[burmanet2-l] Follow-Up to French M

[hag2@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Subject: Re: [burmanet2-l] Follow-Up to French MP Inquiry Mission

Dear Dawn Star,
Yes, I would like to read it.  Your finding is very valuable for all of us.
I am looking forward to read it. Thanks.

with best regards

Htun


At 12:13 AM 3/19/99 +0100, Dawn Star wrote:
>As a followup to the story below on the French MP fact finding mission
>to Burma this week (if they went to check something out, we ought to
>hear about it) there is a story in this weeks national Nouvel
>Observateur magazine, the widely read high-brow popular weekly news
>magazine (with a traditional leftish slant) on TOTAL's special security
>arrangements for the Yadana pipeline. Its only one page, but lead from
>the table of contents caught me browsing and buying the magazine
>
>The title of the story, Les anges gardiens de Total (Special
>correspondent Guillaume Léger) then leads with a sub-header
>"Alors qu'une mission de parlementaires".... referring to the current
>Aubert/Blum/Brana MP inquiry... With the MP visit investigating french
>oil companies in Burma, witnesses confirm that Total keeps strange
>relations with the army of the burmese dictatorship"
>
>its a fairly long story, and i will post it if some of you are as
>interested in it as I am, its rather good, cites some security
>companies, good photo of a hilltop bunker with barracks and very large
>helicopter pad, and some interesting information of how TOTAL and Unocal
>are paying over $15 000 per month!(5 millions kyats) to each commander
>of eight battalions, and that money some 400 kyats by day is supposed to
>be distributed, and it says none of it is.
>
>In all, it shows how TOTAL conducts security on its pipeline, directly,
>with burmese military support, and with French diplomatic support
>including personnel of the French embassy in Rangoon.
>
>So, as this is printed to the French nation, it will be all the more
>interesting to see how the MPs do their job of finding facts and getting
>the French house of state in order to support european sanctions against

>Burma, or at least support suspension of burma from the ILO.

>
>dawn star 
>
>Nouvel Observateur, March 18-24 1999, p 78 
>
>ps, there is also a nicely colored map showing Burma, but no indication
>where to find the Yadana TOTAL pipeline. Celui-ci est une faux pas! 
>
>March 17, 1999> 
>> French team to submit Yadana report soon
>> 
>> A TEAM of French parliamentarians said on Tuesday they could not yet
confirm
>> if there had been human-rights abuses in the controversial
>> multi-billion-dollar Yadana natural-gas project.
>> 
>> But they said all information they had acquired or been given during their
>> trip to Burma and Thailand as well as back in France would be collated,
>> studied and assessed before being summarised in a fact-finding report to
the
>> French parliament in June.
>> 
>> The three-member ad-hoc committee was created last October to investigate
>> the widely debated conduct of French oil companies in overseas investment.
>> In the past few years French petroleum firms have been strongly criticised
>> for making investment deals with authoritarian regimes in the Third World.
>> Their projects have often been alleged to contribute or to be related to
>> serious human-rights violations, forced labour and relocation and
>> destruction of the environment.
>> 
>> Although the MPs did not have a chance to hold a face-to-face meeting here
>> with Karen, Mon and Tavoyan refugees, tens of thousands of whom were
>> uprooted from their villages in southern Burma along the route of the
Yadana
>> gas pipeline, they said they would ''use discretion'' in their judgment and
>> assessment.
>> 
>> ''We are not going to believe everything we saw or were told. We'll use our
>> discretion as well. We'll check if information we gathered from all sources
>> matchs or not so that we can present a very neutral report,'' said Pierre
>> Brana of the Socialist Party.
>> 
>> Last week the team, which included Marie Helene Aubert of the Green Party
>> and Roland Blum of the Liberal Democracy party, spent three days in Burma
>> touring the Yadana pipeline route and neighbouring villages and meeting
>> senior Burmese officials, representatives of the French oil giant Total,
>> some Rangoon-based diplomats and Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu
>> Kyi and her political colleagues. They spent three more days in Thailand
>> talking to people and groups involved in the Yadana project.
>> 
>> Total, its American partner Unocal, Thailand's Petroleum Authority of
>> Thailand and Burma's Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise are partners in the
>> US$1.2-billion Yadana project.
>> 
>> Blum said it was still unclear if income from the Yadana would allow the
>> Burmese junta to stay in power, saying that it would be another two years
>> before there would be any payment.
>> 
>> Brana said the final report would contain information that could be proved
>> but that the committee was not duty-bound to dictate what the government
>> should do with its findings.
>> 
>> However, the judiciary, the legislature and international financial
>> institutions such as the World Bank may use the report to initiate action.
>> 


>> For example, French politicians could use the findings to propose a review
>> or amendment of existing French business laws to include economic
sanctions,
>> Brana conjectured.
>> 
>> He said that unlike in many Western countries, existing French law did not
>> have the power of economic sanctions, but once it was armed with sanctions
>> it would have indiscriminate effect.
>> 
>> ''Unlike some major powers, if we enact sanctions laws they will have a
>> blanket effect and be indiscriminately applied,'' he said, mocking some
>> Western powers which had discriminately imposed sanctions on Burma while
>> pursuing a different policy towards China, which had been widely criticised
>> for its poor human-rights record.
>> 
>> The three French MPs said that what they found ''absolutely unacceptable''
>> in Burma was the fact that the legislature elected in the 1990 general
>> elections was not allowed to perform its duties.
>> 
>>
>
>