A UN fact-finding mission yesterday called for an embargo on arms sales to Myanmar and targeted sanctions against businesses with connections to the military after finding they are helping fund human rights abuses.
The mission released a report detailing how businesses run by Myanmar’s army, also known as the Tatmadaw, are engaged in such violations and provide financial support for military operations such as efforts to force Muslim Rohingya out of Rakhine State.
The report focused mainly on the activities of two main conglomerates dominated by the military — Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd and Myanmar Economic Corp.
Nearly 60 foreign companies have dealings with the at least 120 businesses controlled by the two companies in industries ranging from jade and ruby mining to tourism and pharmaceuticals, the report said.
“The revenue that these military businesses generate strengthens the Tatmadaw’s autonomy from elected civilian oversight and provides financial support for the Tatmadaw’s operations with their wide array of international human rights and humanitarian law abuses,” Marzuki Darusman, the Indonesian human rights lawyer who chairs the fact-finding mission, said in a statement.
The fact-finding mission, empowered by the UN Human Rights Council, was established in the wake of a brutal counterinsurgency campaign begun in 2017 that drove more than 700,000 Rohingya into neighboring Bangladesh.
A wide array of international groups have shown killings, rapes and the torching of villages carried out on a large scale by Myanmar security forces.
Myanmar’s government has denied abuses and said its actions were justified in response to attacks by Rohingya insurgents.
The mission, which investigated human rights violations against ethnic groups in other parts of the country as well, also documented the abuses in an initial report issued last year.
Military leaders in charge of Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd and Myanmar Economic Corp are among officials the fact-finding mission earlier said should be investigated for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Monday’s report urged the UN and member governments to immediately impose targeted sanctions against companies run by the military and encourages carrying out business with firms unaffiliated with the military instead.
The US lifted long-standing economic sanctions against Myanmar in 2016, but it has reimposed some sanctions against members of the military, citing the army’s treatment of the Rohingya.
Tatmadaw Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing is already being sanctioned by the US for the Rohingya campaign.
In July, Washington barred him, his deputy Soe Win, and two subordinates believed responsible for extrajudicial killings from traveling to the US.
Myanmar’s military objected to the sanctions, saying they were a blow against the country’s entire military and that the US should respect investigations into the Rakhine situation being conducted by the army.
The US sanctions are useful and have a cumulative effect, said Christopher Sidoti, an international human rights lawyer and former Australian human rights commissioner.
At the same time, he said they are small and symbolic — “only a start” — and more actions such as freezing their bank accounts are needed.
In the past decade, as Myanmar transitioned from a military regime to a civilian government dominated by the military, businesses have poured investment into one of the region’s fastest growing economies.
The report alleged that at least 15 foreign companies have joint ventures with military-affiliated businesses.
The report did not suggest the foreign companies have directly contravened any laws, but it said such ties pose “a high risk of contributing to or being linked to, violations of human rights law and international humanitarian law. At a minimum, these foreign companies are contributing to supporting the Tatmadaw’s financial capacity.”
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
INSTABILITY: If Hezbollah do not respond to Israel’s killing of their leader then it must be assumed that they simply can not, an Middle Eastern analyst said Israel’s killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah leaves the group under huge pressure to deliver a resounding response to silence suspicions that the once seemingly invincible movement is a spent force, analysts said. Widely seen as the most powerful man in Lebanon before his death on Friday, Nasrallah was the face of Hezbollah and Israel’s arch-nemesis for more than 30 years. His group had gained an aura of invincibility for its part in forcing Israel to withdraw troops from southern Lebanon in 2000, waging a devastating 33-day-long war in 2006 against Israel and opening a “support front” in solidarity with Gaza since
RSS