Whose Pipeline is it Anyway?
According
to the DVB (Democratic Voice of Burma), seventy-five percent of the Burmese
population is without access to the national electricity grid. This lack of electricity has far reaching
consequences that put the majority of the Burmese at a disadvantage. Electricity allows students to study at any
hour of the night, and creates the opportunity for cell phones and computers,
ultimately granting access to the wider world via the internet. Electricity also allows farmers to make the
move from physically taxing manual labor to subsistence farming. Subsistence
farming is not only better for the health of farmers, but also typically
produces higher crop yields.
With
such an enormous energy yielding pipeline being built literally across the span
of Myanmar, one would think the people would be celebrating the introduction of
energy into their communities. But they
are not. Thousands of acres of land have
been confiscated from Burmese farmers in order to build a large corridor of
land around the proposed pipeline, and many of these farmers have been
protesting their received compensation as woefully inadequate. Furthermore, and perhaps more disturbingly,
is the fact that even though the pipeline runs through the entirety of Myanmar,
locals have not been granted any access to the oil and gas which will run
through their confiscated lands. This
means that of the estimated 12 million tons of crude oil and the 12 billion
cubic meters of natural gas per year, locals whose lands come into direct
contact with the pipeline and whose lands will likely suffer the most from it
will receive exactly zero of the energy benefits which the pipeline
delivers.
So,
if the Burmese aren't getting the enormous amounts of energy being delivered by
the pipeline, who is? According to Narinjara, an independent news agency, 50.9%
majority of the stake in the pipeline is held by China National Petroleum
Corporation. They are ensuring that this
pipeline delivers its energy producing power straight into mainland China, and
have been largely ignoring the demands of the locals whom they displace and
disenfranchise.
The
real question that arises from this is:
Why would Myanmar let China do this?
Despite the fact that the pipeline runs across the breadth of Myanmar,
Burmese shareholders are in the minority, and therefore ultimately do not have
the final word in the decision making process.
If the average Burmese citizen is not allowed access to this energy
development, then it is quite clear that the privileged few who do have sold
much of their country's future in return for personal gain. It still remains to
be seen whether Myanmar, now a developing democracy, can utilize this
development for good rather than to fatten the wallets of Chinese developers
and corrupt Burmese politicians.
by Zachary James, GCC Contributor
Sources:
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