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print versionPORT OF COMPLICITY: Adani Ports in Myanmar
by The Australian Centre for International Justice & Justice for Myanmar (March 2021)
Introduction
Justice For Myanmar and the Australian Centre for International Justice issue this report to continue our work in highlighting the role of foreign corporations involved in commercial relationships with companies that are owned and controlled by Myanmar’s military. In this report, we examine Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd (Adani Ports or APSEZ), an India-based subsidiary of the Adani Group of companies.
Adani Ports is the largest private port operator in India managing several ports with a view to expanding in Asia and around the world. In fact, its investment in Myanmar was heralded as its ‘first voyage to South East Asia’. It markets itself as building ‘#PortsOfProsperity’ with the objective of fulfilling the Adani Group’s vision to ‘help build critical infrastructure for nations across key markets and help in propelling economic development and social impacts’.
Adani Ports was listed in a report by the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar in 2019 because of its commercial ties with a Myanmar military conglomerate, the Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC). The UN Mission’s 2019 report follows extensive documentation of atrocities committed by Myanmar’s security forces. The UN Mission in 2018 called for the top generals to be investigated and prosecuted for allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity against ethnic people in Arakan (Rakhine), Kachin and Shan states and for allegations of genocide against the Rohingya people in Arakan state.
In 2019, the UN Mission released its report on the economic interests of the Myanmar military and detailed the structure and network of the military’s two main holding companies: Myanma Economic Holdings Limited (MEHL); and the MEC. The companies are led by current and former senior-level military officials, including the Commander-in-Chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing. MEHL and MEC are able to generate enormous revenues, insulating themselves from effective civilian oversight. In turn they benefit from unrestricted profits and influence allowing them to continue funding their serious human rights abuses with impunity. The UN, academic experts, activists and civil society groups have long called for the financial isolation of the military and its business partners. Foreign corporations have been put on notice publicly several times for any engagements in Myanmar that are linked to the military and the resulting reputational, legal and operational risks of these commercial relationships. They have been warned that they may find themselves complicit in law, fact or the eyes of the broader public, with the military’s crimes.
Adani Ports is one of those corporations that has at various times either avoided answering questions about its role or defended its role in Myanmar by denying any problems with its relationship with the MEC.
Foreign corporations involved in relationships with the Myanmar military are contributing to the devastating damage the military has inflicted on Myanmar and its path to democratic recovery and growth. [ . . . ]
Read the full 34 page report
- Port of Complicity: Adani Ports in Myanmar | A report by The Australian Centre for International Justice & Justice for Myanmar (March 2021)
