Human rights campaigners were celebrating one of their biggest corporate victories on Thursday night after British American Tobacco (BAT) agreed to quit Burma in a significant climbdown.
The world's second largest cigarette group said it was leaving the military-run nation, which is also known as Myanmar, with regret and insisted it was only doing so after an "exceptional" request from the British government.
BAT, whose deputy chairman is former UK finance minister Kenneth Clarke, has tied up an agreement to sell its stake in Rothmans of Pall Mall Myanmar to a Singapore investment house.
The deal aims to safeguard jobs at its factory outside Rangoon and the continued marketing of BAT brands in Burma.
"We believe the solution is a balanced outcome to a difficult dilemma ... We are leaving our role in Rothmans of Pall Mall Myanmar with regret, as our managers have established it as one of Burma's best employers," said Michael Prideaux, director of corporate and regulatory affairs at BAT.
Company chairman Martin Broughton was asked this summer by UK foreign office minister Mike O'Brien to withdraw from the country. The request followed a crackdown by the military in Burma on May 30 when pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested. Dozens of her supporters were allegedly killed in an ambush by pro-government supporters.
BAT's retreat follows the exit of Premier Oil and travel groups such as Abercrombie & Kent.
The Burma Campaign UK and Federation of Trade Unions in Burma have targeted BAT over the last 12 months in a sustained verbal assault on the group.
"This is a huge victory," said John Jackson, director of the Burma Campaign UK. "They had to be dragged out kicking and screaming but at least they are out. If a company like BAT can be forced out of Burma any company can be."
O'Brien said he was "delighted" by the news. "I appreciate that this was a difficult process, but I am in no doubt that the decision was the right one," he said.
Activists were given ammunition when Clarke admitted in a letter to a constituent that he had reservations about working in the south-east Asian nation.
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