UN reveals network of businesses funding the Myanmar military

Source SMH, 5 Aug

Jakarta: Myanmar's military is using a huge network of businesses to help fund its brutal operations against ethnic minorities, including Rohingya Muslims, according to a new report.

The report into the economic interests of the military, known as the Tatmadaw, was conducted by an independent fact-finding mission for the United Nations' Office of the High Commission for Refugees.

It sets out in detail the complex network of more than 120 companies owned and operated by some of the most senior figures in the military as well as "crony" private companies that contributed millions to the military's budget. It also names foreign companies that are selling weapons to Tatmadaw and working with it in joint ventures.

A Myanmar army band in the Kachin state in 2008.CREDIT:KATE GERAGHTY

Targeted sanctions by the United Nations against the Tatmadaw's companies and a comprehensive arms embargo that would stop the sale of weapons including fighter jets, armoured combat vehicles, warships, missiles and missile launchers are recommended by the report.

Many western countries including Australia, the US, the European Union and Canada already have arms embargoes in place, though Australia has been criticised for providing training to the Tatmadaw.

Two of Myanmar's least-transparent companies, Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited (MEHL) and Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC) come in for particular scrutiny.

These companies are owned and influenced by senior military leaders including the Tatmadaw's commander-in-chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and deputy commander-in-chief, Vice Senior General Soe Win. The fact-finding mission has previously recommended both men by prosecuted for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

MEHL and the MEC, according to the report, own at least 120 businesses that are involved in the construction industry, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, insurance, tourism and banking.

They also hold jade and ruby mining licences in Kachin and Shan states where human rights violations, including forced labour and sexual violence, have been perpetrated by the Tatmadaw.

Rohingya woman Fatima Begum comforts her twins Asia and Rubina as her sick son Sadeka lays by her side at the Balukhali camp in Bangladesh. Some 900,000 Rohingya fled Myanmar for Bangladesh two years ago.CREDIT:KATE GERAGHTY

One of the three members of the fact-finding mission, Radhika Coomaraswamy, said the investigation should "compel the international community and individual States to take a coordinated multilateral approach to accountability, justice and ending the human rights crisis in Myanmar".

Fellow team member Christopher Sidoti, a former Australian Human Rights commissioner, said the revenue from these businesses helped strengthen the Tatmadaw's independence from elected civilian oversight - including by de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi - and allows a wide array of international human rights and humanitarian law violations.

A demonstration organised by a Buddhist monk in support of Myanmar's civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi's handling of the Rohingya crisis in Yangon, 2017.CREDIT:ADAM DEAN/THE NEW YORK TIMES

The report itself stated that the outsized power of the Tatmadaw, even following the transition to democracy, allowed it to operate as an autonomous institution free from civilian government oversight.

Furthermore, the Tatmadaw's economic interests had "enabled its conduct", including human rights violations in the Rakhine, Shan and Kachine states.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims have been forced by the Tatmadaw to flee Rakhine state across the border to Bangladesh, where more than a million refugees have been sheltering in squalid refugee camps. Many Rohingya have been raped or murdered while fleeing their homes.

It also identified the countries supplying arms and military equipment to the Tatmadaw - including China, Russia, the Ukraine, Israel, India and Singapore - and at least 15 foreign companies that were in joint ventures with the military-owned MEHL and MEC.

Those companies include Inno Co and Posco Steel from South Korea, Japan's Kirin Holdings and Japan Tobacco, China's Norinco, Vietnam's Viettel and Singapore's Virginia Tobacco Company.

The report, released on Monday, builds on the fact-finding mission's September 2018 report into who from the senior ranks of the Tatmadaw should be prosecuted for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.