21-27 February: Asian Countries Place Business Interests Before ‘Grave’ Human Rights Situation in Burma

By Burma Partnership • February 28, 2011

This week, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Burma, Tomás Ojea Quintana, provided a succinct description of human rights in Burma’s post-election environment: “Despite the promise of a transition [in Burma], the human rights situation remains grave.” Meanwhile, the investment situation remains lucrative, with countries and companies pumping billions of dollars into ongoing and new projects. By placing business interests over human interests, the military regime and countries in the region continue to fail to advance and protect human rights in Burma.

Speaking in Kuala Lumpur at the end of an eight day fact-finding mission to Malaysia, Quintana noted the “extra-territorial dimension” of human rights abuses in Burma, as refugees and asylum seekers fleeing abuses and violence pose a burden to neighboring countries. As of January 2011, Malaysia was home to over 84,000 registered refugees and asylum-seekers, with many more still unregistered. Roughly 150,000 people from Burma currently reside in refugee camps along Thailand’s western border. An estimated 9,000 civilians from Burma remain stranded along the Thai-Burma border as a result of four months of ongoing fighting between the Burma Army and the 5th brigade of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army.

Rather than take aggressive steps to address the staggering totals, countries in the region have been producing more staggering numbers – billions of dollars worth of new investments. China accounted for US$3.18 billion of the US$3.5 billion of foreign investments taken in between November 2010 to January 2011. China has now overtaken Thailand as Burma’s top investor, with total investments since 1988 standing at US$9.6 billion, compared to Thailand’s US$9.56 billion.

The bulk of investments in recent years have been in the energy sector, with neighbors seeking to exploit natural gas and hydropower opportunities, as well as energy transport routes through Burma. In 2010, Indian state-owned companies announced US$1.3 billion new investments in gas field development and pipeline projects.

Quintana suggested that countries in the region “have a particular interest in persuading” the military regime “to take necessary measures for the improvement of its human rights situation. […].” But for investors, the potential benefits of projects in Burma outweigh the significant costs to the country’s individuals and communities and relatively minimal costs to countries in the region in terms of refugee and migrant influxes.

Countries in the region have not only failed to address human rights in Burma but through these investments risk perpetuating violations. Abuses related to the Yadana Pipeline Project in western Burma include forced labor, land confiscation, forced relocation, rape, torture, and murder. Such large-scale energy projects, many of which are in ethnic states where people are particularly vulnerable to abuses, bolster both the international legitimacy and financial power of the military regime. Through manipulation of exchange rates and accounts, high ranking officials have earned billions from natural gas revenue and deposited the unreported income in offshore accounts.

Individuals and communities in Burma have paid a steep price in the face of so much profit.

During his fact-finding trip, Quintana spoke with people who had recently left Burma, “fleeing forced labour, land and property confiscation, arbitrary taxation, religious and ethnic discrimination, arbitrary detention, as well as sexual and gender-based violence.” One man fled Chin State after 15 years of portering and forced labor for the military. Authorities coerced a Chin woman religious leader to read a statement at a televised event denying allegations of restrictions on religious freedom. A man from Shan State left after the military confiscated his family’s farm. He was arrested but escaped. His brother was arrested and killed.

These stories are only too typical. They exemplify the human toll of life under the military regime that countries in the region are all too willing to ignore as they pursue business and energy interests in Burma. Until countries in the region take bold steps to respect and promote the human rights of people in Burma, they remain silent partners in Burma’s “grave,” regional human rights situation.