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Please need some help here (Questio

Subject: Please need some help here (Questions Euro-Burmanet)

Dear Burma activists and supporters, 

1/ GURKHAS IN BURMA
Does anyone have any information of Nepalese Gurkhas in Burma, on any 
military capacity (training, etc). 
Following Hong Kong report in french press on retirement of Gurkhas, 
seeking other mercenary work. They need it, and would not be surprised to 
find them in Burma. I have heard they form over half the Indian army. 
Incidently, there are many Burmese in Nepal, and Nepal.


2/ DANISH  FREE BURMA PEOPLE: NEED E-MAILS
comité de soutien dano-birman
Anton Johannsen
Ib Wistiesen
Boycott Lego campaign

Is there any coordination now with Denmark, & Europe over  proposed 
Boycott Lego campaign ? 
22 July 1996
BURMA - Pressure groups target more European companies

The Danish Burma Committee (DBC) said on Friday that it would organise a
boycott of Scandinavian Airline System (SAS) if it continued to buy 
aviation
fuel from French oil group TOTAL, which manages a large gas pipeline in
Burma. 

TOTAL itself is likely to face a consumer boycott after Aung San Suu
Kyi, leader of Burma's pro-democracy movement, made accusations in 
France's
Le Monde newspaper on Friday that TOTAL was the 'biggest supporter of the
military regime in Burma'.  

The UK's Burma Action Group (BAG) was reported
yesterday to be launching a campaign against retailer BHS, which sells
clothes made in Burma.  

The campaign against European companies involved in Burma has gained 
significant momentum in recent weeks and further companies are likely to 
be targeted in the near future.


3/ WHERE ARE WE GOING WITH SANCTIONS, PLEASE. NEED FOCUS ON WHITE HOUSE  
POLITICAL STRATEGY AND FOREIGN POLICY RE BURMA.

" We think that sanctions are certainly an option that the United  States 
Government can use.  
What we don't think is appropriate is that we have dictated to us 
sanctions that we must impose.  

" We would rather retain a degree of flexibility to use sanctions as we 
see fit in designing a policy -- a pro-democratic policy in Burma.We're 
willing to work with the Hill on this and we hope to in the future work 
with them to design a legislative approach that makes sense.But we would 
prefer not to see sanctions dictated in legislation. "
-- 28 Jun 1996  MR. DAVIES - White House Press spokesman,  Re. Sanctions

If the Clinton administration needs time to enlist or inform other 
nations, Congress should listen; U.S. action
should not be needlessly unilateral. But there can be no doubt that 
stronger U.S. action is called for.
-- Washington Post, editorial june 24

"What we want are the kind of sanctions that will make it quite clear 
that economic change in Burma is not possible without political change," 
Suu Kyi said in the video, made public by members of the European 
Parliament.
 - July 18, 1996 ( as TOTAL's stock dropped on the French exchange)


Myanmar issue could derail Asean Regional Forum's open agenda European 
Union ( It did not)
Dick  Spring (Dick Spring, president council of ministers, EU 7/96),
Mr Manuel Marin - VP European Commission, EU Commissioner/Asia ; EU 7/96, 

A vice-president of the European Commission, Mr Manuel Marin, had warned 
that Asean-EU ties would suffer because of Asean's relationship with the 
generals in Yangon. But he was tight-lipped when he arrived here 
yesterday to attend the post-ministerial conference.The Europeans are 
divided over Denmark's push to impose economic sanctions on Myanmar. The 
US is pressing for a coordinated response from Asean, which has stood 
firm on its constructive engagement policy.
-- July 22, 1996 (news report)

Mr Manuel Marin, EU commissioner with responsibility for Asia, who has 
criticised Burma for its human rights record and lack of democracy warned 
its admission as an observer to Asean "would be a problem".  

The EU does not regard the situation in Burma as grave enough to warrant 
an uncompromising stance which could jeopardise its ties with Asean's 
booming economies.

Mr Spring will, however, criticise Burma at Asean regional forum meetings 
over the next few days, an EU official said.The EU is pressing Burma's 
military rulers to release from detention members of the National League 
for Democracy and enter into meaningful discussions with pro-democracy 
leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
It also wants a full explanation of the death in prison of Mr James 
Leander Nichols, a businessman who had also been an honorary consul for 
several European states.

