The undercover Myanmar footage is somewhat raw, but the images are key
to uncovering a disturbing project inside the country.
In an open field in Myanmar's Shan State, hundreds of civilians
are gathered for a ceremony to dig holes and plant bushes.
We were given this footage by a Myanmar activist group.
In a country where about 10 percent of the population suffers below the food
poverty line, villagers would normally welcome government food initiatives.
But in this case security is clearly present.
The crops aren't edible and the workers aren't being paid,
according to sources close to the project.
After signing the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in 2003,
the Myanmar generals have decided to jump aboard the biofuel bandwagon,
and ordered each of Burma's states and divisions to dedicate about
0.5 million acres (202,000 hectares) to the new crop.
Jatropha, a toxic plant that grows wild in tropical regions,
and the seeds are saturated with oil that can be processed into biofuel.
A damning report, "Biofuel by Decree," released by exiled ethnic Shan activists,
states that the military generals set up a nationwide campaign in 2006
to grow jatropha using the forced labor of villagers.
Based on witness testimony, the report says introductory training
sessions were imposed on the people without providing any real knowledge of
where the end-product would go.
The report alleges that soldiers charge a half day's wage for bags of seed,
and the Junta imposes hefty fines, or locks up those
who don't cooperate with the program.
And, because the small plants require high yields, the army has been seizing
property from landowners as a service to the "national cause."
On the Thai side of the border, this woman was willing to talk to us,
provided that we conceal her identity.
The young mother fled the country with her baby last month, claiming that
the military branch of the Junta, the State Peace and Development Council,
or SPDC,
seized her land. Now she works illegally at a Thai orange plantation,
making about U.S.$3 a day. It's not much, but roughly twice the wage
she was earning in Myanmar.
The land that I had in the village was seized by the army to grow jatropha.
So we have to work on land in the jungle. But if soldiers spot our crops,
they destroy them. If they find a woman in the jungle, they rape her.
The soldiers want to plant jatropha everywhere. And our job is
to grow it for them. We have no idea where
they are going to sell it or how much they will make.
Growing resentment to the forced planting has caused many in Myanmar
to protest, according to exiles. But the repercussions are harsh
in a country where tens of thousands of activists are jailed,
or just disappear.
Myanmar activist and cross-border investigator Sang Meung
says a recent awareness campaign that he organized to protest the biofuel
project had fatal results for one of his colleagues.
I was making posters with my colleagues to protest
growing jatropha.
I made a plan where we would put up the signs.
We selected three townships.
I gave the signs to my two colleagues
to go put them up at the locations.
One colleague got caught
at the checkpoint by a soldier
who found the poster in his motorbike.
He was tied up and taken to prison. We have not seen him since.
And, internationally, human rights observers are condemning
the regime's latest scheme to cash in on carbon credits programs.
The real power is the local military units
and they're getting orders from the new capital at Napidaw
to achieve this plan, and then they're imposing it upon the people.
There's very little understanding at the grassroots level
about just how crazy this plan is.
Everyone's scrambling to follow orders.
The plan might seem crazy and cruel to outsiders, but it means big money
to the Myanmar regime. At least one Western-based company was optimistic,
at first, about leading the Junta into carbon-trading industry.
UK-based Sindicatum Carbon Capital, developer of greenhouse abatement
projects, signed a cooperation agreement two years ago
with Myanmar businessman Serge Punto to identify, study and develop
projects qualifying for carbon credits in Myanmar
under the Clean Development Mechanism.
But following the increased global exposure to the country's
human rights abuses, Sindicatum cancelled the venture, explaining:
"We have indeed investigated pollution abatement projects in Burma
some months ago, but decided not to proceed with these for a variety of
reasons, including the present political situation in Burma."
For many in the country, development prospects have been lost
to government mismanagement and corruption,
leaving Myanmar far behind its neighboring countries
in rice production.
Meanwhile, as companies from Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore
have made deals to process thousands of tons of raw jatropha oil this year,
one in three children in Myanmar will remain undernourished.