Kirin Shocked Profits from Joint Venture with Military go to Military

 Burma Tha Din Exclusive

In an exclusive interview, a Kirin spokesperson has told Burma Tha Din that Kirin is shocked and surprised to learn that profits from its joint venture with the Myanmar military go to the Myanmar military. The statement comes following the publication of a new report by Amnesty International exposing how profits from military companies have been distributed to the military.

“Obviously when we went into business with the Myanmar military, with the sole purpose of making more profits, it was completely impossible to predict that those profits would go to our business partner and joint owner of the breweries, the Myanmar military”, the spokesperson told Burma Tha Din.

“Of course we were aware that our business partner is accused by the UN of ethnic cleansing, genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, but we donated items to a local health clinic and bought some solar panels so there are two sides to the story.

“Now that this completely unpredictable information has come to light that profits from our joint venture with the military go to the military, we will carry on doing exactly what we were doing beforehand, and wait for Deloitte to find a way to explain that doing business with the military and having joint ventures with the military where profits go to the military is actually the best thing for addressing human rights concerns in Myanmar.

Burma Tha Din: Exclusive! Interview with U Wai Linn

In light of the spat between Myanmar Times and Frontier Myanmar, Burma Tha Din obtained an exclusive interview with U Wai Linn, owner of the Myanmar Times, on condition it was not recorded.

BTD: Sir, can you tell us why you have published an article in your newspaper accusing Frontier Myanmar of fabricating an interview?

U Wai Linn: I woke up one morning feeling resentful that people don’t know the real me. They know I am a racist genocide denier who brown-noses the government, but there is more to me than that. By denying I did an interview even though there was a recording of the interview, people now know I am a liar and an idiot as well.

BTD: Thank you. Do you have anything else you want to add?

U Wai Linn: Yes, don’t even think of publishing this interview.

Military to stick to killing non-Rohingya ethnic groups following ICJ case

As Myanmar faces charges of genocide at the International Court of Justice, the Tatmadaw has announced it will stop killing Rohingya and stick to killing people from other ethnic groups in the future.

“Killing these Bengali’s is just causing too many problems,” said Tatmadaw True News Information Team Chairperson Maj-Gen Soe Naing Oo. “We have been killing ethnic people and driving them from their homes for decades, but as soon as we kill a few Bengali’s the whole world goes crazy.”

“It just doesn’t make any sense to us,” the major-general continued, shaking his head sadly. “The same soldiers from the same battalions have been committing the same human rights violations against Kachin, Shan, Chin, Rakhine, Kayah, Kayin, Mon and others for decades. We raped them, killed them, burnt their homes, threw their babies into fires, even skinned them alive sometimes, and the international community did nothing. Killing these Bengali’s is causing too many problems for us, so we will stick to killing other ethnic groups in future.”

Burma on brink of democracy after Visa stop promoting military golf resort

Expectations of major democratic reform in Burma have been heightened after a decision by the Visa credit card company not to promote a military owned gold resort to its customers. The move comes after the establishment of a new parliamentary committee to look into constitutional reform, and an article in the New York Times.

Human rights campaigners have hailed the decision by Visa. “It’s all about Visa’s,” a London based human rights advocate told Burma Tha Din. “Forget about the International Criminal Court, arms embargoes and sanctioning military entities. Coming on top of western countries using visa bans to limit holiday options for military personnel, Visa’s decision to stop promoting this military gold course will send shockwaves through the military headquarters.”

Rakhine Investment Conference: Luxury hotels help prevent genocide

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is reportedly still furious that international media coverage of her Rakhine Investment Conference referred to conflict and human rights violations in Rakhine State, a State famous worldwide for conflict and human rights violations.

“Media should know by now that they should report what I want them to report,” Daw Aung San Suu Kyi reportedly fumed, according to a Burma Tha Din source.  “I didn’t mention these problems, so why do media keep referring to it,” she said, referring to one of the worst human rights crisis in the history of a country known for human rights problems, and which took place just 18 months ago. “You’d think Reuters would have got the message by now, how many of them do I have to lock up?”

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who spent 30 minutes at the three day conference, says investment in Rakhine State is a government priority.  “Everyone knows it’s the lack of luxury hotels and lack of exploitation of natural resources which caused the so-called genocide of those whom shall not be named. Investment and economic growth is the solution to all these problems. They have nothing to do with politics, racism or the military.”

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has also put a big focus on economic development in other ethnic states. The Rakhine State Investment Conference will be followed next month by the Chin State Investment Conference. In Yangon. 

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has reportedly been impressed by the case made by Chinese special envoy, Sun Guoxiang, that economic development can alleviate demands for rights. "She believes that if ethnic people get roads, electricity and jobs, they'll stop demanding more autonomy," a source told Burma Tha Din. 

The verdict is in – Aung San Suu Kyi is the one who is authoritarian says UN official who worked with Myanmar military

A former UN official who opposed international pressure on Myanmar’s military and was later paid by Norway to work with the previous military controlled government on the failing peace process has accused Aung San Suu Kyi of being authoritarian.

