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Newsletter>
Unocal Charged with Using Slave Labor
April 1, 2005
Today's article on The Arctic Beacon's website has
particular significance since it shows just how far
corporate greed will lead to violations of human rights of
unsuspecting, innocent civilians.
In this case, Burmese villagers allege being the victims of
Unocal's incessant thirst for oil and profits by acting in
complicity with the Burmese government in hiring slave
labor for a 1992 pipeliine project, the project leading to
the alleged torture, rape and murder of innocent villagers.
The case is now being heard in a U.S. Federal Court in
California under a little known law called the Alien Torts
Claims Act. This law was passed in 1789 and allows foreign
nationals the right to use U.S. courts to redress serious
human rights grievances.
The Bush administration has now stepped in the case and
wantsthe law removed from the books, an unprecedented legal
move never tried before in the history of our country by a
sitting Presidential administration.
Bush basically wants corporations to be free from the
possibility of any human rights liability like may bave
occured in the atrocities alleged in the Unocal case.
But more importantly this signifies to the world, America's
heartless approach to life in general. Also, if the Bush
administratrion is allowed to repeal the Alien Torts Act,
it sends out a worldwide message that America in fact
condones violence, leading to murder, rape and torture in
the name of corporate progress.
It is a terrible message to send and we ask your comments
be made known in order to stop the Bush administration in
its tracks. Once human rights are discarded abroad the next
step is to not observe them at home.
If Americans are truly a kinder and gentler people, a
public outcry should resound worldwide denouncing the Bush
administration's approval of American corporations who
violate human rights while working overseas.
Read today's article about Unocal and if you're not
convinced about Bush's plan to repeal the Alien Tort's Act,
read our December 8, 2004, article about the recent Bush
appointment to the ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the
court now hearing the Unocal case.
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