Amid the wave of mass media coverage of brutal repression against democracy activists in Burma, almost nothing has appeared about the role of Canadian and other western corporate interests in that country.
As a contribution in the Dominion online website noted, "try to find any coverage at all that mentions Ivanhoe Mines" in relation to Burma.
Vancouver-based Ivanhoe Mines has been among the largest contributors in export income for the Burmese military junta. After lengthy protests by groups such as Canadian Friends of Burma, Ivanhoe agreed to sell its 50% interest in the Monywa copper mine, from which the company raked in annual profits in the $25 million dollar range for many years.
Ivanhoe transferred its holdings to an "independent trust" last February as a condition of a strategic partnership reached in October 2006 with mining transnational Rio Tinto PLC. Charged with selling the Monywa asset, the trust has issued Ivanhoe a promissory note to be repaid from proceeds of the sale. Ivanhoe says it now receives no revenue from the mine, although it did get a $6.6 million payment during the second quarter of 2007 from the trust, which the company said was used to reduce the amount owed on the promissory note.
On a global scale, several hundred companies are known or suspected of having business links to Burma. Many foreign companies have ceased doing business there, under pressure from the international trade union movement and human rights and democracy groups, but others still have relations with the dictatorship.
Burma's workforce faces strong repression, including the widespread use of forced labour. The international trade union movement and the European Trade Union Confederation have for many years called on the EU to include Burmese state monopolies covering gas, oil, mining, tropical woods and precious stones in the list of companies with which EU‑based multinationals are forbidden to do business.
Multinationals with well‑documented links to Burma include Caterpillar (USA), China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC), China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC), Daewoo International (Korea), Siemens (Germany), Gas Authority of India (GAIL), GlaxoSmithKline (UK), Hyundai (Korea), ONGC Videsh Ltd (India), Swift (Belgium), and Total (France).
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently told a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations that "the United States is determined to keep an international focus on the travesty that is taking place" in Burma.
Rice served on the board of directors of Chevron Oil for a decade. She even had a Chevron oil tanker named after her.
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Burma's military controls natural gas reserves in partnership with Chevron, Total and a Thai oil firm. Offshore natural gas facilities deliver extracted gas to Thailand through Burma's Yadana pipeline, built with forced labour. The original pipeline partner, Unocal, was sued by EarthRights International for the use of slave labour. As soon as the suit was settled out of court, Chevron bought Unocal.
According to Marco Simons, U.S. legal director at EarthRights International: "Before Yadana went online, Burma's regime was facing severe shortages of currency. It's really Yadana and gas projects that kept the military regime afloat to buy arms and ammunition and pay its soldiers."
The U.S. government has had sanctions against Burma since 1997, but a "grandfathering" loophole allowed Unocal an exemption which it passed on to Chevron.
While Rice served on the Chevron board, the company was sued for involvement in the killing of nonviolent protesters in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. The latest protests in Burma were actually triggered by a government‑imposed increase in fuel prices.
