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NEWS - Total Chief Rejects Sharehol
- Subject: NEWS - Total Chief Rejects Sharehol
- From: Rangoonp@xxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 15 Jan 1999 23:38:00
Subject: NEWS - Total Chief Rejects Shareholder Concerns on Myanmar
Total Chief Rejects Shareholder Concerns on Myanmar
Reuters
14-JAN-99
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.