The public across Myanmar is begging for Western governments to impose sanctions to cut the military's access to crucial oil and gas funds from foreign companies.
The young woman chanted slogans outside Total’s offices, and later protested the military’s takeover. She said she has since lost her job, and was thrown into prison for three weeks.
The AP also obtained a copy of a letter from workers at Yadana to their managers earlier this year calling on Total’s subsidiary, Total E&P Myanmar, to suspend export payments to the military, place the funds in a protected account and freeze income tax.“We are specifically concerned that the profits gained from Yadana Project, which we are working for, will, one way or another, help fund the military junta’s violent repression of Myanmar people,” the letter said.
The sanctions would target the state-owned Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise , which is a joint venture partner in all offshore gas projects in Myanmar, including Yadana with Total, Chevron, and Thailand’s PTT Exploration & Production. Total has a majority stake in the venture and runs its daily operations, while MOGE collects revenues on behalf of the government. Gas from Yadana is piped to Myanmar and neighboring Thailand.
The U.S. State Department did not directly address AP’s questions about why it has yet to impose sanctions on MOGE. Instead, the department pointed to a list of other people and entities the U.S. has already sanctioned, including several military officials and their family members, two army units believed responsible for a litany of atrocities, the military’s two largest holding companies and a state-owned gems enterprise.
“It certainly seems in the U.S. there is a major lobbying campaign going on from Chevron to try and protect its interests,” said Chris Sidoti, a human rights lawyer and a member of the U.N. Fact Finding Mission on Myanmar from 2017 to 2019. French authorities have told activists that Europe is expecting to impose a fourth round of sanctions by Feb. 1, the anniversary of the military’s takeover, and that both the energy and banking sectors are on the table.
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