Total oil workers strike in South Yemen

Total oil workers' meeting in Yemen

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Strikes have forced oil and gas company Total to stop oil production, in South Yemen’ s biggest oil and gas district of Hadramout.

The strikes are in solidarity with the Hadramout Tribes Congress’s calls for resistance demanding independence for South Yemen which started on 20 December 2013. The call went out after the Yemeni government killed Saad Bin Habrish, who had unified all the tribes of Hadramaut against the occupation.

The congress has demanded that Habrish’s killers be handed over, that the regime’s army withdraws from Hadramout and that security jobs are given to local people. It wrote to the Western companies asking them to suspend cooperation Yemen’s government and work with the tribes.

When these demands were not met, the tribesmen took over strategic areas, blocking roads and cutting food and spare parts supplies from reaching the oilfields. They brought the fossils giant to its knees.

Total owns 39 percent of Yemen’s oil, while the government owns only 22 percent. Yemen only gets to use 21 percent of the oil it produces. As much as 79 percent goes to other foreign companies at a fixed price £1.97 per unit. Yet Yemen imports oil for local market at £12.74. Yemeni people are being forced to pay four times the price for foreign imports.