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| |  | | Thierry Desmarest | | | context : | Burma (Myanmar)  | | judgement place : | France | | status : | Indicted | | particulars : | Charged in France in 2002 with illegal imprisonment during the construction of a pipeline | | position : | Director of the TOTAL EXPLORATION COMPANY (1992-99), responsible for the strategic side of a pipeline project in the region of Yadana, Myanmar |
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| | | | Thierry Desmarest was born on 18 December 1945. He graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique in 1966 and from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines in 1970. From 1981 he held several posts in the TOTAL EXPLORATION PRODUCTION, until he was finally made chairman in 1989. In the same year he also entered the management of the company. After TOTAL merged with Petrofina in 1999 (Totalfina), Thierry Desmarest became head of the administrative board and CEO of Totalfina. In 2000 Totalfina merged with Elf Aquitaine (TotalFinaElf) and Desmarest was again elected head of the administrative board and CEO. Since 6 May 2003 he has held these two positions in the French company TOTAL.
As director of TOTAL EXPLORATION PRODUCTION (1989-95), Desmarest was in charge of the Yadana pipeline project, and therefore responsible for the entire strategical side of TOTAL’s operations in Myanmar. In the region of Tenasserim, the security of the pipeline project was assigned to military battalions of the Burmese army. Although TOTAL and its management were aware of frequent and systematic human rights violations perpetrated by these battalions, they are alleged to have given them moral, financial, logistical and military support.
Desmarest is alleged to have personally signed contracts with Burmese generals in Rangoon on 10 September 1994. Several reports by human rights organizations, testimonies by victims of forced labour and TOTAL’s internal documents are said to prove that TOTAL and their management were fully aware of the crimes their military partners were committing. TOTAL supposedly paid compensations to 463 victims of forced labour between December 1995 and January 1996; this indicates that they were clearly aware of the serious situation. The crimes against humanity perpetrated by the security forces are thought to have had TOTAL’s support; the firm would therefore be complicit in these crimes. | |     click for more... | | Trial Watch would like to remind its users that any person charged by national or international authorities is presumed innocent until proven guilty. | |  |  | | nationality : | | | France | | | date of birth : | | | 18.12.1945 | | | period of charges : | | | 01.01.1988 - 31.12.1996 | | | charges : | | | Other | | | profile last modified : | | | 18.02.2007 |
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