အေမရိကန္ရဲ႕ ပစ္မွတ္ထဲက တရုပ္စီးပြားေရး၀ိသမ ေလာဘသားမ်ား

Summary
HONG KONG -
The latest sanctions issued by the U.S. Treasury have apparently implicated CNOOC, China's largest producer of offshore crude oil and natural gas, which is alleged to have been cooperating with a company run by a family notorious for its heroin-trafficking activities to explore oil and gas in Burma.


The Department of the Treasury on Tuesday announced economic sanctions against two key financial operatives of the Burmese regime: Steven Law (also known as Tun Myint Naing) and his father, Lo Hsing Han--as well as Law's wife, Cecilia Ng, and 14 companies under their control, for providing support to the government of Myanmar.

"In addition to their support for the Burmese regime, Steven Law and Lo Hsing Han have a history of involvement in illicit activities. Lo Hsing Han, known as the 'Godfather of Heroin,' has been one of the world's key heroin traffickers dating back to the early 1970s. Steven Law joined his father's drug empire in the 1990s and has since become one of the wealthiest individuals in Burma," the Treasury said.

Major Burmese conglomerate Asia World Co. is the Lo family flagship firm sanctioned by the White House. The Treasury also blocked ten companies in Singapore that are owned by Cecilia Ng, from doing business with the United States.

David Webb, a business commentator and nonexecutive director of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, further revealed that one of the companies in question has ties to the world's No. 1 offshore oil company. "What the Treasury didn't mention, but we can tell you, is that Golden Aaron is the joint venture partner of Chinese government-controlled CNOOC in exploring for oil and gas in Myanmar," Webb said on his Web site. Golden Aaron is one of the Singapore companies Cecilia Ng controls.

The relationship can be traced back to October 2004, when the firms negotiated a production-sharing contract between Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise and a business group formed by CNOOC Myanmar, Golden Aaron and China Huanqiu Contracting and Engineering Corp. The partners agreed to cooperate in oil and natural gas exploration in Kyaukphyu Township of Rakhine state. According to Myanmar's official newspaper, CNOOC Chairman Fu Chengyu and Golden Aaron Director Chua Chay Jin attended the signing ceremony in Yangon.

In CNOOC’s 2004 annual report, the oil giant also disclosed that it would serve as operator for a joint venture formed with Golden Aaron and the China Global Engineering Corp. Through the joint venture, CNOOC (nyse: CEO - news - people ) currently owns five exploration licenses covering 73,152 square kilometers (28,244 square miles), whose terms are up on March 12 this year, unless they are renewed.

Besides its links to a family accused of drug trafficking, CNOOC also has reportedly been involved in clashes with workers in Myanmar. Ten citizens from Ye Nan Taung in Kyaukphyu Township were detained and questioned by government authorities following a dispute over working conditions at CNOOC in May last year. Workers threw stones at the company's office, to protest against low wages and long working hours, Burmese newsmagazine The Irrawaddy reported. The magazine was citing for its report an anti-junta group, the Shwe Gas Movement, which stressed that as long as companies continue to cooperate with the Burmese government, workers will experience persecution, injustice and inequality.