American firm sued for Genocide
A friend of mine is staying with us this week because he’s in San Francisco attending precedings at the 9th Circuit Court of appeals. He’s volunteering for a law firm which has been persuing a case since 1996 against Unocal 76, which charges them with complicity in atrocities committed by the Burmese goverment on their behalf in building a pipeline near the Thai-Burmese border. This article from Forbes is one of many that have mentioned the suit in the past few days.
Many people I’ve talked to think that it shouldn’t be American corporation’s responsbility to police the actions of foreign governments they work with, that it should be the job of our government. Well, the government doesn’t even have diplomatic relations with Burma; and besides, Bush is against this case because it might “hurt the war on terrorism” (meaning we wouldn’t be able to sub-contract out our torture).
Corporations should be responsible for who they do business with. The governement forbids companies from dealing with Communist or Terrorist countries, they put the same embargos up against oppressive regimes, make a dollar cost for atrocious behaviour oversees. But wait, then we couldn’t enjoy cheap goods made by Chinese prison labor…