The Burmese declined to meet an EU demand for an independent autopsy to 
be performed on Mr Nichols' body.
-- July 2, 1996 (news report)


DOES ANYONE HAVE addresses to /

+ DICK SPRING
+ MANUEL MARIN 


3/ CHRISTOPHERS NUKE -NON NUKE PACIFIC REGION, AND BURMA
Did the Burma Sanctions get tripped over Warren Chirstopher's 
geopolitics?

" On the other key issues on the agenda of the two-day ministerial 
meeting, he said the ASEAN ministers would discuss how to address the 
reservations of the five major nuclear powers and encourage them to sign 
a protocol to the South-East Asia Nuclear Weapon Free Zone treaty. " news 
story


4/  EUROPE
As with Lech Walesa in Poland and Nelson Mandela in South Africa, Nobel 
Peace Laureate Suu Kyi speaks with a moral authority that the outside 
world cannot ignore.

Has anyone contacted LECH WALESA for his European support?  Statement?

I think this raises the often recognized question of the need to go 
country to country lobbying and contacting leaders for support. It is 
part of our program strategy this fall at EURO- Burmanet.


6/ TOTAL 
TOTAL OFFICIALS SEX TRADE . PROSTITUTION FRENCH STYLE

The moneyed Frenchmen from Total Co were said to give each of the girls 
US 200 dollars for their each - time sex services. 

However, this should pessimistically be seen as something of 
capitalization on and exploitation of the poverty stricken local 
community by the economically powerful outsiders - for the local women 
and girls will not necessarily have to succumb to such persuasion should 
their community be prosperous. 

As the news of the highly priced sex services has spread, sadly, many 
more of the poverty - stricken Mon, Karen and Tavoyan households across 
the area, out of desire for making the so -called miraculous earnings,
are said to have likewise become willing and ready to send their own 
young girls into the
prostitution (for the TOTAL field managing personnel). 

This signals a strong possibility of the growth and establishment of a 
sex industry in the area in which many women and girls from the poverty - 
stricken local community will have to work to make a living, once the 
economically more powerful outsiders enter to settle and mass in the 
area. 

Such situation will also affect the social cultural life of the local 
ethnic Mon, Karen and Tavoyan communities.

-- Total's and Unocal's Diastrous Gas Pipeline in Burma's Gulf of 
Martaban  (Part I & II)  02 Jul 1996 
-- Reported in May 1996 by Mon Information Service Bangkok
1189/3 Soi Panitchakantonburi, Charansnitwong Road,
Bangkok 10160, Thailand, Tel & Fax: (02) 410 7844


``Nous ne faisons pas de politique et nous respectons les lois 
internationales.''
(" We don't make politics and we respect international law. ")

-- Thierry Désmarest, CEO, TOTAL


7/  UNOCAL- TOTAL 

For OIL activists and oil watchers, this may already be on your 
information ressource list, for others, it may be news :   
http://www.igc.apc.org/cbesf/

ENVIRONMENT IN LATIN AMERICA NETWORK <elan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: Ivonne Yanez <ivonney@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, cbesf@xxxxxxxxxxx 
(Communities for a Better Environment-San
Francisco, CA)
U.S. OIL ACTIVIST NEWS--OIL RAG #4
ISSUE #4 RAG JULY 1996

ENVIRONMENT IN LATIN AMERICA NETWORK <elan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
18 Jul 1996 
To: Ivonne Yanez <ivonney@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, cbesf@xxxxxxxxxxx 
(Communities for a Better Environment-San
Francisco, CA)
U.S. OIL ACTIVIST NEWS--OIL RAG #4
ISSUE #4 RAG JULY 1996

re Unocal and TOTAL, the Free Burma Unocal and TOTAL boycott

please send any information on these oil companies
Also include Arco

thank you
Dawn Star  (Paris)
Coordinator (TOTAL) 
cd@xxxxxxx

Burmanet
Euro-Burmanet
Free Burma Coalition

http://www-uvi.eunet.fr/
http://www-uvi.eunet.fr/asia/euro-burma/
http://www-uvi.eunet.fr/asia/euro-burma/nld/
http://www-uvi.eunet.fr/asia/euro-burma/total



thank you
Dawn Star  (Paris)
Coordinator (TOTAL) 
cd@xxxxxxx

Burmanet
Euro-Burmanet
Free Burma Coalition

http://www-uvi.eunet.fr/
http://www-uvi.eunet.fr/asia/euro-burma/
http://www-uvi.eunet.fr/asia/euro-burma/nld/
http://www-uvi.eunet.fr/asia/euro-burma/total