for the Indigenous Mon
Council of Burma, now living in Philadelphia. "Does Unocal consider it has
any responsibility for the people whose property was seized for the pipeline?
They were living there before the United States was discovered."  

Human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch say they have documented cases
of Burmese being forced to clear land to build a railroad. And many
protesters insist Burmese civilians now are being forced to construct the
pipeline as well.  

That "outrageous" accusation angered Unocal's outgoing Chairman Richard
 Stegemeier, who noted that the railroad has no connection to the pipeline.
And he argued that reports of slave labor on the pipeline must be false,
since construction has not begun. 

"There is no slave labor on a pipeline that doesn't exist," Stegemeier said.
 

Stegemeier said the company sent representatives to the villages in the
 affected area to investigate complaints. "We have not observed, ourselves,  

any human rights violations in the area in which we work," Stegemeier said.  

And Stegemeier argued there is only so much a U.S. company working in a
 foreign land can do. 

"We are, by necessity, apolitical," Stegemeier said. "It's not only smart
 business, but it's often required by law and certainly by our contracts."  

Thaung Htun with the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma
 warned that if Unocal does not pull out now, a democratically elected
 government will not honor its contract if the military is forced out of
power.  

The protesters sponsored a stockholder proposal to beef up the company's
 ethics code. The board recommended shareholders vote against the proposal,
 and it was roundly defeated.  

Burma, however, was not the only issue on the protesters' agenda. They also
criticized the government's environmental record and its planned construction
of a sour gas plant in the Slave Field in Alberta, Canada, over the
objections of the local Lubican Lake Indian tribe.  

The annual meeting was the first shareholders meeting held outside California
in Unocal's 105-year history. While Unocal has reduced its Los Angeles staff
and is even looking for a corporate headquarters site outside downtown Los
Angeles, the company has been busily relocating nearly 900 employees to Sugar
Land.  

Numerous Fort Bend County officials attended the meeting to mark the
occasion.  

After the often-heated meeting Monday, Stegemeier joked: "Mr. Mayor, we may
go back to Los Angeles next year."  

Running the annual meeting was Stegemeier's last official duty as Unocal's
chairman. He stepped down from the chairman's post after six years in the
job, taking the title chairman emeritus.  

Beach, meanwhile, has assumed the title of chairman.   

END!I4?HO-UNOCAL 


Transmitted: 95-05-23 03:51:10 EDT
*************

Unocal Shareholders Back Controversial Projects

  (Adds management changes) 

    By James Pierpoint 

    SUGAR LAND, Texas (Reuter) - Unocal Corp. shareholders Monday rejected
proposals to limit the oil and natural gas company's involvement in a pair of
controversial international projects. 

    Shareholders rejected proposals attacking Unocal's decision to build a
gas processing plant on land claimed by the Lubicon Indian tribe in Canada,
and to continue with a natural gas pipeline project in Burma despite claims
villagers were being forced into slave labor in that country. 

    ``We are an apolitical company. We do not get involved in political
disputes in any country,'' said outgoing Unocal Chairman Richard Stegemeier. 

    Protesters lined up outside the company's annual meeting here on Monday
to draw attention to Unocal's opening of a natural gas processing plant in
Alberta, Canada, which protesters claim has led to increased stillbirths and
pollution in the area. 

    The Lubicon Indians living on a reservation nearby also claim the
expanded refinery operations infringe on their land rights in the area near
their village at Little Buffalo. 

    A proxy proposal asking the company to solicit concerns from the Lubicon
tribe in Alberta, Canada, about health risks and territorial issues generated
by Unocal's operation of the nearby gas plant garnered 4.7 percent of
shareholder votes. 

    The Los Angeles-based company also has come under increasing pressure
from human rights groups to curtail a natural gas pipeline project in Burma,
also known as Myanmar, after allegations a military government is forcing
some natives into slave labor there. 

    Stegemeier acknowledged allegations slave labor may have been used to
clear land for the railroad, but said there was no evidence villagers have
been forced to clear land for initial sections of the 70-mile pipeline. 

    The company recently completed its own investigation and said there was
no evidence backing claims the pipeline will displace villages and force
villagers into slave labor, Stegemeier said. 

    ``We have not observed for ourselves any human rights violations in the
areas in which we work,'' said Stegemeier, who said the railroad lies about
25 miles from the pipeline right of way. 

    The proxy proposal, which asked the company to review its involvement in
Myanmar, was supported by 5.8 percent of the shareholders at the annual
meeting. 

    Rev. Joseph La Mar, a spokesman for the Interfaith Center for Corporate
Responsibility, said the issues will be back on Unocal's proxy next year
because they each drew more than 4 percent of shareholder votes. 

    ``These things move glacially, but they do move,'' Father La Mar said.
``We won the day. We will be back. 

    Separately, the company said its board of directors named  Chief
Executive Officer Roger Beach to replace Stegemeier. Stegemeier was elected
chairman emeritus. 

