Total, S.A.

Burma:

Activists including the UK-based Burma Campaign accuse Total of propping up Burma's brutal military junta through a joint venture agreement to develop an offshore gas field in the Andaman Sea and the Yadana gas project in southern Burma. The gas projects earn the regime hundreds of millions of dollars every year. Total has been in Burma since 1992.

In April 2003, the Oil and Gas Journal reported that the TOTAL-led consortium was also involved in the development of the Sein and Badamyar fields in the Gulf of Martaban adjacent to the Yadana field.

According to Burman Campaign UK, Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s democracy leader, has said that “TOTAL is the biggest supporter of the military regime in Burma.” She told the French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur that "TOTAL knew what it was doing when it invested massively in Burma while others withdrew from the market for ethical reasons....[T]he company must accept the consequences. The country will not always be governed by dictators." (AFP, Paris, May 17, 2000, as cited in "TOTALitarian Oil".)

According to Burma Campaign UK, the consequences of TOTAL's presence in Burma include:

• Influence on French foreign policy, making the French government an obstacle to strengthening the EU's Common Position on Burma, especially with regards to sanctions;
• Providing significant income to the Burmese regime, despite its appalling human rights record. That income is estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars annually;
• Human rights abuses by Burmese Army troops hired by the company through Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE).
• Serious human rights abuses associated with the Yadana pipeline project, including forced labor, forced relocation, beatings, torture, rape, and the use of civilians as human mine sweepers. The revenue from the pipeline has also been associated with weapons purchases by the military.

Despite the charges, TOTAL has maintained that it plays a positive role in Burma -- claiming its presence provides for a type of "constructive engagement" with the regime. Yet the company is contractually bound not to engage in any political activities judged unsuitable by military authorities: "The Contract shall be terminated in it entirety by MOGE if irrefutable evidence is brought that (TOTAL) is involved willingly with political activities detrimental to the Government of the Union of Myanmar." (PSC (Production Sharing Contract) TOTAL-MOGE, page 85, 9 July 1992, as cited in "TOTALitarian Oil", note # 28).