During his stirring Canberra speech before flying off to Darwin, US President, Barack Obama,specifically raised the denial of human rights in Burma. This put the NT Chief Minister, Paul Henderson ,the Darwin media and others in the hotseat. Questions submitted by Little Darwin to Paul Henderson about Burma have gone unanswered. This was the original request sent to the Chief Minister via his staffer, Fred McCue, on October 9:
For the record , has the Chief Minister at any stage discussed with Total , a partner in the proposed Inpex project, the plight of Burma, its people under the brutal control of the illegal, internationally condemned military junta? As you know , Total , with Chevron(US) and PTTEP (Thailand- the Montara spill ) Oil and Gas Enterprise ( the Burmese military ), is involved in the gas pipeline from the Andaman Sea to Thailand,construction of which is said to have involved forced labour,land seizure,oppression of the populace, resulting in international court cases.
Incredibly, the Darwin media has not raised Total’s involvement in Burma when reporting the proposed Inpex project, which seems a gross dereliction of duty and lack of basic journalistic practice.
There are Burmese refugees in Darwin’s immigration detention centre,we have a Burmese community here and there are many Burmese refugees in Malaysia, many of whom could be placed in the Territory, if the Australian government’s offshore processing goes ahead. It would therefore seem even more desirable that the NT Government make an attempt to influence the deplorable situation in Burma.
Aung San Suu Ki,in her recent lectures, stated that support for democracy in Burma by other democracies strengthens democracy globally. A joint statement in the NT Legislative Assembly outlining its concern for the people of Burma and a call for the Inpex partners to use their influence on the Burmese regime to try and improve the lot of the Burmese populace is surely desirable . Is there any chance that such a move will be made by the CM? - Peter Simon.
Despite several requests for a reply, there was none. The grande silence now has a gaseous petite twist,which you will see near the end of this post . The Chief Minister certainly did not take the opportunity to show a skerrick of statesmanship and concern by raising the matter at the last sittings of the Legislative Assembly. Strangely, the Northern Territory News has suddenly started referring to Total as the Inpex “junior partner”. Now that the US president has raised the issue, the local media must ask pertinent,REAL questions of the Chief Minister,other local politicians, and last, but not least , TOTAL and INPEX.
