Stop The Burmese Gas Export From Arakan State

To people around the world:

We, the Arakan Gas Movement and individuals, urge you to join our campaign to postpone the extraction of Natural Gas from Arakan State until there is democracy in Burma. The lives and well-being of the people of Arakan and Burma are at stake.

As documented in our fact-sheet "Wasted Resource," an Indo-South Korean consortium, led by Daewoo International, is together with Burma's military government planning to extract natural gas from the A-1 block in Western Burma. In late December 2003, the consortium struck what it calls, "a world-class commercial-scale gas deposit," measuring between 4.2-5.8 trillion cubic feet (tfc) of gas. The well, called Shwe-1, is the first discovery out of several expected pockets in the block, and earlier estimates state that between 13-47 tcf is buried in the field.

The gas block is projected to become the Burma's largest ever gas reserve and source of foreign income which would further entrench Burma's military regime that has ruled Burma since 1962. The junta spends over 40\% of its national budget on defense, maintaining the largest per capita military force in the world, despite being one of the world's poorest countries. In comparison, Burma's health and education spending is 0.4\% and 0.5\% respectively according to the UNDP.

Despite the fact that Arakan State remains a neglected and underdeveloped frontier area lacking even the most basic energy supplies, the proposed pipeline will be exported to West Bengal in India. The people of Arakan and other parts of Burma have no say in the development of the natural resources and are jailed for expressing even the most basic desire and rights of their life. The current military government rules not for life, liberty and the well-being of the people of Burma, but rather the perpetuation of its own power. The regime has not transferred control of the state to the duly elected parliamentarians, and does not show any sign of willingness to do so.

The junta, despite the international and oppositions demands, continues to break almost every articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Injustice upon the ordinary Arakanese and Burmese are carried out through inhumaned ways causing injuries from every perspectives: individually, culturally, and economuically. This trend is not going to change with the money they gained from the gas sale.

Based on the experience of the Yadana and Yetagun natural gas projects in southeastern Burma, and other infrastructure development projects, the project will have a devastating effect on western Burma. The Yadana/Yetagun project involved increased militarization and human rights abuses. Slave labour was used to clear the path of the pipeline and its access roads. Communities were forcibly relocated, their lands confiscated, and they suffered rape, torture and extra-judicial killlings at the hands of the regimes soldiers.

Although the gas exploration is only in its early stages, the military has started conscripting forced labour in building new military camps and access roads near the proposed pipeline routes. Moreover, we are concerned that the project will displace and divide century-old communities. It will destroy the livelihood of many farmers and fishermen of the area as well as the environment.

The sale of the valuable resources that are collectively own the Burmese people is not only the right thing, it is immoral thing. It is duty of all those people with morality to stop these illegal use of resources; to stop the Wasted Resource.

We, the AGM and individuals, urge the following:

1. The extraction of the Arakan natural gas must be postponed until a time when the affected people can participate in decisions about the use of their local resources without fearing persecution.

2. The international community, including democratic governments and oil corporations, must stop all current business with the military regime, and refrain from further investment until there is a democratically elected government in Burma.

3. The people of India, Bangladesh and the international community to join hands with the people of Burma to oppose this Arakan Gas project, by signing this petition and partaking in this campaign with us through our website;

http://www.geocities.com/arakangasmovement/arakangasmovement.htm

We would like to urge all the people around the world to join us in our fights against injustice, inhumanity and injury that people of Burma suffered under the brutal military regime.

Sincerely,

Arakan Gas Movement
Arakan, Burma