Bradford Total Garage Blockade/London HQ in solidarity with Burmese protesters/Oxford demo/callout: London 5th & Cardiff 6th Oct

27th Octo­ber 2007
Around 30 activists block­ad­ed a Total petrol sta­tion in Brad­ford to protest against the com­pa­ny’s heavy involve­ment with the mil­i­tary jun­ta in Bur­ma which is respon­si­ble for the deaths of sev­er­al pro­test­ers in just the last few days.

Total is in a joint ven­ture with the Burmese dic­ta­tor­ship in the Yadana gas project, which earns the regime hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars every year. Aung Sun Suu Kyi, the demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed leader of the Burmese gov­ern­ment under house arrest, says: “Total has become the main sup­port­er of the mil­i­tary regime”.

A mix of stu­dents and locals stood, sat or drummed across both entrances to the fore­court for an hour and a half. Hold­ing a ban­ner read­ing “Total­i­tar­i­an Oil-Fuelling Oppres­sion in Bur­ma” they leaflet­ed and spoke to passers-by and motorists.

Staff at the petrol sta­tion threat­ened pro­test­ers with sticks, car and lor­ry dri­vers attempt­ed to run over pro­test­ers, but despite this things remained peace­ful. The sta­tion was closed almost com­plete­ly for over an hour whilst pro­test­ers played drums, gave out fliers, held plac­ards and ban­ners, and sat in the entrances to the fore­court.

A few dri­vers were not so sup­port­ive, includ­ing one truck dri­ver who car­ried on dri­ving into the pro­test­ers in the entrance way even as they banged fran­ti­cal­ly on the wind­screen. Even a local cop (who had pre­vi­ous­ly tried to shove pro­test­ers off the road) decid­ed to tell the dri­ver to back off. Most dri­vers how­ev­er were sup­port­ive and chose not to try and cross the block­ade. Although many peo­ple were aware of the sit­u­a­tion on Bur­ma they had not heard of Total’s involve­ment.

Video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSrPVltBMkA

http://www.bradfordcampaigners.co.nr

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Also sol­i­dar­i­ty demo at embassies in Lon­don

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Total Oil’s Lon­don offices tar­get­ed this morn­ing, 2nd Octo­ber

Total Oil’s Lon­don offices were tar­get­ed this morn­ing in order to high­light the com­pa­ny’s involve­ment with Bur­ma’s regime. Total’s invest­ments have been earn­ing the regime mil­lions of dol­lars and have been marked by human rights abus­es such as the use of forced labour. Activists staged a die-in and hand­ed out leaflets from the Bur­ma Cam­paign UK to inform office work­ers going into the build­ing on what Total, Europe’s great­est finan­cial backer of the Burmese jun­ta, is real­ly up to.

As the streets of Burmese cities are patrolled by sol­diers and thou­sands of monks and pro­test­ers are still miss­ing after hav­ing been killed, beat­en up or arrest­ed dur­ing last week’s demon­stra­tions, sup­port for the Burmese people’s strug­gle is vital. With thou­sands tak­ing to the streets on Sun­day, it is also impor­tant to expose those who make the mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship pos­si­ble – cor­po­ra­tions such as Total Oil. Aung San Suu Kyi, the most respect­ed fig­ure of Burma’s democ­ra­cy move­ment, has iden­ti­fied Total as “the biggest sup­port­er of the mil­i­tary regime in Bur­ma”, earn­ing the jun­ta hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars each year. Total’s joint ven­ture with Burma’s rulers in the Yadan gas project in the south of the coun­try pro­vides cru­cial rev­enues to the regime and has had its own hor­rif­ic record of human rights abus­es such as the use of forced labour and wide­spread tor­ture and rape against those who oppose the project.

On top of all this, Total Oil has been suc­cess­ful­ly lob­by­ing the French gov­ern­ment to veto Euro­pean Union sanc­tions against Bur­ma in order to pro­tect its invest­ments, yet anoth­er exam­ple of cor­po­ra­tions show­ing where the real pow­er real­ly lies in world affairs.

Activists decid­ed to take this mat­ter to Total’s Lon­don offices, show­ing up ear­ly this morn­ing to talk to office work­ers as they made their way into work, and to inform oth­ers work­ing in the build­ing what their neigh­bours are real­ly up to. A ban­ner read­ing ‘TOTAL­i­tar­i­anOil Out of Bur­ma Now’ was unfurled, leaflets from the Bur­ma Cam­paign hand­ed out, while three activists staged a die-in in the lob­by of the build­ing. Police forces showed up with­in 20 min­utes, demand­ing to speak to the ‘lead­ers of the demon­stra­tion’, and even­tu­al­ly force­ful­ly remov­ing those inside the build­ing. The pro­test­ers were not deterred, con­tin­u­ing the die-in out­side the doors. It was decid­ed by all to end the demon­stra­tion at 11am, after all leaflets were hand­ed out and traf­fic into the build­ing slowed down.