In a scathing article for the Washington Post, drafted while drinking tea made from a black kettle, Charles Petrie, who as UN head in Myanmar lobbied for the lifting of sanctions against Than Shwe’s military dictatorship, cited a report from a civil society organisation he once used to dismiss as one of many ‘out of touch hard-line exiles’ based on the Thai Burma border.

Petrie’s attempt to spin the 2007 Saffron uprising uprising as being a protest against poverty, rather than being a political protest against the military dictatorship, in order to further his agenda of increasing unrestricted aid to the country, backfired when the military took offence at the implication that they had caused poverty in the country. 

Petrie was expelled from Myanmar, which he later tried to spin as being because he bravely spoke out against the military. However, he continued to act as an adviser to Ibrahim Gambari, the UN envoy to Myanmar who had previously worked for the Nigerian dictatorship, in that role defending the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa.

Gambari, who used to hold hands with Senior General Than Shwe when visiting Myanmar, and was later criticized by Human Rights Watch for hugging Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide by the International Criminal Court. Petrie advised Gambari not to mention ‘delicate’ ‘no go ’issues like violations of international law against ethnic minorities.

After General Thein Sein, who was documented by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Myanmar as being responsible for war crimes in Shan State, and who oversaw the drafting on the 2008 constitution which preserved the power of the military, came to power as President in a rigged election in 2010, he asked the Norwegian government for assistance for a new ‘peace process’.

Norway, whose Telenor mobile communications company was coincidentally later awarded a license by Thein Seins government to operate in Myanmar, and whose ambassador at the time, Katja Norgaard, was coincidentally later appointed Executive Vice President of Telenor, appointed Charles Petrie to head the controversial Myanmar Peace Support Initiative (MPSI), set up at the request of the military controlled government.

The MPSI was accused by ethnic civil society groups of acting in a one sided manner supporting the agenda of the military led government, and failed to produce any tangible positive outcomes. An independent evaluation of the MPSI criticized Petrie’s leadership, concluding it ‘it lacked operational management’, ‘failed to develop a clear communications and outreach strategy’, ‘did not adequately share either its purpose or its analysis’.

Petrie was excused by the evaluation for some of these faults because at the same time he was, in violation of UN rules regarding working for UN member state governments while being employed by the UN, also working for the UN on a ground-breaking evaluation of the UN response to the civil war in Sri-Lanka, in which he criticized the UN operation there for doing almost exactly the same as he had while heading the UN in Myanmar.

Unlike his proposed approach to the military dictatorship, to use international aid to try to ‘open doors of trust with the military’, Petrie did not propose using international aid to work more closely with ‘authoritarian’ Aung San Suu Kyi to build her trust and persuade her to respect human rights. Instead he informed the world that he feels ‘sad’.

‘Independent’ analysts Ashley Horsey and Richard South were quick to come to the defense of Petrie, citing numerous lucrative consultancy contracts.

Burma Tha Din was unable to reach Charles Petrie for further comment, but this could be because he mistakenly thought that we are based on the border of Thailand.

UN Security Council shocked to learn not just Rohingya and Bamar Buddhists in Myanmar

UN Security Council members were left frantically googling ‘Kachin’ and ‘Shan’ during last weeks briefing by the Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, trying to find out who or what the UN investigators were talking about, it is learned.  

UN investigators on Wednesday told the UN Security Council that Myanmar’s domestic investigation was not credible and called on the Council to support the referral of Myanmar to the International Criminal Court, or establish an ad hoc tribunal to investigate and prosecute crimes in Kachin and Shan States, as well as in Rakhine State.

“We thought we knew our stuff when we learnt that there are Rohingya people in Myanmar as well as Aung San Suu Kyi and the military, but the revelations from the Fact Finding Mission that there are other ethnic groups in Myanmar has taken us aback,” a French diplomat told Burma Tha Din on condition of anonymity.  

In a revealing insight into the operations of the Council, Burma Tha Din has learnt that the Swedish Ambassador then googled ‘ethnic people Myanmar’, and using WhatsApp sent a screenshot of a map showing other ethnic states in Myanmar to the ambassadors present at the meeting.

A Dutch diplomat told Burma Tha Din that they then messaged everyone suggesting commissioning UNESCO to send explorers into these states, but luckily the Deputy US Ambassador had prior knowledge of Myanmar and told them that the British government and American Baptists had already done that 200 years ago.

The Chinese Ambassador then replied “We could have told you that, we have been making a killing supplying both sides with guns for decades. (Excuse the pun).”

Karen Pierce then reportedly messaged them back saying it didn’t matter that Myanmar’s domestic investigation only covered the Rohingya and not the Shan and Kachin because British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt found Aung San Suu Kyi to be quite charming and so they were going to keep backing her domestic enquiry regardless.

The Russian deputy Ambassador at the meeting was apparently too busy sulking to take part in the WhatsApp chat.