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27 Jan 2021

Myanmar: Investigations find companies complicit in human rights violations through business relationships with military-affiliated Mytel and Viettel

Justice For Myanmar’s detailed investigation into the Myanmar military’s systemic corruption within the information and communications sector has uncovered public asset theft, exposed new military procurement networks and revealed the global network of businesses complicit in enabling the Myanmar military to continue to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity.

While scrutiny of Myanmar’s international relationships has been focussed on China, the armed forces of Vietnam and Myanmar have forged a dangerous strategic and commercial partnership. Officials from Vietnam military conglomerate Viettel operate and maintain secret military infrastructure, transfer military and dual use technology and operate in Myanmar military bases that are off-limits to the civilian government.

Mytel, Myanmar’s newest mobile operator, provides the military with a lucrative source of off-budget revenue and a means to access international communications technology and credit.

The information revealed in Nodes of Corruption, Lines of Abuse is based on open-source data and a trove of confidential files pertaining to Mytel from a data breach, in which Viettel Construction Myanmar inadvertently published internal files online.

[Business & Human Rights Resource Centre invited 21 of the companies mentioned in the report to respond (responses and non-responses included):

Digital Virgo, Maybank, NEC, ngena, Nokia responded

Apollo Towers, Boku Inc, Commscope, Deloitte, Fortumo Ou, HD Bank, Intelsat, Irrawaddy Green Towers, Maxar Technologies, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group , Oracle, Qualcomm, TP Bank, VIB, VietinBank, Viettel Global did not respond]

Company Responses

Digital Virgo View Response
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group

No Response

Maybank View Response
Ho Chi Minh City Development Joint Stock Commercial Bank (HD Bank)

No Response

Tien Phong Commercial Joint Stock Bank (TPBank)

No Response

VietinBank

No Response

Viettel Global Investment JSC (part of Viettel Group)

No Response

Vietnam International Commercial Joint Stock Bank

No Response

Intelsat

No Response

Irrawaddy Green Towers

No Response

Apollo Towers

No Response

Boku Inc.

No Response

CommScope

No Response

Maxar Technologies

No Response

Oracle

No Response

Qualcomm

No Response

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu

No Response

Timeline