Thai banks are the top suppliers of financial services to Myanmar’s military, UN expert says
A report by a U.N. expert on human rights charges that Thai banks have become the main supplier of international financial services for Myanmar’s military government, enabling its purchases of goods and equipment used to carry out its increasingly bloody war against pro-democracy resistance forces and armed ethnic minority groups
BANGKOK (AP) — Thai banks have become the main supplier of international financial services for Myanmar’s military government, enabling its purchases of goods and equipment used to carry out its increasingly bloody war against pro-democracy resistance forces and armed ethnic minority groups, a U.N. expert said in a report issued Wednesday.
The report by Tom Andrews, the U.N. special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, tracks how that country’s ruling military council has been able to continue procuring arms by shifting suppliers of financial services and military hardware as previous sources have been blocked by sanctions imposed by the United States, the European Union and other states.
The report charges that companies in Thailand, Myanmar’s eastern neighbor, have taken up the slack left by the withdrawal of Singapore firms’ business with the ruling junta.
It says the junta, formally known as the State Administration Council, “continues to engage with a broad international banking network to sustain itself and its weapons supplies.”
