IHT, Yale, TOTAL

[cd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

To one and all, follow the leader but who is leading? We would think Suu
Kyi, but neither she nor Rangoon makes White House foreign policy of the
United States of America. Following its owners, the NY Times, and
Washington Post, the International Herald Tribue's weekend edition
(March 1) editorial page leads off with pro-santions editorial
"Dithering on Burma", a reprint from WASHINGTON POST: COMMENT - BURMA:
ENFORCE THE LAW, February 28, 1997.

Its already been posted by Burmanet, but for the record, here is the IHT
version.

Thank the editors for their astute vigilance, now that the Karen
conflict is editorial
news.

For a US president who doesn't have a clear policy on Burma, perhaps he
should follow the leader and do what Suu Kyi has asked leaders of the
free world to do. Isn't the free world tired of the lip-service of the
Clintons.

Writes the WP and IHT:  

If the administration dithers any longer, it will only encourage the
regime to think it can realize the former condition, too, at no cost to
itself.

As a graduate of Yale, I should like to start a Yale Club for a Free
Burma. Perhaps we could invite the Clintons as members, then expel them
for violations of the Club's principles. 

If there are any Yalies out there, tell me if you would like to join.

Are we not all getting sick and tired of the admnistration's deceit and
continuing betrayal in letting Burma's democrats down?

Dawn Star
Euro-Burmanet, Paris
http://www-uvi.eunet.fr/asia/euro-burma/

> 
> UNOCAL, THE U.S. energy company cooperating with Burma's totalitarian
> regime to develop natural gas in that Asian country,   likes to show
> photographs of the classrooms and clinics it is building for villagers
> along the route of its unfinished gas pipeline through the jungle.
> Unocal's presence, the argument goes, can act as a civilizing influence
> on Burma's regime -- better known for repression, torture and forced
> labor -- and so the U.S. administration shouldn't impose economic
> sanctions restricting U.S. investment.
> 
> Another, less appealing consequence of economic development is
> unfolding now on the Burma-Thai border. The pipeline of the $1.2 billion
> project, in which France's Total is the other major participant, will
> carry natural gas from Burma's Andaman Sea to Thailand. Burma's junta
> will get badly needed foreign currency; Thailand's growing economy will
> get badly needed energy. But Burma's regime fears that ethnic Karen, a
> Christian anti-Communist minority that has been fighting for greater
> autonomy for five decades, could stand in the way. So about 100,000
> Burmese troops are now bludgeoning their way to the frontier in a
> mopping-up campaign. Thousands of refugees are streaming across the
> border. Thailand, which for years has sheltered Karen refugees, now is
> forcing them back across the border toward Burma's guns. The lure of
> Unocal's gas apparently is very strong.
> 
> What does any of this have to do with the United States? Burma is a
> naturally wealthy country of 45 million people (of whom about 4 million
> are Karen) that has been steadily impoverished by its corrupt and
> incompetent rulers. In 1990 an overwhelming majority of Burmese voted
> for a pro-democracy party headed by Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of
> Burma's anticolonial independence hero. She is supported, too, by the
> Karen and other ethnic minorities, for whom she promises a democratic
> federative system. But the military thugs who rule the country never
> allowed her to take power, and she remains under virtual house arrest.
> Hundreds of her supporters have been jailed -- more last year than at
> any time since the current regime seized power in 1988.
> 
> Promising to stand with Burma's democrats, Congress last year passed a
> law requiring the president to ban further U.S. investment if the regime
> moved against Aung San Suu Kyi or intensified its repression. Both in
> Burma's capital and on the Thai border, the latter condition certainly
> has been met. If the administration dithers any longer, it will only
> encourage the regime to think it can realize the former condition, too,
> at no cost to itself.
> 
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

RE TOTAL Websites

I noticed TOTAL registered late last year a <www.TOTAL.com> website. Its
dedicated only
to "Burma-Myanmar" and gives your their company line on what a really
cool thing they are doing with their Slorc butchers and drug lords. 

You would all be wellinformed to know that they also dropped their
previous website, a rather informative french-developed thing with lots
of corporate information, useful
to people who might have wanted to know more of TOTAL's corporate and
world operations, press releases etc. (It used to be
http://www.webnet.fr/total/>. That's now off. No more press releases, a
virtual black out, and highly unusual retreat for a company now
targetted around the world for its complicity in some of the worlds
worst continuing human rights abuses. 

Evidently, TOTAL is running scared, enough to drop their website from
people who want to know more than THEY think they need to know...

Also, TOTAL shareholder, the billion dollar financing firm, Paribas, .9%
of capital shares, is on the web, ah, well sort of: <www. paribas.com>
-- not one word of information! Just there, a web presence just to let
you know they are in cyberspace too, a sign on the door and nothing
more. To be continued. Societe Generale, the TOTAL shareholder, also has
a website but could not access it,<http://www.webnet.fr/societe
generale/>. 

Cogema, Total shareholder, again, not much luck,
<http://www.cogema.com>.




 



ps, i saw mars attacks last night, opened in Paris. Gee, it was really
too bad to see
the French diplomats get fried, just when they thought they could
out-smart with aliens.
Why should the free world have to pay for the deal they made with the
devil while they get away with murder? Isn't it humiliating enough that
they defend it publicly, and get paid for it too?




        webmaster@xxxxxxxxx
    CC: 
        cd@xxxxxxx


bonjour

avant vous avez une site sur la societ TOTAL, avec beaucoup des fichiers
bien rempli, maintenant chez .com, rien speciale, que sur la birmanie

qu'est-ce que c'est, et pourquoi l'autre site a disparu?


merci
cd