Myanmar nationals protest against Chinese gas pipeline project - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

Myanmar nationals living in India staged a protest against the proposed Chinese gas pipeline in their country on Wednesday in New Delhi. Protestors demanded that work on the construction of 1000 kilometres long gas pipeline should not begin in November as scheduled. The proposed pipeline is aimed to ship oil and gas from Shwe gas fields in western Myanmar to China's Yunnan province. "Today we are gathering here to protest against the Chinese government's involvement in Human Rights violations in Burma. The Chinese company CNPC. If the pipeline is implemented there will be two visible impacts," said Kim, coordinator, Shwe Gas Movement. "One is militarisation. The Burmese military regime will receive more than 800 million US dollars every year for 30 years. The money will not go to people. There will be lot of human rights violations like forced labour, lands confiscation, rape torture," said Kim, coordinator, Shwe Gas Movement," he added. The protest was part of a global day of action against the Shwe Gas Project, also held in other countries like the UK, Thailand and South Korea. The protestors also handed a letter calling for the suspension of the project and addressed to President Hu Jintao through the Chinese Ambassador in New Delhi. The Shwe Gas Movement (SGM) and its solidarity networks submitted petitions at Chinese embassies in various countries, including Japan, South Korea, Australia, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and the UK. Myanmar ranks tenth in the world in terms of natural gas reserves. Yet its per capita electricity consumption is less than five percent of neighbouring Thailand and China.