Total Mercenary Security Measures (r)

[dawnstar@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

bonjour, 

whats going on? if you are able to would someone please send the
original bangkok post report citing Total/unocal
funding for armed repression by spdc army along pipeline region. if i
have it, its
buried in files ergo please email copy. par contre, does anyone have
more
substantiative information to back the bangkok post reporting, and how
good
are the sources. 

thank you, metta, dawn star

let me say, oil pipeline security measures usually require increased
funding
from oil companies from south america, to africa and asia. it is not at
all unusual
that the host country asks for funds to maintain security along oil
company 
invested territories. also, oil companies like Total have a history of 
using mercenaries, or fighting mercenaries including legionnaires linked
up
for their own spoils with insurgent armies against wealthy foreign
investors with
big pockets (see french magazine challenges, march 1997 'Total dans le
guepier birman'
which refers to french secret service, and the counter-terrorism
measures drafted by Total 
security staffer Eric Denece later working with a company Intelco.) this
is a very
murky area so please get your information and sources straight re
disinformation/
information ainsi que les interets des provacateurs...

*********


Oil firms deny funding ethnic army

BANGKOK, Jan 6 (AFP) - Oil and gas giants Unocal and Total on Wednesday
issued denials that they were funding a Myanmar military unit deployed
to crush ethnic unrest near the Yadana gas pipeline.

The statements followed a Bangkok Post report that an artillery
battalion and five rapid response battalions in eastern Myanmar were
backed by the two firms who have been heavily criticised for investing
in Myanmar.

The report quoted sources on the Thai border as saying the unit was
assigned to a 60 kilometre (40 miles) stretch of the pipeline to prevent
ethnic groups from sabotaging it.

The allegations were "unfounded," said Michel Viallard, general manager
of French firm Total in Yangon.

A firm denial was also issued by the US-based Unocal.

"The company would never, never fund any military manouever anywhere --
the report is totally unfounded," said company spokesman Carol Scott in
Singapore.

"The situation there is quite normal."

Myanmar's military government meanwhile issued a terse statement
slamming the report.

"It is quite frustrating refuting such fabrications deliberately 
created by 
the anti-government elements," said chief spokesman Lieutenant Colonel
Hla Min.

The pipeline which supplies gas from Myanmar's Yadana gas fields in the
Gulf of Martaban through western Thailand's Kanchanaburi province to a
power plant outside Bangkok was finished at the end of June.

Construction was opposed by various interest groups, including Myanmar's
political opposition led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, from the
start.

Total, which signed on to the project in 1992, was joined by Unocal in
1993 and the two were responsible for building the Myanmar section of
the pipeline, despite a call by the democratic opposition in Myanmar for
foreign companies to boycott the country.

*****


THE BANGKOK POST: FIRMS DENY FUNDING TROOPS FOR PROTECTION 
7 January, 1999 
AFP

Oil and gas giants Unocal and Total yesterday issued denials that they
were
funding a Burmese military unit deployed to crush ethnic unrest near the
Yadana gas pipeline.

The statements followed a Bangkok Post report that an artillery
battalion
and five rapid response battalions in eastern Burma were backed by the
two
firms who have been heavily criticised for investing in Burma.

The allegations were "unfounded," said Michel Viallard, general manager
of
French firm Total in Yangon.

A firm denial was also issued by the US-based Unocal.

"The company would never, never fund any military manouevre anywhere -
the
report is totally unfounded," said company spokesman Carol Scott in
Singapore.

"The situation there is quite normal."

The junta meanwhile issued a terse statement slamming the report.

"It is quite frustrating refuting such fabrications deliberately created
by
the anti-government elements," said chief spokesman Lieutenant Colonel
Hla
Min.