Asad Ismi: Canadian Investment in Burma

Recently, Burma's military junta detained a 3-year-old girl whom Amnesty International called the world's youngest prisoner of conscience. This was not surprising for a brutal dictatorship that has killed 10,000 people and turned Burma into a vast slave labour camp as well as the world's leading heroin exporter. According to the U.N., torture, summary executions, forced labour, abuse of women, forced displacement and oppression of minorities are commonplace in Burma. The International Labour Organization (ILO) virtually expelled Burma in June, banning it from meetings and receiving aid until it stops widespread forced labour which the organization called "nothing but a contemporary, form of slavery." The junta, known as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), refused to hand over power to Aung San Suu Kyi in 1990 (when her party won elections), and proceeded to declare Burma "open to free enterprise." Canadian corporations were not slow to respond and 12 of them are investing in or doing business with Burma (see list). Canadian investment in Burma exceeds $150 million and most of these companies are in the gas and mining sectors.

The infrastructure for foreign investment is being built with the slave labour of an estimated 800,000 people including children, and such investment is used to launder profits from the junta's drug trafficking which provides 60 percent of the world's heroin. The money generated by heroin, foreign investment and tourism finances the SPDC's arms purchases (mainly from China) with which it maintains its iron-fisted rule.

TCPL, Canada's largest pipeline firm, is assisting in the construction of the Thai portion of the Yadhana gas pipeline which goes from Burma to Thailand. The biggest foreign investment in Burma, the U.S.$1.2 billion pipeline is a joint venture between the oil multinationals Unocal (U.S.), Total (France) and Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprises (MOGE), the state oil company. Fourteen Burmese plaintiffs filed an unprecedented federal lawsuit in Los Angeles holding Unocal and Total accountable for the torture, rape, murder, forced labour and forced relocations of people living on the pipeline route. The suit also accused Unocal of fueling the heroin trade through its partnership with MOGE "which is the main channel for laundering the revenues of heroin produced and exported under the control of the Burmese army" according to a sworn affidavit. The judge ruled that Unocal can be held liable for illegal and repressive acts committed by the SPDC in the course of their business dealings. Thus the implications for any corporate link to the pipeline project and MOGE are clear. This has not stopped Mitsubishi Canada from supplying material for the project nor Canadian Helicopters International from providing helicopter services to Total. BC Gas has signed a long-term contract to source gas from Unocal while Ridel Resources is in a separate joint venture with MOGE.

Canadian companies in other sectors are similarly cozy with the junta. Nortel Networks, the world's sixth largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer, is selling a 2000 line cellular phone system to the SPDC Post and Telecommunications Department (PTD) through Telrad Telecommunications of Israel. Nortel owns 20 percent of Telrad which is also making 70 percent of the switching equipment for Burma's telephone system and has already supplied 35 percent of its 160,000 phone lines. Nortel and Telrad cosponsored a symposium on "Global Systems for Mobile Cellular Communication" for the regime's PTD. Nortel claims that its business can have a "positive influence" on Burma but the Ottawa-based activist group, Canadian Friends of Burma (CFOB), has called for a boycott of the company. CFOB points out that "military phone tapping is a constant reality" and that Nortel's equipment helps the junta repress the Burmese people.

In partnership with the SPDC, Ivanhoe Mines controls the U.S.$90 million Monywa copper mine, Burma's largest mining venture. Ivanhoe is owned by the notorious Robert Friedland whose mining activities have been linked to major environmental disasters in the U.S. and Guyana. In Burma, Friedland is represented by Vancouver businessman Reggie Tun Maung, whose son is married to the daughter of SPDC Deputy Prime Minister, Maung Maung Khin. Another Friedland company, First Dynasty Mines, shares interest with the Myanmar Ministry of Mines in a 140,000 hectare block in Sagaing division. East Asia Gold is exploring for gold and copper in collaboration with the SPDC, while Palmer Resources holds an interest in a mining concession in southern Burma.

Sears Canada is sourcing clothes from Burma's garment industry which supplied $10 million worth of merchandise to Canada in 1997. Burmese garment workers are the most underpaid in Asia, earning 8 cents an hour. To keep their jobs they must pay half their wages to the SPDC which owns part of the garment sector and uses it to buy arms.

The Canadian government has cut off aid to Burma but refuses to ban investment and trade. CFOB has called for full economic sanctions to be imposed on what it calls "the South Africa of the 1990s."

