Wednesday, May 17, 2006
AN OPEN LETTER TO TOTAL
17th May 2006
To all Total Executives,
As you will already know the regime in control of Burma has, this month begun its worst onslaught against the Karen people since 1997. Already 15 000 people have been driven from their villages where the regimes soldiers have murdered civilians, raped women, taken slaves, destroyed rice fields and burnt homes. Landmines have already been laid along the Thai boarder by the regime, maiming anybody trying to escape. Reports have already emerged of children just weeks old being carried through mine fields, civilians being beheaded by the regimes soldiers and of one man tied to a tree and beaten to death while the people of the village were forced to watch. Thousands of Karen people are hiding in the jungles of Burma with no food, water or medical supplies, their villages having been burnt to the ground and their harvest destroyed by the regime.
Total Oil is the regime's biggest supplier of funds and yet has kept silent on these atrocities. We are calling upon you to publicly condemn the genocide of the Karen people and ask the regime to call a halt to the onslaught. Total may claim to not be involved in politics but by paying the regime is directly funding the genocide of the Karen people.
It is time to publicly condemn the genocide and call for it to stop.
To all Total Executives,
As you will already know the regime in control of Burma has, this month begun its worst onslaught against the Karen people since 1997. Already 15 000 people have been driven from their villages where the regimes soldiers have murdered civilians, raped women, taken slaves, destroyed rice fields and burnt homes. Landmines have already been laid along the Thai boarder by the regime, maiming anybody trying to escape. Reports have already emerged of children just weeks old being carried through mine fields, civilians being beheaded by the regimes soldiers and of one man tied to a tree and beaten to death while the people of the village were forced to watch. Thousands of Karen people are hiding in the jungles of Burma with no food, water or medical supplies, their villages having been burnt to the ground and their harvest destroyed by the regime.
Total Oil is the regime's biggest supplier of funds and yet has kept silent on these atrocities. We are calling upon you to publicly condemn the genocide of the Karen people and ask the regime to call a halt to the onslaught. Total may claim to not be involved in politics but by paying the regime is directly funding the genocide of the Karen people.
It is time to publicly condemn the genocide and call for it to stop.
