Revealed: UK’s overseas aid fund is major investor in company linked to media crackdown in Myanmar

Published on Jun 10, 2020

Pic by Nicholas Ganz (Shutterstock)

The UK government’s overseas anti-poverty fund is “urgently looking into” why a business it owns complied with demands from the Myanmar government to block independent media in the country.

CDC Group’s internal probe was triggered by a Finance Uncovered investigation, which has also prompted Labour shadow international development minister, Stephen Doughty to table parliamentary questions on the issue and suggest CDC should sell its stake in the company.

CDC, the controversial investment arm of the Department for International Development (Dfid), invested US$20m in Frontiir last year – a company providing internet services to 1.3 million Myanmar people.

In March, Myanmar’s transport and communications ministry wrote to all of the country’s internet service providers, demanding they block more than 2,000 websites, including 67 news outlets, on the “pretext” they were spreading fake news about coronavirus.

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Frontiir complied with the government’s request, the company confirmed.

Backlash

But this sparked a backlash from Burmese editors, lawyers, and activists.

In a letter of complaint, seen by Finance Uncovered, they accused the provider of flouting human rights law by implementing the government’s orders.

“Your company is helping the Myanmar government censor essential information to vulnerable populations at a period when access to information is key for their very survival”, they wrote.

The Myanmar government, under the watchful eye of the military who retain significant economic and political power, has perpetrated what are widely considered to be serious human rights violations and is violently clamping down on the free media and civil society activists.

The civilian government, which remains subordinate in many spheres to the military, has also overseen the arrest of dozens of dissidents.

When Finance Uncovered asked CDC if it had a view on Frontiir’s decision to comply with the request, a spokeswoman for the bank said it was “urgently looking into these concerns”.

“CDC has clear rules in place to ensure funding does not support any organisation involved in human rights abuses”, the spokeswoman added.

“We condemn action to restrict the freedom of expression of journalists. The UK Government, our owner, repeatedly raises the issue of internet restrictions and shut downs at the highest levels with the Myanmar Government.”

Conflict

Mobile internet is a vital source of information about coronavirus, but it is also used in conflict-torn regions of the country as a way for communities under attack to warn friends and relatives of coming trouble.

In the northwestern region of Rakhine, formerly known as Arakan state, it has been blocked entirely since last June.

Authorities say the internet blackout is an “emergency measure” necessary to crush the Arakan Army, an ethnic insurgency battling for greater independence.

Frontiir operates in two cities in Myanmar and is currently trying to expand into two more. “None of those cities,” a spokesman for CDC said, “are in or near Rakhine state.”

But some of the websites Frontiir and other internet service providers blocked had held the government to account over its handling of the Arakan conflict, fuelling fears the move is a smokescreen for a further media crackdown.

“The list included independent media websites under the pretext that they allegedly disseminate “fake news””, said the complaint.

“[It follows previous directives] to shut down mobile internet access in Maungdaw, Buthidaung, Rathedaung, Paletwa and Myebon townships. This was a continuation of previous shutdown orders”, the letter added.

In March, news editor Nay Myo Lin was detained for 10 days and charged with terrorism offences after he interviewed a spokesman for the Arakan Army, which had been designated a terrorist organisation. His outlet, Mandalay-based Voice of Myanmar, is on the list of websites the government wants blocked.

And news editor Aung Marm Oo went into hiding after he was charged last year under the Unlawful Associations Act, a law critics say is being used against ethnic minorities and to stifle political dissent. His Rakhine state news agency, Development Media Group, has reported human rights violations during the Arakan conflict. It is also on the list of websites to block.

At the time of publication, both websites were blocked in Myanmar.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of minority-Muslim Rohingya are confined in camps in central Arakan, while corona cases are rising.

Urgent questions

“The human rights abuses of the Myanmar Government including in Rakhine state are well known, so CDC have urgent questions to answer”, said shadow international development minister Stephen Doughty.

“If these allegations about Frontiir and their relationship with the Myanmar regime are proven, CDC must immediately divest.”

CDC is the UK’s development finance institution, which is meant to fund poverty reduction projects in the developing world.

It is wholly-owned by the Department for International Development (DfID).

The fund began life in the late 1940s as the Colonial Development Corporation to fund farmers in the British colonies as part of the post-Second World War rebuild.

Its work is currently overseen by Africa minister James Duddridge.

In response to a series of parliamentary questions by Doughty, DfID minister James Duddridge confirmed that CDC has invested $78.8m in Myanmar since 2015 in seven businesses including Frontiir.

CDC has been criticised for pouring cash into shopping centres, gated communities, and luxury hotels in poor countries.

It has also drawn criticism for allowing huge windfalls to senior figures through the sell-off of Actis, one of its investment funds. Senior CDC managers effectively sold it to themselves at below market value, investigative magazine Private Eye revealed in 2010.

More recently, the fund was criticised for failing to properly oversee its investments and prevent human rights violations.

Frontiir said its investment from CDC Group had been ploughed into job-creation:

“[The majority] of Frontiir’s 2100+ employees are Myanmar, and most are under 25 years old who are supporting their families in various regions with remittance”, it said in a statement.

“Frontiir intends to grow beyond urban cities and provide affordable digital access in other regions in Myanmar, including rural hard-to reach areas, while creating jobs for people in Myanmar with CDC’s investment.”