    Beach, 58, has been chief executive officer of the company since May
1994, a position he assumed when Stegemeier retired as an employee of the
company after more than 42 years. Stegemeier, 66, will continue as a member
of the board of directors. 

    The board also re-elected John Imle Jr. as president of the company, and
Neal Schmale as chief financial officer. 

    Unocal stock rose 12.5 cents to $29.50 on the New York Stock Exchange. 

REUTER
Transmitted: 95-05-22 20:06:31 EDT
**************

Three Karen Killed in Raid in Thailand

      BANGKOK, May 23 (Reuter) - Three Karens, two of them members of Burma's
anti-Rangoon Karen guerrilla force, were killed on Tuesday in a raid on a
refugee village in Thailand by members of a rival Karen group, Thai police
said. 

    The two members of the Karen National Union (KNU) guerrilla group were
shot and killed along with a Karen women in the refugee village in northwest
Thailand early on Tuesday, the police said. 

    The gunmen were members of a rival group which broke away from the KNU
late last year and joined forces with the Burmese government army. 

    The breakaway faction, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA),
launched a series of cross-border raids on Karen refugee camps in Thailand
over recent months in an attempt to force the refugees, many of them KNU
supporters, back to government-controlled areas of Burma. 

    Thailand warned Burma about the raids and beefed up security on the
border in response. 

    Thailand says the 70,000 Karen refugees in Burma will be sent home when
the situation returns to normal in their homeland. 

REUTER
Transmitted: 95-05-23 12:00:30 EDT
**************

U.S. Congressman to Make Another Trip to Burma

      BANGKOK, May 23 (Reuter) - A U.S. Congressman who last year became the
first non-family member to meet Burma's dissident leader Aung San Suu Kyi
since she was detained will soon return to Rangoon, a U.S. diplomat said on
Tuesday. 

    Bill Richardson, a New Mexico Republican, will travel to Burma at the
weekend, said an official at the U.S. embassy in Bangkok. 

    It was not known if he would seek another meeting with Suu Kyi, who has
been held under house arrest since July 1989. 

    ``We don't know his schedule, but that (a meeting request) would seem
logical,'' the official said. 

    In February last year, Richardson became the first person, apart from her
immediate family, to meet the detained dissident leader since she was placed
under house arrest. 

    Suu Kyi told him she was ready to discuss anything with Burma's ruling
military body apart from exile. 

    The ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) has offered to
free the 49-year old daughter of Burma's independence hero Aung San as long
as she leaves the country. She has refused. 

    Last September she had her first meeting with SLORC leaders. She met
senior generals for a second time in October but since then there has been no
hint of further talks. 

    Suu Kyi rose to prominence in 1988 when she emerged as a charismatic
democracy leader during a nationwide uprising against 26 years of military
rule. 

    Burma's military eventually supressed the protests with substantial loss
of life. 

    The National League for Democracy (NLD), which she co-founded, won more
than 80 percent of seats in a 1990 election but the SLORC ignored the result
and refused to hand over power. 

REUTER
Transmitted: 95-05-23 11:47:40 EDT
***************

UN Gives China Province $3 Million to Fight Drugs

      BEIJING, May 22 (Reuter) - The United Nations agreed on Monday to
supply $2.9 million worth of equipment and training to help China's
heroin-plagued Yunnan province crack down on drugs, Chinese officials said. 

    The International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) and other U.N. agencies
would furnish basic equipment such as vehicles to police and customs
officials in the southwestern province, said Wang Qianrong of China's
National Narcotics Control Commission. 

    The three-year programme would also include training for law enforcement
officials by foreign experts and information exchange meetings, Wang said in
a telephone interview. 

    The equipment and training would be used to help turn back a rising tide
of drug-related crime Yunnan, which abuts the infamous ``Golden Triangle''
heroin-producing area around the point where the borders of Burma, Laos and
Thailand meet. 

    ``We are working very hard to stop illegal drugs at the Yunnan borders,''
Wang said. ``This programme will be a big help.'' 

    The programme is the third China has agreed with the UNDCP. Under the
last programme, which ran from 1987 to 1992, the United Nations supplied
around $5 million in assistance for anti-narcotic operations in southwest
China, Wang said. 

    The UNDP is sponsoring a drug control meeting of ministers from China,
Thailand, Burma, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in Beijing at the weekend to map
out a regional policy, he said. 

    Security officials in Yunnan say efforts to clamp down on international
traffickers, who use the province as a conduit to the markets of eastern
China, Hong Kong and the West, are meeting with success -- despite other
statements that the trade is growing. 

    Yunnan authorities executed 466 people for drug offences and seized 2.81
tonnes of heroin in 1994, official figures said. 

    Doctors believe there are at least 100,000 heroin addicts in the
province. 

REUTER
Transmitted: 95-05-22 10:10:07 EDT
**************

--------------------------------------------------end.