Friday, 18 June 2010 19:50 Thomas Maung Shwe
(Chiang Mai) - Mizzima has learned that while serving as Korea’s foreign minister, UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon promoted and publicly praised Daewoo’s controversial Shwe natural gas pipeline project in Burma, calling it a “win-win situation”.
The controversial project that started construction two weeks ago is the effort of a multinational consortium that consists of Chinese, Indian, Burmese and Korean state-owned firms as minority partners, with Daewoo International having the largest stake and taking the lead in its development.
The Korea Herald newspaper in Seoul called the Shwe gas project South Korea’s “largest overseas project”. It is estimated that royalties from it will give the Burmese regime an estimated US$40 billion over three decades, funds that critics fear will empower its army for years to come. Construction of an 800-kilometre pipeline that will send gas from Burma’s west coast to China began last week.
The uncovering of Ban’s pro-Daewoo pipeline comments comes as the UN chief faces intense criticism from international rights advocates who question his commitment to democracy and human rights.
The pro-pipeline comments were made in August 2005 when Ban was in New Delhi for talks with his Indian counterpart K. Natwar Singh. According to the India press, a high priority for both governments was Daewoo’s collaboration with two Indian state-controlled firms in the Shwe natural gas project: the Gas Authority of India (Gail) and ONGC Videsh, the wholly-owned international subsidiary of the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC). The Press Trust of India citing the agreed minutes of the meeting described it this way:
“Taking note of the model of Daewoo-OVL-Gail partnership in Myanmar [Burma], the two sides agreed collaboration in exploration of hydrocarbon resources between Indian and South Korean companies would lead to a ‘win-win’ situation.”
That Ban had agreed the Shwe project was a “win-win” has outraged human rights advocates and Burmese exiles who have grave concerns about the devastating environmental impact of the project, which they predict will provide billions in foreign currency for the Burmese military to buy weapons to use against their own people .
Wong Aung from the Shwe Gas Campaign, an advocacy group that is strongly opposed to the Shwe project told Mizzima it “is a ‘win win’ for Ban Ki-moon and Korean industry but certainly not the people of Burma, just the killer generals”.
Naing Htoo from Earth Rights International also objected to the controversial project being called a “win-win”, saying that the “Shwe Project will harm Korea’s reputation, Daweoo’s reputation and it poses direct human rights threat to thousands of villagers in Burma, so I’d say it’s a ‘lose-lose’ situation. Unless the junta completely changes the way it manages natural resource wealth and unless it starts to protect human rights rather than violate them, the Shwe project is a disaster.”
When questioned last year by a reporter from Inner City Press about his stance on Daewoo’s Shwe project Ban refused to comment. On Wednesday June 9 the same reporter, Matthew Russell Lee, asked the UN chief’s spokesman, Farhan Haq, if Ban still believed the project was a “win-win”. Haq claimed he would find out. When reached for comment by Mizzima a week later, Haq claimed he was still looking into the matter and failed to provide an answer.
When Ban travelled to Burma last summer in what many observers believed was a half-hearted attempt to show he was doing something, the Burmese regime refused to let him see detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Many Burma opposition activists believed Ban could have pushed harder for a meeting with the world’s most famous political prisoner, but failed to do so out of fear he would risk angering the regime and harm a project important to Korean industry. Several weeks after Ban’s visit, US Senator Jim Webb was allowed to meet the detained Nobel Peace laureate.
Wong Aung from the Shwe gas movement feels that the Ban has never ceased being Korea’s Foreign Minister, “when he served Korea Ban Ki-moon was clearly a supporter of Daewoo’s Shwe gas project, an environmentally destructive pipeline that will be built on land stolen from the citizens of Burma. Its clear that when he became UN secretary general he didn’t stop pursuing Korean business interests and I strongly believe this has a lot to do with his reluctance to challenge the Burmese regime”.
Wong Aung points out that Ban’s friendly overtures to the dictatorial regime of Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan coincide with the massive amounts of Korean investment in that central Asian nation. In addition to Daewoo International, two Korean state-owned firms Korea Gas Corporation (Kogas) and the Korean National Oil Corporation (KNOC) have each invested several billion dollars in the former Soviet republic’s lucrative energy sector. Uzbekistan’s despotic ruler Karimov has been accused by rights groups of jailing and executing large numbers of his opponents. In 2002, Craig Murray, then Britain’s Ambassador to Uzbekistan, commissioned a forensic report concluding that a deceased Uzbek dissident had likely died as a result of his having been boiled alive by his jailers.
He said that he was particularly disturbed to read that spokesman Haq could not confirm if on his April trip to Uzbekistan Ban had raised the conviction in February of a prominent Aids activist who worked closely with United Nations agencies. Human Rights Watch reported that Maxim Popov was sentenced to seven years’ jail for “anti-social behaviour” because he wrote and distributed Aids-awareness pamphlets that were printed with funds from the UN.
The plight of Maxim Popov, Wong Aung believed, was not high on the secretary-general’s list of priorities, if at all. He said: “Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon built up ties between Seoul and places that are priority areas for Korean industry such as Burma and Uzbekistan, helping to make Korea one of the biggest investors in both nations.”
“Evidently Ban Ki-moon thinks he’s still Korean foreign minister and he can’t risk his good standing with Uzbekistan’s dictator by speaking out about the plight of Maxim Popov, a man who was jailed by a paranoid regime for handing out UN-funded material on Aids prevention,” he said.
“Ban Ki-moon’s relationship with Burma’s generals is exactly the same – the rights of Korean business trump human rights. Going by his record as secretary-general it is abundantly clear that Ban Ki-moon is not fit for the job of heading the UN – he really is a disgrace.”
Friday, June 18, 2010
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