Geoffrey Van Orden, MEP, Foreign Affairs Committee, European Parliament: “…the French oil firm Total...[have] been a sort of a lobby, if you like, for the [Burma] government. And so that sort of resistance has to be overcome.”’...As a response to the Honourable Geoffrey van Orden's statement on Total’s presence in Myanmar, we wish to answer that we believe...Boycotts and divestment policies simply hurt the people and delay the return of the targeted country to the international community...This opinion is widely shared by a great number of experts...Their position stems from historical analyses and not from any pressure supposedly exerted by Total on the French government, as Mr van Orden says.