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Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi accused France Wednesday of overlooking the poor human rights record of the Yangon (Rangoon) military government in order to safeguard its investments.
And she warned that French oil giant TotalFinaElf could not assume that its contracts in Myanmar would continue to be honoured once the country returned to democracy. "Total knew what it was doing when it invested massively in Myanmar while others withdrew from the market for ethical reasons," she told the French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur. "The company must accept the consequences. The country will not always be governed by dictators."
Aung, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who has been under house arrest since 1995, said she found the role of France in Myanmar " a real puzzle." " Fifty-five percent of tourists here are French and France is the biggest European investor in the country. Maybe the French aren't properly informed about what is going on here," she said.