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UHRC's e-mail action to BP Amoco
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From: "Kathy Polias" <kpolias@uyghurs.org>
This week I posted the UHRC's
e-mail action to BP Amoco (a London-based multinational) pressuring them to
divest from a major business deal with PetroChina to build a major gas pipeline
from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region to Shanghai. In addition to
e-mailing BP Amoco directly, please sign the UHRC's petition to Sir John Browne,
Chief Executive of BP Amoco, by e-mailing me your name, city, and state.
We want to send thousands of signatures to Sir John Browne. The petition
letter is below. For more info on UHRC's campaign on BP Amoco, go to www.uyghurs.org/campaign-bpamoco.htm.
Thanks so much...
Kathy Polias
Executive Director, Uyghur Human Rights Coalition
www.uyghurs.org
****************************************************************************************************
Sir John Browne
Chief Executive BP Amoco
Britannic House
1 Finsbury Circus
London EC 2
Great Britain
Dear Sir John Browne,
We are writing to ask that BP Amoco immediately divest it shares from PetroChina
and pull out of a joint venture with PetroChina to build a West-East
4200-kilometer natural gas pipeline from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region
to Shanghai. We are very concerned about the fact that by investing directly in
PetroChina and in the pipeline project, BP Amoco will become complicit in the
Chinese government's brutal and oppressive treatment of the indigenous Uyghur
population in the Xinjiang region. We ask that your company terminate all
business relations with PetroChina for the following reasons:
(1) The Chinese government's strong desire to extract Xinjiang's
rich natural resources has caused it to strengthen its resolve to tighten
security in the province, adopting a policy that Defense and Foreign Affairs
Strategic Policy characterizes as "suppressing the Uyghurs virtually at all
cost." The Chinese government has committed horrific human rights
violations against the Uyghurs in its attempt to consolidate control over the
Xinjiang area and crack down on any political activity that could potentially
undermine its economic objectives in the area. These human rights violations
have included: arbitrary and summary executions; arbitrary detentions;
systematic torture of political prisoners to extract confessions; and religious
and cultural persecution.
(2) PetroChina has not consulted with and obtained the consent of
the local Uyghur people in its planning of development projects. PetroChina has
therefore violated Articles 27 and 28 of China's 1984 Law on Regional Autonomy,
which incorporates the principle of allowing the local Uyghur population to
manage their region's natural resources. Furthermore, it is not possible for
PetroChina to do a realistic environmental impact assessment of its projects in
Xinjiang without consulting with the local population.
(3) PetroChina has not adequately disclosed its connection with the
quasi-military unit known as the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corp
("bintuan"), which runs most of the forced labor camps
("laogai") in Xinjiang and has been instrumental in China's crackdown
on the Uyghurs. This entity has developed much of the economic activity in
Xinjiang, including oil operations, so it is likely that it will be involved in
PetroChina's activities in Xinjiang. There is no way for BP Amoco to assure that
the labor of political prisoners won't be used on the pipeline project in
Xinjiang.
(4) The pipeline will lead to tens of thousands of ethnic Chinese
gas and oil workers coming into the area, bolstering China's ongoing population
transfer policies which facilitate its political objectives of diluting the
Uyghurs' culture and national identity, colonizing the Uyghurs' indigenous land,
marginalizing the Uyghurs, and making them a minority in their own land. China's
population transfer policies have already resulted in a drastic change in the
demographic makeup of Xinjiang. In 1949, when the Communists asserted their
control over Xinjiang, Uyghurs accounted for at least 93% of the region's
population while Chinese accounted for 6 or 7%. By 1997, according to
official statistics, the population of the XUAR was over 17 million, divided
into 47% Uyghur and 42% Chinese.
(5) PetroChina has not taken appropriate measures to protect
the environment in Xinjiang and other parts of China in which it is planning
projects. It has not set aside adequate funds for environmental compliance,
management, and technologies. Furthermore, the fact that PetroChina has not
consulted with local populations makes it impossible to do a sound environmental
impact assessment.
(6) BP Amoco and other foreign investors will have no say in
PetroChina's makeup and few clues into the company's workings since the parent
company would maintain a 90 percent stake in PetroChina. Therefore, they will
have little influence on the company in human rights and the environment.
For all of the above reasons, BP Amoco should immediately divest from PetroChina
and from the Xinjiang pipeline project. Otherwise, BP Amoco will become another
source of oppression of the Uyghur people.
Thank you very much for your time and consideration.
From: "Kathy Polias" <kpolias@uyghurs.org>
how to get to the comment form on
BP's website.
First go to www.bp.com/_nav/business.htm and
click on "Our Business". From that page, click on "BP
Offices Worldwide" (under "Where We Operate"), then
"e-mail", then "Environment & Social", and finally
"Human Rights & Social Responsibility". You will see a
comment form. Please fill out the short form and post the letter below in
the "Your message to BP" box. It's a little complicated, but if
we could get hundreds of people to send messages to BP we may just be able to
convince them to pull out of the Xinjiang Pipeline Project and their business
dealings with PetroChina. For more info on UHRC's campaign on BP Amoco, go
to www.uyghurs.org/campaign-bpamoco.htm
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