As the Burmese mil­i­tary con­tin­ues its repres­sion of dis­sent, we must keep up the strug­gle and con­tin­ue to tar­get those who finan­cial­ly back the regime, expos­ing them for what they real­ly are: cap­i­tal­ists who care about noth­ing but prof­it.

Press release:

Hold­ing a ban­ner read­ing ‘TOTALITARIAN OIL: OUT OF BURMA NOW’, they are demand­ing that the com­pa­ny imme­di­ate­ly halts its oper­a­tions in Bur­ma, includ­ing the mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar Yadana gas project [1], and announces a full divest­ment from the coun­try until human rights abus­es end and a demo­c­ra­t­ic regime is in place.

Tom Shapiro, one of those at the protest, said:

“As reports fil­ter out that thou­sands of peo­ple may have lost their lives in Bur­ma this week stand­ing up for their demo­c­ra­t­ic rights, we are here to say that TOTAL, which funds the regime, has blood on its hands — and these work­ers have blood on their desks. TOTAL’s finan­cial part­ner­ship with the Burmese jun­ta enables the oppres­sion of 48 mil­lion peo­ple. They claim this is an ‘eth­i­cal’ approach that oth­er investors would not repli­cate — rather, it’s an affront to human­i­ty. We urge every­one who sup­ports the monks in their protest to tar­get TOTAL in every way pos­si­ble until they leave Bur­ma.”

The demon­stra­tion lends strength to the grow­ing calls for con­sumer action against TOTAL over its role in Bur­ma, after calls by Dutch polit­i­cal par­ties, Angli­can church groups and French trade unions this week for the com­pa­ny to be tar­get­ed [2]. It is also indi­cates the increas­ing­ly grass­roots nature of the sol­i­dar­i­ty protests that have spread across the world, with ordi­nary peo­ple tar­get­ing the com­pa­nies and embassies with most lever­age dur­ing the cur­rent cri­sis, rather than rely­ing on more con­ven­tion­al chan­nels.

Michelle Doyle, anoth­er of those at the protest, said:

“The For­eign Sec­re­tary, David Mil­liband, has been on tele­vi­sion promis­ing tough EU sanc­tions, but while bureau­crats talk, peo­ple are being killed in the streets. We could­n’t bear just to watch it hap­pen­ing on TV and trust the gov­ern­ment to make a dif­fer­ence. We are here to use peo­ple pow­er to tar­get the cor­po­ra­tions which are keep­ing the Burmese jun­ta in busi­ness — British tim­ber com­pa­nies, tourism providers, and above all TOTAL, the fourth biggest oil com­pa­ny in the world. It is these com­pa­nies that are pay­ing the wages of the sol­diers who are shoot­ing monks. We must make sure that not one more dol­lar of our mon­ey goes towards keep­ing the regime in pow­er.”

The demon­stra­tors describe them­selves as sup­port­ers of but not act­ing for Bur­ma Cam­paign UK. They met on Sun­day’s demon­stra­tion in cen­tral Lon­don and via social net­work­ing site Face­book, and intend to take part in the Inter­na­tion­al Day of Action on Sat­ur­day [3].

NOTES FOR EDITORS:

1. TOTAL Oil has had a joint busi­ness ven­ture with the Burmese gov­ern­ment since 1992. Its major project is the Yadana gas project in south­ern Bur­ma, which earns the mil­i­tary regime hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars every year. See http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/total.html

2. Four Dutch polit­i­cal par­ties, includ­ing the Dutch Labour Par­ty, part of the gov­ern­ing coali­tion, last week called for a boy­cott of Total: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/09/28/europe/EU-GEN-Netherlands-Myanmar.php.

The French CGT union called for Total to halt all gas extrac­tion and freeze all trans­fers: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article3010197.ece

Mean­while, there have been demon­stra­tions and calls to boy­cott in Brad­ford, Bris­tol, and Not­ting­ham in the UK in the last week:
Brad­ford: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/09/382211.html
Angli­cans call for boy­cott:
http://www.energypublisher.com/article.asp?id=11254
Not­ting­ham: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/09/382268.html
Bris­tol: http://www.bristol.indymedia.org/newswire.php?story_id=26882

3. This Sat­ur­day, 6 Octo­ber, will be A Day of Inter­na­tion­al Action for a Free Bur­ma — Free Aung San Suu Kyi & Sup­port the Monks in Bur­ma. Over 1,000 peo­ple have already con­firmed via Face­book that they will be attend­ing. See: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=4973307490

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Activists staged a protest at Total petrol sta­tion on Oxford Road in Oxford on Sat­ur­day 29th. They tried to block the access to the sta­tion but were low on num­bers and unfor­tu­nate­ly the imme­di­ate police pres­ence meant that they were moved to one side. Still, the large ban­ner sent out a clear mes­sage about Total Oil’s sup­port of the Burmese jun­ta to lots of motorists on the busy Sat­ur­day after­noon. Many indi­cat­ed to turn in before chang­ing their minds. Those who chose to refill their tanks were hand­ed leaflets and giv­en a lec­ture on the sit­u­a­tion in Bur­ma and Total’s deci­sion to exploit it.

