Actions Birmanie's site aims at increasing awareness, among the francophone public, of the situation of the people of Burma who for nearly 40 years have been denied all democratic rights under the particularly repressive rule of a military junta.

It attempts to highlight the political and economic factors at stake in the Burmese crisis and to suggest means of actions to help the Burmese democrats and their leader Aung San Suu Kyi (Nobel Peace Prize 1991) in their non-violent struggle to restore democracy. These actions are, for instance
- To inform tourists who wish to visit the country
- To denounce the presence of companies like TotalFinaElf, whose investment and presence reinforce the power of the junta
- To inform the public of steps taken at home to relay the message of Burmese democrats

It presents the initiatives of different groups working for Burma:

° In francophone Belgium
- Action Birmanie Coherence (ABC) which works within the UCL (Universite Catholique de Louvain)) towards a coherent policy of support to Burmese democracy
- Action Petrole ou Birmanie (Petrol or Burma Action) and its appeal to consumer responsibility towards TotalFina, main sponsor of the military dictatorship
- Parliamentarians for Burma association. These members of the Belgian and european parliament wishing to support their jailed Burmese colleagues and work to curtail trade relations between the European Union and Burma.

° In France
- Info-Birmanie which disseminates information, works towards the restoration of democracy in Burma, and publishes a newsletter which can be read on this site. Info-Birmanie' s electronic address is
info-birmanie@globenet.org

All contributors to this site are voluntary but all make efforts to update information regularly..
This is also why we are unfortunately unable to translate all contents into English and Dutch. We apologize for that.

TotalFinaElf supports the Burmese dictatorship The TotalFinaElf petroleum company has deliberately become a prime supporter of the Burmese military junta, which is one of the bloodiest on this planet. Jail sentences, summary executions, torture, massive forcible population displacements (in particular on TotalFinaElf's future worksites), forced labour,..have been denounced in many official reports by United Nations agencies including the International Labour Organisation.

The Burmese democrats (victors in the 1990 elections by 82% of parliamentary seats and 61% of votes, harassed and jailed since by the junta) and Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi, their leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 1991, have been calling for an economic boycott of their country, repeatedly stressing that this boycott would not hurt the Burmese population as investments now only support the military junta.

Other companies such as Pepsi, Levi's, Interbrew, Carlsberg, Heineken, Reebok, C&A, Hewlett-Packard, Ericsson, have already chosen to pull out of Burma.

The European Parliament and the Belgian Parliament (among others) have voted resolutions which aim at discouraging businesses from investing in this country. The British government has even asked the British Premier Oil, a main investor in Burma, to end its activities in Burma.

TotalFinaElf heeds no call and remains in Burma.

By our call to boycott we demand that TotalFinaElf put pressure on the Burmese junta to implement a democratic transfer of power, or that it pull out of the country entirely.

To support our action, sign the Call for consumer responsibility.