BURMA, FORCED LABOURERS FOR THE PIPELINE
By Cyril Payen (Translated from French)
Le Nouvel Observateur, January 16 2003
On the Thai-Burma border, Thai soldiers hunt down Burmese illegal immigrants. Their main victims: farmers who fled from forced labour on the site of the pipeline built by TotalFinaElf and who had decided to testify to the human rights violations they suffered. Let's call them K. and T. They are Burmese, farmers from the Tavoy region. K. and T. were working in Thailand on the site of a well-known buddhist monastery when intelligence and police services raided the site and caught them.
They were chained and taken to a jail of the immigration department where, at the occupation rate of 50 per cell, they take turns to sleep due to the lack of space. Towards the end of December, when the number of illegal migrant workers detained had exceeded 200, they were driven west to the Burmese border in police trucks, according to the usual process of forced "repatriation" of illegal migrants.
In spite of his high fever - which had not been treated during his detention -, K. was taken with the whole group to the border line, to a zone under Burmese army control, where those exiles forced to return become prey to the army's arbitrary will and savage violence.
They are brow-beaten, interrogated about their reasons for fleeing their country, and, most of the time, suspected of being political dissidents. They are commonly subjected to entire days of torture, detention, sometimes executed with a bullet to the head.
The TotalFinaElf pipeline area is a "black zone" - in other words, the army can shoot on sight. In this "security corridor" created by the Burmese junta 's army, about 10,000 soldiers have been posted - a hundred times more than before Total's arrival- who provision themselves with the methods of an occupation army. A message from the military regional command, intercepted a few weeks ago by an opposition group, carried the order to "dispose of the body if a civilian is killed".
This is why K. and T. now hide in the jungle somewhere near the Three Pagoda Pass. Worse: these two men are no ordinary illegal migrants. They dared reveal what they had experienced and seen in the pipeline area; they even dared sign at the foot of a handwritten declaration for a French court. K. is a plaintiff and T. a witness in the court-case against the French company TotalFinaElf opened last August by two Paris lawyers, Bernard Dartevelle and William Bourdon. K., a forced-labour victim, has also witnessed a rape allegedly committed by a Total employee. T., it seems, knows a lot about the close relationship between the army and the petroleum company during the construction of the pipeline which crosses their native region in the South of Burma. They had to flee.
The last time they were seen free was a few weeks ago, in a remote border village, during a secret meeting with their French lawyers. Then, at the end of a long talk, after a warm embrace, they had carefully put the lawyers' name-cards in their back-pockets before disappearing in the night.
Less than 5 months since the court-case opened these two men are now hunted, along with ten other Burmese witnesses and plaintiffs who had wished to "testify to the brutality and destruction which had surrounded Total's presence in their region". Thus the case seems to have come to a standstill. "If the French judge were to travel there today he would not be able to meet anyone," adds a person familiar with the case. In the judicial process against the French oil company Htoo Chit is one of the lead witnesses. He has documented the scandal. Since 1996, he has been gathering dozens of tales of human right violations inflicted on the local people in Total's pipeline area. Requisitions, executions, deportations, taking of forced labourers among men, women, children. "At present all those connected in any way to the court case have had to flee and hide in the jungle", he confirms from his hiding place. "Out of the dozen plaintiffs and witnesses, one has disappeared two months ago and another is too scared to talk further." He, himself, was able to flee across the border towards the end of December, just a few minutes before two army trucks arrived at his door, and this time his contacts in Thai intelligence are no longer able to help.
As a disturbing coincidence we can now observe a unique phenomenon in Western Thailand, a traditional sanctuary for the Burmese opposition : a large scale military operation by the Thai army is taking place in areas next to Total's plants. "This is an operation aiming at securing the French pipeline", confirms a Thai officer posted in this region.
This unprecedented, and finely targeted, operation has been launched by the strong 9th Division of the Thai Army. It began just a few days after the meeting in Bangkok between the French lawyers and the Burmese involved in the court case. "It's as if someone had pulled the alarm signal, says Htoo Chit, and now we are all fugitives". Ba Kyaw, a young deserter from the 402nd Battalion of the Burmese Army (brought in to secure Total at the beginning of the project), was 14 years old when he enrolled in the army, and also knows a lot. It took many links through underground networks to be able to meet him in a jungle of southern Burma. "Five of the six helipads in this area were built by forced labourers recruited by us", he said. "The pilots, the French engineers, were also there. We imposed quotas of workers per village. If there were not enough men available, we had orders to send women and children instead.
Apart from building helipads and clearing the vegetation, another task for them was also to place the pipe at the bottom of the trench.Total's employees sometimes took photographs." As a damning revelation he tells of this odd ceremony which he remembers taking place one day, after they had returned to the barracks. "Our commander had organised a large party. There was whisky, videos, and music. With a public address system he explained that Total had paid them money, dollars, as they thought we would be exhausted after working on the plant's security for six months. And he said it was time for us to have our share: 500 kyats (just over one month salary) for each of the 100 soldiers, 5000 kyats for NCOs, and larger sums for officers. I don't know how much the commander received, but he bought with it a new Japanese car, just like the commander of battalion 401. His bodyguard and his translator attended the discussions on payment with the "Pynthe" (the French).
At present, eight years after Total arrived there, there is a serious threat on this pipeline, apart from the court case by the two French lawyers. Its track through the Burmese jungle seems to have been sown with bombs. This is what people say in some villages where dozens of people have fled to escape the pipeline. "There are suspicious movements in the night", they say. "We fear an explosion." They are not wrong. "The operation has started. We use Charlie, C-4, explains a well-informed and discreet man somewhere in the region. "Ten sites have been selected. There are cans containing 4 kilos of Charlie and metal grape-shot,with a long cout-down and linked with a very sophisticated and secure radio control.which is already activated."
According to him several perfectly trained commando units have set up a vast sabotage operation. "We move on the site with night-vision glasses, GPS and metal detectors as used in airports, to avoid the MM1Chinese mines and the tiny copies of M14 American mines , placed by the "tatmadaw"[Burmese army] in the vicinity of the pipeline", he adds. He also says that their operational budget exceeds one million baht (over 22 000 euros), a huge sum whose origin he does not know.
According to this well informed individual, those who organised the sabotage have already left Thailand. "There is no ultimatum, it' s too late, he says. This way maybe the manager of Total will perhaps realize what sorrow he has brought on us."
