Word: burma
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...University has held onto those shares—and there’s no reason to believe it hasn’t—they would be worth more than $15 million today. Chevron, meanwhile, owns a 28.3 percent working interest in a production and pipeline venture in Burma. By Chevron’s own account, the venture yielded an average of 683 million cubic feet of natural gas each...
...income does not trickle down to the country’s 52 million people, more than 30 percent of whom live below the poverty line. Rather, these petrodollars sate the junta leaders’ appetite for luxury goods and lavish mansions. More disturbingly, according to the Burma Campaign UK, nearly half of the government’s revenue goes to the military. These dollars paid for the guns that were used last week to shoot down Buddhist monks and pro-democracy activists who were protesting peacefully against the regime’s abuses...
Since 1997, the U.S. has responded to these rights violations through sanctions that bar new investment in Burma. Chevron acquired its stake in the Burmese joint venture eight years after the onset of the sanctions, when it purchased rival Unocal in 2005. But since Unocal’s stake in Burma predates the 1997 sanctions, and thus is not a “new investment,” Chevron can keep its stake in the joint venture under federal law. In fact, the joint venture has continued to expand production in Burma since 2005. It added another wellhead platform last...
...Ibrahim Gambari was allowed to meet with Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy won elections in 1990 that the junta ignored. Exile websites wondered whether this meeting meant that more moderate officers were holding sway. Rumors also abounded that Than Shwe's family had fled the country. But Burma's military has ruled with an iron grip for 45 years and predicting its demise - or even nascent reform within its ranks - is a dangerous exercise. Burma's generals may be faceless, but their staying power has outstripped that of the world's far better known dictators...
...same time, the generals have expanded their influence by doubling the army's size in just two decades. Burma's fighting force is now 400,000 strong, making it one of the largest militaries per capita in the world. Any signs of internal dissent within the armed forces are quickly suppressed. General Khin Nyunt, the former head of military intelligence who was once hailed as a potential reformer for suggesting dialogue with democracy leader Suu Kyi, now languishes under house arrest on corruption charges. Dissident groups in neighboring Thailand are peopled with former army officers who had the temerity...