Total's Gain Burma's Pain

From Indymedia:

Whilst Total announced that its fourth-quarter profits had risen 62 per cent to 5.23 billion US dollars exploiting high oil prices, eighteen protesters at Total's London HQ on February 13th, announced the real results of Total's exploitation of the oppressed Burmese in Totalitarian Burma.

The eighteen protesters, many of them Burmese held banners detailing the consequences of Total's £225 million per annum funding of the military regime, as the largest western supporter of the brutal junta.

In 2007 the military junta were able to crush the democracy protests, raid 52 monasteries, killing and imprisoning many monks. The number of Karen villages destroyed in the junta's ethnic cleansing reached 3,200 with over 1 million people displaced from all parts of Burma. The number of political prisoners jumped by hundreds to 1,864. Aung San Suu Kyi spent her 12th year under arrest, as the junta continued to ignore the international community's call for her to be released. Burma already notorious for massive forced labour and having the most child soldiers in the world, was ranked as the most corrupt country in the world in 2007. The torture of prisoners, unfair trials, rape as a weapon of war against women and children in ethnic communities continued.

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Protests in London next week:

WEDNESDAY 20TH FEBRUARY

Prayer Service for Padoh Mahn Sha Lah Phan, the General Secretary of the Karen National Union (KNU) who was assassinated on February 14th. There will be no Burma Embassy protest this Wednesday. See bdmauk.org for further details.
Colindale Monastery, 83 Booth Road, Colindale, London NW9 5JU
10:00 to 13:00
Tube: Colindale | Map

Total London HQ, 33 Cavendish Square, London W1G 0PW
1.30pm-3:00pm
Tube: Oxford Circus | Map

THURSDAY 21ST FEBRUARY

5.00pm - 7.00pm
Protest at Total petrol station, Dorset House, 170-172 Marylebone Rd, London NW1 5AR.
Nearest tube: Baker Street | Map