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re drug laundering



Firstly, TOTAL's SA headquaters annual shareholders meeting will be May
21. Be there. Paris, La Defense (unless it changes but that should be
it. TOTAL's CEO Thierry Desmarest is China bound with Chirac's Beijing
visit to open demain, selling French savoir faire -in a middle of an
election, two weeks to go here in Paris. France ranks as China's 13th
trading partner, far behind Germany (6) and Italy (10). TOTAL
shareholders are also flying with Chirac (the french bank Societe
Generale, Paribas...) France has several nuclear plant deals to close as
well. 

re Dobbs-Higginson, former chairman Merrill Lynch, Asia Pacific region,
and the opening up of Slorc's economy, the onrush of banks, Slorc
financial expertise by Rangoon's anti-US, anti-sanctions lobbists linked
to drug money laundering. Dobbs-Higginson  wrote a recent haughty
article critical of US sanctions. People may raise an eye-brow at the
following clipping from norm chomsky's essay 'Democracy Enhancement'
(1994) with a passing reference on ML's drug moneylaundering operations,
here citing the case of Columbia. Bear in mind we are dealing, as they
do, with big cats, lots of money; ML's CEO made over $10 million last
year, and holds some US$100 million in unused stock
options(AFL-CIO's<http://www.paywatch.org>).

Here's the extract (actually referring to the Columbian drug trade,
timely when you see that Columbian president Ernesto Samper, abroad on
diplomatic head-spinning, recently snubbed by Mandela, is enjoying his
'holiday from drugs'. Interpret 'that' as you want...


Operation Just Cause (the Panama invasion by President Bush) was
presented as a "textbook case" of Washington's
dedication to democracy -- quite accurately, as it turned out. In the
latest of its annual reports on human rights (January, 1994), Panama's
governmental Human Rights Commission charged that the right to
self-determination and sovereignty of the Panamanian people continues to
be
violated by the "state of occupation by a foreign army," reviewing US
army,
airforce, and DEA operations in Panama, including a DEA agent's assault
on
a Panamanian journalist and attacks on Panamanian citizens by US
military
personnel. The nongovernmental Human Rights Commission, in its
accompanying
report "Democracy and Human Rights in Panama...Four Years Later" added
that
democracy has meant nothing more than formal voting while government
policies "do not attend to the necessities of the most impoverished" --
whose numbers have significantly increased since the "liberation."
Within a
year after the invasion, Latin Americanist Stephen Ropp observes,
Washington was well aware "that removing the mantle of United States
protection would quickly result in a civilian or military overthrow of
[President] Endara and his supporters"-- that is, the puppet regime of
bankers, businessmen, and narcotraffickers installed by the occupying
army.
"Drugs and their rewards are more visible today than in General
Noriega's
time," the Economist reports in March, including hard drugs. A senior
employee of the Panama Branch of Merrill Lynch was one of those recently
caught in a DEA operation as they were laundering Colombian cocaine cash
through Panama's large financial industry, the one real economic success
story of the "occupation by a foreign army." "All they were doing is
what
almost every bank in Panama does," a local investigative reporter
commented. All exactly as predicted when the troops landed to restore
the
mainly white oligarchy to power and ensure US control over the
strategically important region and its financial institutions.

end of extract

Perhaps Mr Dobbs-Higginson might came forward and share some of his
knowledge and first hand experience on money laundering from asian
clients. Don't hold your breath.

Dawn Star
EuroBurmanet (paris)
Worldwide TOTAL Boycott
http://www-uvi.eunet.fr/asia/euro-burma/total/