I’ve also noticed some anti-Total graf­fi­ti about.

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Protest Total Oil this Fri­day in Lon­don

CALL TO ACTION: ‘Die-in’ and demo at Lon­don TOTAL Oil HQ over Bur­ma links
FRIDAY 5 OCTOBER
8:30 — 10:30 am
33 Cavendish Square, Lon­don, WC1

Show your sol­i­dar­i­ty with the pro­tes­tors in Bur­ma — join the action!

A mass action has been called to take place at the head­quar­ters of TOTAL OIL in Lon­don on Fri­day Octo­ber 5th from 8:30 — 10:30 am. A demon­stra­tion and a mass die-in will take place out­side of the cen­tral Lon­don office to express our out­rage at Total’s involve­ment with the mil­i­tary jun­ta in Bur­ma.

All are wel­come to attend — bring plac­ards, instru­ments, noise and props if you can. A sym­bol­ic ‘die-in’ will be hap­pen­ing. A sim­i­lar action hap­pened on Tues­day, Octo­ber 2nd at the same loca­tion with 20 activists (see above).

Across France and in oth­er parts of the UK pres­sure has been mount­ing against Total in a num­ber of sol­i­dar­i­ty actions.
It is impor­tant to con­tin­ue pres­sure on this com­pa­ny to demand Total’s with­draw­al from Bur­ma.

TOTAL Oil’s busi­ness part­ner­ship with the Burmese gov­ern­ment is pro­vid­ing vital fund­ing that enables the bru­tal mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship in to oppress 48 mil­lion peo­ple.

An upris­ing against the jun­ta in Bur­ma, led by monks, has been met with vio­lent repres­sion. Secu­ri­ty forces and armed mil­i­tary troops have launched a vio­lent crack­down on demon­stra­tors, most of which is not being report­ed due to a state-imposed media freeze. Some esti­mates sug­gest that thou­sands could be dead and many more impris­oned.

We demand that the com­pa­ny imme­di­ate­ly halts its oper­a­tions in Bur­ma and announces a full divest­ment from the coun­try until human rights abus­es end and a demo­c­ra­t­ic regime is in place.

This action is called by peo­ple who met at a Bur­ma sol­i­dar­i­ty march and decid­ed that we need­ed to do more by tar­get­ting the com­pa­nies that have blood on their hands.

Near­est tube: Oxford Cir­cus
Map:
http://tinyurl.com/2oardl
For more infor­ma­tion see:
http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/total.html

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion on actions against Total Oil:

TOTAL Oil has had a joint busi­ness ven­ture with the Burmese gov­ern­ment since 1992. Its major project is the Yadana gas project in south­ern Bur­ma, which earns the mil­i­tary regime hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars every year.

Four Dutch polit­i­cal par­ties, includ­ing the Dutch Labour Par­ty, part of the gov­ern­ing coali­tion, last week called for a boy­cott of Total:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/09/28/europe/EU-GEN-Netherlands-Myanmar.php.

The French CGT union called for Total to halt all gas extrac­tion and
freeze all trans­fers:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article3010197.ece

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Cardiff Burma/Total Protest Sat­ur­day 6th Octo­ber

DO SOMETHING ABOUT BURMA IN CARDIFF — SPREAD THE WORD!

French oil com­pa­ny Total is one of the biggest for­eign investors in Bur­ma. It has been prop­ping up the vio­lent and oppres­sive regime there for years. It has even used army-imposed forced labour to con­struct a gas pipeline accross the coun­try.

Peo­ple in Britain have been protest­ing out­side Total garages and offices all week with demos in places like Brad­ford, Oxford, and Lon­don — now it’s our turn!

Protest at the Total Garage, Cathe­dral Road, Cardiff, 11am Sat­ur­day 6th Octo­ber.
Assem­ble: 10.30am out­side Glam­or­gan Staff Club, West­gate Street to march on the garage.

As the medi­a’s atten­tion span wanes, and a spec­ta­cle-weary pub­lic grows tired of see­ing South East Asians get­ting bat­tered and shot on prime­time TV, a full-scale state and mil­i­tary back­lash against Bur­ma’s peo­ple is under­way. Demon­stra­tors are being rou­tine­ly round­ed up, put in prison, and quite prob­a­bly tor­tured, and more monks are being mur­dered and beat­en every day.

Let’s tar­get the com­pa­nies that prop up Bur­ma’s mur­der­ous mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship and let them know that they can’t get away with sup­port­ing despots with impuni­ty.

Bring ban­ners, plac­ards, and what­ev­er else you expect to find — wear saf­fron or dark red if you want to.

This demon­stra­tion is called by the South Wales Anar­chists — all are wel­come, and please spread the word to your net­works!

Get good and reli­able news about Bur­ma at:
http://www.burmanet.org/news/