The Norwegian Burma Committee, working out of the Norwegian Human Rights House in Oslo, launched an email campaign this week to force Per-Kristian Foss, the Norwegian Minister of Finance, to address the controversial issue reported previously on this site, re. the state-owned Norwegian Petroleum Fund?s investment in the French Oil giant Total Oil, who in turn make big money while exploiting and violating the rights of Burmese civilians. (6-APR-05)
Major environment, anti-consumption and humanitarian NGOs like the Future in Our Hands and the Norwegian Church Aid have joined the campaign and already requested their networks and contacts to send emails to Mr Foss asking him to relate properly to this issue. The Human Rights House Network is hereby requested to do the same.
Double standards
-The outing of the connection between Total and the Norwegian Petroleum Fund is no small issue, says Ã…se Sand of the Norwegian Burma Committee. In fact, Total is the Fund?s main investment. Total is doing business with Burma?s brutal military dictatorship and there is no doubt that this contradicts not only the Fund?s own ethical guidelines, but also the Norwegian government?s appeal to the entire Norwegian business community of refraining from having anything to do in or with Burma for as long as the current regime remains in power. Our appeal to Foss is to make use of the Norwegian influence, though its significant investments in the company, to force Total to pull out of Burma. The Norwegian message ought to be forwarded as a simple ultimatum: Total out of Burma or Norway out of Total!
The link to e-mail Per-Kristian Foss, the Norwegian Minister of Finance, is: http://www.burma.no/kampanje.php
You can also read more here: http://humanrightshouse.org/Articles/364.html&parentid=5
The e-mail campaign is launched by the Norwegian Burma Committee, Norwegian Church Aid and Future in our hands. It is part of an international campaign against Total, which is supported by a coalition of 41 organisations across 18 countries.
About the Total campaign:
