Myanmar's Military Supply-Line

 Rather than treating the Myanmar military junta as a pariah state, many armament corporations are doing lucrative business with it. 

Companies in 13 countries across Europe, Asia and North America are assisting Myanmar’s junta – either indirectly or directly – by supplying materials to the stated-owned entity that produces the military’s weapons, a report by the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar (SAC-M) has found. The weapons are then being used to commit human rights atrocities.

The report by the SAC-M found that dozens of companies based in Austria, France, China, Singapore, India, Israel, Ukraine, Germany, Taiwan, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the US were supplying raw materials, machines, technology and parts to the Directorate of Defence Industries (DDI), a state-owned company responsible for producing military equipment for Myanmar’s armed forces.

“It’s more or less a military-owned enterprise,” said Yanghee Lee, a former UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar and founder of the SAC-M, which is a group of independent experts, including former UN officials. She added that the DDI could use these imported supplies “to suppress and commit human rights violations, war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide”. Countries also have a role in ensuring their companies are not inadvertently facilitating human rights violations, according to the report. “Failing to do so makes them complicit in the Myanmar military’s barbaric crimes,” Lee said.

The Austrian company GFM Steyr is believed to have provided computer numerical control machines for the manufacturing of gun barrels.

 Dassault Systèmes in France is said to have supplied 3D electromagnetic simulation and analysis software, and computer aided design (CAD) software for 3D modelling. 

The Germany-based Siemens Digital Industries Software is thought to have provided multiple types of software.

 Ukraine’s Ukrspecexport is believed to have supplied types of transfer technology for the production of 2SIU self-propelled howitzers, BTR-4 armoured personnel carriers and MMT-40 light tanks.

“The fact that weapons used in … attacks have links to countries who are claiming ‘impartiality’ in the face of brutal and widespread repression of democratic aspirations is simply scandalous,” said Dr Gerard McCarthy, an assistant professor at the International Institute of Social Studies, who specialises in the politics of welfare and development in south-east Asia. “The hypocrisy here is mammoth,” McCarthy said. 

Myanmar’s democratically elected National Unity government had been “stonewalled internationally” in its attempts to procure defence capabilities, he said. “Yet many of the same countries claiming not to want to ‘intervene’ in Myanmar are turning a blind eye to their own companies directly and indirectly arming the dictatorship.”

Western firms facilitating production of Myanmar junta’s weapons, says report | Myanmar | The Guardian