Last Burma Cowboy Stands Fast

If I were Unocal, the L.A.-based giant that’s a partner in the massive, controversial gas pipeline project in Burma (officially known as Myanmar), I’d be worried sick. The Clinton administration, sullied by the sordid picture of a stream of exceptionally generous Asian businessmen sauntering by the White House for little policy chats, may soon have to take a high-minded moral stand somewhere or other in Asia. China is obviously too important to mess with, so Burma may just fit the bill. I think it’ll be a bumpy road at best for any U.S. firm still doing business there.

Almost no one outside Asia can abide SLORC, the odd acronym for the State Law and Order Restoration Council, the ruling junta’s official name. Pointedly, Madeleine Albright, the secretary of state designate, heaps public praise on Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, the internationally acclaimed internal opponent of SLORC. Protests are popping up on U.S. college campuses, and some localities, including Santa Monica, have already voted to spurn contracts with U.S. businesses involved with Burma. Major American newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times, have published editorials critical of Unocal. The pressure mounts on the world’s 12th largest oil company to head gracefully for the exit, as have companies like Apple Computers, Macy’s, Liz Claiborne and Levi Strauss. It’s easy to envision U.S. economic sanctions, or at least selective boycotts, in Burma’s star-crossed future.

So when I accepted the lunch invitation of Unocal President John F. Imle Jr., captain of his company’s $1-billion-plus Yadana pipeline investment in Burma, I rather expected to encounter one cornered cucumber. Wrong. Instead, Imle projected the image of the tough oil man, at least reasonably confident about the future. I was a bit surprised. No doubt you’ve heard all the criticism of Unocal by now: That by persisting with its ambitious 416-mile project to transport drilled offshore gas into Burma and Thailand, this U.S. company, along with its biggest partner, French-based Total, helps to prop up an evil regime; and that Unocal has been benefiting indirectly from slave labor, forcing villagers to relocate and damaging the environment with all its drilling, digging and messy dislocating.

Imle denied all these charges and firmly rejected the argument that it’s Unocal’s job to help dislodge SLORC. The regime is one thing, he says, the Unocal project another. And, he asserts, “the main controversy over the project is the question of whether foreign companies should be investing in Myanmar. There aren’t any responsible opinion leaders or decision makers .J.J. who quarrel with the conduct of this project itself.” Then Imle, choosing his words carefully, suggested that he believes in redemption for SLORC, with whom his company must of course maintain businesslike, even cordial, relations: “I’d love for that nation to be democratic, and the leadership I’ve talked to supports a transition to democracy.” What’s more, he said, American pressure alone can’t rock SLORC (he’s probably right): “Asia’s approach is quiet diplomacy rather than headline diplomacy. They prefer to do things with subtlety and privacy, rather than public pressure--which I think is appropriate for Asia.”

But subtlety is not quite the American way. We get a kick out of jumping on our high horses, riding into town waving our white hats and knocking off the bad guys immediately, or at least before the next TV commercial. So while Imle seems to think his company has passed through the worst of the bad PR, my sense is that the worst is yet to come. If Unocal really believes in the project’s value, it needs to protect that investment further. So does Total, which also has been shaken by protests in France.

Here’s one idea. Unocal, perhaps joined by Total, could offer to finance an outside fact-finding panel to make an assessment of the situation. “That might be worth pursuing,” Imle responded coolly. I pushed harder: Why not go to the head of some major foundation, like Ford or Rockefeller, and have them put together a blue-ribbon panel? Maybe some distinguished professors, a few think-tank types, a retired U.S. diplomat or two. Then lean on SLORC for the necessary visas--the hard part would be to get the military to allow the panel full access to the Yadana area.

Imle shuffled uneasily in his chair, pointing out, correctly, that in recent months Unocal has arranged for press tours of the site. “‘We find it difficult to accept an audit to determine that we’re not doing something of which we’re being falsely accused,” he said. “With regard to the activists, I don’t think there’s anyone they’ll believe, including the journalists, members of Congress and diplomats who’ve already visited our project. .J.J. The people who really matter understand. The public at large doesn’t understand. .J.J. But this is an idea worth looking into.”

Simply by making the effort, it seems to me, the company would win the respect of many Americans. And Unocal, unless it does have something really horrible to hide in Burma, has nothing to lose by trying. But if U.S. public opinion really starts to sink its teeth into this project, Imle could find it all unraveling. The loss for dirt-poor Burma, not to mention for Unocal, could be monumental.