Famous human rights experts encourage countries to take action against corporations helping Myanmar’s military make weapons used in abuses.
Three former UN experts say US, European, and Asian companies are helping Myanmar’s military make weapons used in human rights violations.
The Special Advisory Council on Myanmar (SAC-M) said on Monday that companies from 13 countries, including France, Germany, China, India, Russia, Singapore, and the United States, had been supplying “essential” weapons production materials to Myanmar.
Experts claimed licenses, raw materials, software, parts, and components are supported.
After seizing power in a February 2021 coup, the Myanmar military has become largely self-sufficient in weapon manufacture, they added. The SAC-M asserted the military’s Directorate of Defence Industries (DDIKaPaSa )’s factories produce guns, ammunition, and landmines used to suppress coup resistance.
“Foreign firms are assisting the Myanmar military – one of the world’s worst human rights violators – to make many of the weapons it uses to commit daily crimes against the Myanmar people,” said SAC-Yanghee M’s Lee, a former UN Special Rapporteur on Myanmar.
“Foreign corporations and their home nations have moral and legal duties to guarantee their products are not aiding human rights violations against civilians in Myanmar,” Lee added. “Failure renders them complicit in the Myanmar military’s horrific crimes.”
The research (PDF) used leaked Ministry of Defence budget records and Myanmar military interviews.
The Myanmar military uses high-precision machinery from Austria, Germany, Japan, Taiwan, and the US at its weapons facilities. The research stated that these automated turning, milling, and grinding instruments are essential to weapon production.
It added French, Israeli, and German companies provide software for these machines.
Singapore is a crucial transit point for potentially large volumes of products, including raw materials, that fuel the Myanmar military’s weapons manufacture, and Taiwan is believed to be an essential route for the military’s procurement of high-precision machines, the research stated.
The research (PDF) used leaked Ministry of Defence budget records and Myanmar military interviews.
The Myanmar military uses high-precision machinery from Austria, Germany, Japan, Taiwan, and the US at its weapons facilities. The research stated that these automated turning, milling, and grinding instruments are essential to weapon production.
It added French, Israeli, and German companies provide software for these machines.
Singapore is a crucial transit point for potentially large volumes of products, including raw materials, that fuel the Myanmar military’s weapons manufacture, and Taiwan is believed to be an essential route for the military’s procurement of high-precision machines, the research stated.
The report also detailed the military’s use of locally made weapons against Myanmar’s people, such as crackdowns on peaceful protests against the coup, and warned that companies providing essential products to the DDI may be complicit in these and other atrocities committed by the country’s security forces.
Marzuki Darusman of the SAC-M said, “The Myanmar military has created a powerful arms manufacturing industry that makes it essentially self-sufficient in its ability to produce the small arms, light weapons and ammunition it employs to mercilessly oppress the Myanmar people.
“However, the DDI’s reliance on external supplies to sustain its weapon manufacture implies it is still vulnerable to external pressure,” Darusman, a former chair of the UN independent international fact-finding mission on Myanmar, said.
To defend the Myanmar people, UN member states should implement targeted sanctions against the KaPaSa, its leadership, and its network of brokers.
