A lawsuit filed by indigenous farmers in Myanmar was reinstated in the Federal Appeals Court in San Francisco recently. The plaintiffs claim that the Unocal Corporation, an oil company based in El Segundo, Texas, was involved in a cover-up of human rights violations in conjunction with the Myanmar military. The lawsuit states that the Myanmar military, which Unocal contracted for protection services, participated in criminal acts such as “slavery, murder, and rape.” The decision rejected an American federal judge’s ruling that the Myanmar farmers did not have the right to sue in the American federal court system. A trial date for the reinstated lawsuit has not yet been set.
