Total chief rejects shareholder con

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Subject: Total chief rejects shareholder concerns on Myanmar 

Total chief rejects shareholder concerns on Myanmar 
01:18 p.m Jan 14, 1999 Eastern 
PARIS, Jan 14 (Reuters) - The French energy group Total SA brushed off
shareholders' questions about its investment in military-run Myanmar on
Thursday and questioned the usefulness of trade embargoes imposed by the
United States. 

``We are not participating in any money laundering, drug trafficking or any
other illicit trade,'' Total chairman Thierry Desmarest told a special
shareholders meeting called to approve its planned share bid for Belgium's
PetroFina. 

``I don't think that slapping economic embargoes on countries is the way to
make them change.'' 

Total has a major stake -- 31.24 percent -- in the $1.2 billion-plus Yadana
offshore gas field project, which is due to produce an average of 525
million cubic feet per day within 15 months of its start. 

Human rights groups have been pressuring Unocal, which has a 28.3 percent
stake in Yadana, to quit Myanmar because they claim Yangon violated human
rights while building the pipeline linking the gas field to its market in
Thailand. 

Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize winner and head of the country's
harrassed opposition movement, urged foreign companies last year not to
invest in Myanmar -- formerly known as Burma -- until military rule ended. 

In a show of support for her, the European Union tightened its sanctions on
Myanmar last October to ban arms sales, non-humanitarian aid and high-level
government visits. But it did not rule out new investment or providing
services to Yangon. 

Desmerest admitted Total worked ``with a certain number of developing
countries where one could say the political and social situations were not
ideal.'' 

His group respected international agreements restricting investment in
certain countries, he said, adding: ``When there are no such restrictions,
we think we can work in those countries.'' 

Desmerest said he did not think Total, which will become the world's
sixth-largest oil group when its merger with PetroFina goes through, did not
expect to be hit by consumer boycotts in the United States or Scandinavian
countries because of its work in Myanmar.