Published in:

Outfront, Spring 2000

Briarpatch, May 2000

Peace and Environment News, June 2000


	FINANCING SLAVERY: Canadian Investment in Burma

Recently, Burma's military junta detained a 3-year-old girl whom Amnesty International called the world's youngest prisoner of conscience. This was not surprising for a brutal dictatorship that has killed 10,000 people and turned Burma into a vast slave labour camp as well as the world's leading heroin exporter. According to the U.N., torture, summary executions, forced labour, abuse of women, forced displacement and oppression of minorities are commonplace in Burma. The International Labour Organization (ILO) virtually expelled Burma in June, banning it from meetings and receiving aid until it stops widespread forced labour which the organization called "nothing but a contemporary, form of slavery." The junta, known as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), refused to hand over power to Aung San Suu Kyi in 1990 (when her party won elections), and proceeded to declare Burma "open to free enterprise." Canadian corporations were not slow to respond and 12 of them are investing in or doing business with Burma (see list). Canadian investment in Burma exceeds $150 million and most of these companies are in the gas and mining sectors. The infrastructure for foreign investment is being built with the slave labour of an estimated 800,000 people including children, and such investment is used to launder profits from the junta's drug trafficking which provides 60 percent of the world's heroin. The money generated by heroin, foreign investment and tourism finances the SPDC's arms purchases (mainly from China) with which it maintains its iron-fisted rule. TCPL, Canada's largest pipeline firm, is assisting in the construction of the Thai portion of the Yadhana gas pipeline which goes from Burma to Thailand. The biggest foreign investment in Burma, the U.S.$1.2 billion pipeline is a joint venture between the oil multinationals Unocal (U.S.), Total (France) and Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprises (MOGE), the state oil company. Fourteen Burmese plaintiffs filed an unprecedented federal lawsuit in Los Angeles holding Unocal and Total accountable for the torture, rape, murder, forced labour and forced relocations of people living on the pipeline route. The suit also accused Unocal of fueling the heroin trade through its partnership with MOGE "which is the main channel for laundering the revenues of heroin produced and exported under the control of the Burmese army" according to a sworn affidavit. The judge ruled that Unocal can be held liable for illegal and repressive acts committed by the SPDC in the course of their business dealings. Thus the implications for any corporate link to the pipeline project and MOGE are clear. This has not stopped Mitsubishi Canada from supplying material for the project nor Canadian Helicopters International from providing helicopter services to Total. BC Gas has signed a long-term contract to source gas from Unocal while Ridel Resources is in a separate joint venture with MOGE. Canadian companies in other sectors are similarly cozy with the junta. Nortel Networks, the world's sixth largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer, is selling a 2000 line cellular phone system to the SPDC Post and Telecommunications Department (PTD) through Telrad Telecommunications of Israel. Nortel owns 20 percent of Telrad which is also making 70 percent of the switching equipment for Burma's telephone system and has already supplied 35 percent of its 160,000 phone lines. Nortel and Telrad cosponsored a symposium on "Global Systems for Mobile Cellular Communication" for the regime's PTD. Nortel claims that its business can have a "positive influence" on Burma but the Ottawa-based activist group, Canadian Friends of Burma (CFOB), has called for a boycott of the company. CFOB points out that "military phone tapping is a constant reality" and that Nortel's equipment helps the junta repress the Burmese people. In partnership with the SPDC, Ivanhoe Mines controls the U.S.$90 million Monywa copper mine, Burma's largest mining venture. Ivanhoe is owned by the notorious Robert Friedland whose mining activities have been linked to major environmental disasters in the U.S. and Guyana. In Burma, Friedland is represented by Vancouver businessman Reggie Tun Maung, whose son is married to the daughter of SPDC Deputy Prime Minister, Maung Maung Khin. Another Friedland company, First Dynasty Mines, shares interest with the Myanmar Ministry of Mines in a 140,000 hectare block in Sagaing division. East Asia Gold is exploring for gold and copper in collaboration with the SPDC, while Palmer Resources holds an interest in a mining concession in southern Burma. Sears Canada is sourcing clothes from Burma's garment industry which supplied $10 million worth of merchandise to Canada in 1997. Burmese garment workers are the most underpaid in Asia, earning 8 cents an hour. To keep their jobs they must pay half their wages to the SPDC which owns part of the garment sector and uses it to buy arms. The Canadian government has cut off aid to Burma but refuses to ban investment and trade. CFOB has called for full economic sanctions to be imposed on what it calls "the South Africa of the 1990s." Published in: Outfront, Spring 2000 Briarpatch, May 2000 Peace and Environment News, June 2000

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