(IPS) feature

US environmentalists and human rights activists have joined labour unions to pressure a New York-based oil company to sell its ownership of a British company that invests in Burma, also known as Myanmar.

Citing the Burmese military regime's abuse of human rights, the coalition is urging Amerada Hess, best known as a petrol retailer in the eastern United States, to divest its 25 percent stake in London-based Premier Oil, which does business in Burma.

''Hess Teamsters are appalled that their company, whose success they help create, would be connected in any way to the denial of human rights,'' said James Hoffa, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Hundreds of Hess truck drivers belong to the union.

Carl Tursi, a spokesperson for Amerada Hess, told IPS the company's investment in Premier is ''ring fenced'' and does not include contracts in Burma.

''We do not have any people in Burma and we do not participate in discussions or decisions about Burma,'' he said.

Concerned about image

Tursi acknowledged, however, that the company is concerned about its image and reputation and hinted at possible action.

Until last month, Hess's investment in Premier was subject to a standstill agreement that barred the US company from adding to or selling from its stake in the British firm.

''Now that it has expired, we are free to look at that investment, like we look at all our investments,'' Tursi said.

Activists said they are determined the company not just look, but act. This week, they began picketing Hess petrol stations up from Connecticut down the eastern seaboard to Florida.

Heidi Quante, coordinator of the non-governmental Burma Project, said Amerada Hess should follow the example of US companies that have pulled out of Burma. These include Texaco, ARCO, and Amoco.

Pariah corporations

''Hess's connection to Burma's junta puts it in the company of a small number of pariah corporations still doing business with this internationally reviled regime,'' said Quante.

Relations between Burma and the United States have been poor since the Burmese military refused to honour the results of 1990 elections swept by the National League for Democracy (NLD) and its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.

Suu Kyi, who later won the Nobel Peace Prize, and other opposition and civil society leaders were arrested in a crackdown that has effectively lasted more than ten years. Suu Kyi has called for sanctions against the regime as the best way to force it into negotiations over a transition to democratic rule.

Last November, in an unprecedented action, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) called for all member countries to ''review their relations'' with Burma in light of that country's failure to redress confirmed reports of forced labour.

In addition to concern about military repression, Washington accused the junta and top military officers of failing to cooperate with its efforts to combat opium and heroin production, protecting known traffickers, and sharing in the profits of the drug trade.

New investments banned

Under pressure from grassroots activists, former President Bill Clinton banned all new US investment in Burma from 1997 but his order did not address existing contracts, such as a major gas pipeline project co-financed by San Francisco-based Unocal, or orders by apparel companies for goods produced by Burmese factories.

Amerada Hess's 25 percent ownership of Premier Oil apparently was not subject to Clinton's executive order because it was not considered a direct investment in Burma, said Marco Simon, a fellow at Washington-based Earth Rights International, which also called on Hess to divest from Premier.

So far, more than 50 companies worldwide have left Burma due to international pressure. But many Asia-based companies, including Malaysia's Petronas energy company, and some European companies, such as France's TotalFinaElf oil firm, remain.

British activists have pressured Premier to divest from projects including the Yetagun natural gas pipeline, a joint venture with the Burmese government that, activists said, is one of the junta's principal sources of revenue.

Forced labour

Rights activists have charged that soldiers providing security for the pipeline have subjected civilians to forced labour, forced relocation, rape, torture, and murder.

Environmentalists also have protested against the pipeline because it cuts through the Tenasserim rainforest, one of the largest intact forests in South-east Asia and home to numerous endangered species, including elephants and rhinoceros.

Suu Kyi, who remains under house arrest, has called for the oil company to withdraw.

Activists said abuses in the Yetagun pipeline region are not isolated occurrences but are part of a pattern of increased military presence near energy infrastructure.

Despite oil executives' assertions to the contrary, abuses continue and ''severe forced labour and beatings have occurred in the pipeline region within the past year,'' said Quante.