Burma/TOTAL campaign in France

[simon_billenness@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

>From Agir Ici <agirici@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

Paris, August 27, 1996

To Burma and Nigeria campaigners=20

Dear friends

In France, we are preparing a public opinion campaign on Nigeria and Burma,
focusing our lobby on three petroleum companies : Shell, Elf and Total (the
two last are French as you probably know).

We will publish in a couple of weeks a leaflet and postcards (about 30.000
samples) to explain the aims and objectives of the campaign. We will ask the
companies to suspend their operations in Nigeria and Burma until the return
of the democratic process. We are too weak in France to launch a boycott
against these companies due to fact that the main consumers organizations
and trade unions are not interested in supporting this kind of campaign.
Despite of this, we will ask citizens to write to the CEOs and also to go to
the gas stations, not to buy gasoline, but to give information to the gas
station=92s director.=20

We are working in close coordination with French NGOs such as Info-Birmanie
(which is hosted in our office) and R=E9seau solidarite. Although we get=
 many
information through their channels, we thank you in advance to send us
directly all information you think useful for our campaign in France.=20

We would like to put your organization=92s name on the front page of our
leaflet to show to French citizens that our campaign has strong links with
an international mobilization. We are not asking you to support our campaign
(this would need us to send you a complete English version of the document)
but only to allow us to put your name on the list of the organizations
which, around the world, are mobilized either on Burma or on Nigeria.=20

We would appreciate to receive your reply ASAP.

Sincerely,


Jean-Marie Fardeau