A Belgian company has become the first to announce it is cutting ties with the Burmese military after a United Nations fact-finding mission called on businesses to sever all financial links to the country’s generals.
Satellite communications firm Newtec said it would “follow the recommendations by the UN and stop commercial ties with Mytel,” a local mobile phone operator partially owned by the military.
But Mark Farmaner, director of Burma Campaign UK, said Newtec should have acted when they were added to the campaign’s “dirty list” of firms doing business with the military. “Newtec have known for nine months that they were working for the Burmese military, and didn’t care,” he told VOA. “They are only ending their involvement now because of negative publicity after the fact-finding mission report, not because it is morally the right thing to do.”