Determined: Christophe de Margerie
Total staying put in Burma
Total will not leave Burma, company boss Christophe de Margerie said today, shrugging off claims made by a US environmental group that the French giant was supporting the country's military junta with revenue from its gas operations.
The report by Earth Rights International (ERI) said the Yadana gas project, which also involves US supermajor Chevron and Thailand's PTTEP, had generated $4.83 billion for the regime since 2000, nearly all of which was siphoned off from the national budget and into offshore bank accounts in Singapore.
"The mission of Total is not to restore democracy in the world," Total boss Christophe de Margerie told Le Parisien in an interview published this morning.
"I repeat, leaving will not make human rights more respected ... If this gas was not produced by Total, it would be by others, and it would change nothing to the revenues of the junta."
De Margerie also said Burma opposition leader and Peace Nobel prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent most of the past 20 years in detention by the junta, had not asked Total to go.
"She never asked me to leave [Burma]. Never!" Reuters quoted him as saying.
Despite a broad range of sanctions placed on Burma by the US and European Union because of political repression, its vast reserves of natural gas have been a financial lifeline for the regime.
In November 2005 Total agreed to pay compensation to eight Burmese citizens who accused the group of forced labour.
A Total spokesman did not wish to comment further on the interview.