Halliburton's Love Affair with Burm

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In These Times
November 13, 2000

Halliburton's Love Affair with Burma's Dictators

BYLINE: A. A.

In a new report, EarthRights International, an NGO that
monitors environmental and human rights abuses, has
uncovered business ties between Halliburton Company
and the dictatorship in Burma (Myanmar). While Cheney
served as its chief executive, Halliburton subsidiaries worked
  on the Yadana pipeline project in Burma. In August 2000,
according to the report, a U.S. federal District Court found
that the Yadana pipeline consortium "knew the [Burmese]
military had a record of committing human rights abuses; that
the Project hired the military to provide security for the project,
a military that forced villagers to work and entire villages to
relocate for the benefit of the Project; [and] that the military,
while forcing villagers to work and relocate, committed numerous
acts of violence."   Natural gas deposits were found in the
Andaman Sea off Burma's coast in 1982. In 1 97, European
Marine Contractors (EMC) was hired to lay more than 200 miles
of offshore pipeline for the Yadana project. EMC is a joint venture
between Halliburton's Energy Services Group and the Italian
company Saipem. In 1998, Bredero-Price (now named Bredero-Shaw),
a subsidiary of Halliburton-owned Dresser Industries, manufactured
coatings for the Yetagun pipeline, which runs parallel to the  Yadana
pipeline. Bredero-Shaw is a joint venture between Canada's Shaw
Industries and Halliburton. The Yadana pipeline runs from the Andaman
Sea via Burma to Thailand.

In March 1996, Cheney personally signed an agreement between
the national Gas Authority of India and Brown & Root International,
a wholly owned subsidiary of Halliburton, to build a pipeline between
India and Burma's offshore deposits.

Not surprisingly, USA Engage and Cheney played a role in defeating
a Massachusetts selective purchasing law, which was overturned by
the Supreme Court this June. Cheney filed an amicus brief against
the law, which sought to isolate the Burmese regime because of its
well-documented human rights abuses, including forced labor and torture.
The full report, "Halliburton's Destructive Engagement: How Dick
Cheney and USA-Engage Subvert Democracy at Home and Abroad,"
can be found on EarthRights' Web site (www.earthrights.org).