This article originally appeared on the Finance Uncovered

Nick Mathiason

Christian Eriksson

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Win Htein to be tried by tribunal of two judges, says his lawyer

Announcement came as court postponed the 82-year-old’s third hearing, meaning his request for bail on health grounds was not considered

Myanmar Now

Published on Mar 19, 2021

Win Htein arrives for the opening ceremony of the second session of the Union Peace Conference in 2017 (EPA-EFE)

Detained National League for Democracy party stalwart Win Htein is to be tried by a special tribunal of two judges following an order from the military-controlled Supreme Court, his lawyer said on Friday.

“It was just one judge before, and now there’s two,” Min Min Soe told Myanmar Now.

“District judge Ye Lwin will serve as chair, and deputy district judge Soe Naing will be a member of the tribunal,” she added.

Win Htein faces up to a 20-year prison sentence for sedition under section 124a of the Penal Code.

His third hearing, scheduled for Friday, was postponed, with the court citing the internet shutdown as the reason because it made video conferencing impossible, Min Min Soe said.

“The arguments will be presented at the next hearing, we applied for bail but since they’re setting up a tribunal for the lawsuit, that will be discussed at the next hearing as well,” she said.

At the second hearing on March 5, Win Htein requested an independent judgement, a meeting with his lawyer, and bail due to his health issues, but the court said those requests would be heard on March 19.

Win Htein, 82, uses a wheelchair and suffers from breathing problems that means he often requires an oxygen tank. He also suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure, hypothyroidism and benign prostatic hyperplasia.

Min Min Soe was allowed a brief call with her client on Friday to tell him that his hearing had been postponed until April 2.

Aye Lu, the chair of the Ottara district administration council in Naypyitaw, is the plaintiff in the lawsuit against Win Htein. Ottara district is where the NLD’s temporary headquarters are located.

Aye Lu filed the charge on February 4 and Win Htein was arrested that evening at his home in Yangon. He has been kept in the Naypyitaw detention center and denied visits from his lawyers.

He was detained after giving media interviews in the wake of the February 1 coup in which he said military chief Min Aung Hlaing had acted on personal ambition when seizing power.

On Wednesday the military council announced that it was investigating Aung San Suu Kyi for corruption, on top of other charges announced since her arrest.

Many other NLD leaders, party members and MPs have been arrested or are the subject of warrants.

Kyi Toe, a senior figure in the NLD, was arrested on Thursday night in Hledan, Yangon.

Myanmar Now

Myanmar Now is an independent news service providing free, accurate and unbiased news to the people of Myanmar in Burmese and English.

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Op-ed

Seeking justice in the wake of Myanmar’s coup

The country’s military leaders have acted with impunity for decades, but now there is a mechanism to bring them to justice

Lin Htet

Published on Mar 19, 2021

Nationwide protests against the coup have been responded with murders, torture and mass arrests by the military regime. (Myanmar Now)

On March 8, U Ko Ko Lay, a 62-year-old teacher, bled to death on a street in the Kachin state capital Myitkyina. He had been shot in the head while protesting the military coup of February 1. That same night, U Zaw Myat Lynn, an official from the National League for Democracy, was taken from his home in Shwepyithar on the outskirts of Yangon and tortured to death. The list keeps growing.

In the more than six weeks since Senior General Min Aung Hlaing seized power, images of soldiers and police officers shooting, beating, and arresting protesters have flooded social media and Myanmar and international news outlets. So far, the regime’s forces have killed well over 200 people (more than half of them in the past week) and seriously injured many more. The junta has also arrested nearly 2,200 people, some of whom, like U Zaw Myat Lynn, have died in custody.

Each day, Myanmar human rights organizations update lists with names, dates, locations, and causes of death. Around 600 police and a handful of soldiers have decided they do not want to be involved in such actions. They have left their posts and even joined the anti-coup movement.

Many soldiers, police officers, and commanding officers are acting with impunity now. But they can face prosecution, not only in Myanmar’s courts but also internationally. Like any country, Myanmar is subject to international law. Because of its history of atrocities, most recently against the Rohingya people, Myanmar is also already subject to special international legal proceedings that apply to the current situation.

The most relevant is the United Nations’ Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM). The IIMM was created in 2018 after the Myanmar military’s brutal campaign against the Rohingya people, but it applies to the whole country. Its mission is to investigate “international crimes” from 2011 to the present.

International crimes are generally defined as “widespread and systematic” in nature, involving many victims and locations. These include crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide.

In keeping with its mandate, the IIMM is collecting information on the current situation. In a statement released on February 11 (available in Myanmar here), it highlighted the “use of lethal force against peaceful protesters and the detention of political leaders, members of civil society and protesters.”

More recently, on March 17, the IIMM also called on recipients of illegal orders to share this evidence so that those ultimately responsible for these crimes can be held accountable.

"The persons most responsible for the most serious international crimes are usually those in high leadership positions. They are not the ones who physically perpetrate the crimes and often are not even present at the locations where the crimes are committed,” the head of the IIMM, Nicholas Koumjian, says in the statement (available in Myanmar here).

The crimes the IIMM investigates could be tried in Myanmar courts, courts in other countries, or international courts. International crimes are crimes that are so serious that they are considered to be against the international community, and are therefore not limited to courts in one country.

In other words, an international crime committed in Myanmar—for example, widespread and systematic attacks on civilians—can be tried in a court in another country or in an international court.

The Myanmar military is used to getting away with murder. Decades of well-documented killing, rape, and torture of civilians in ethnic minority areas have gone unpunished. No one has ever been tried for the killing of protesters during previous mass uprisings against military rule in 1988 and 2007.

But this time may be different. On March 4, the International Commission of Jurists said in a statement that “the killing of peaceful protesters by Myanmar’s security forces should be independently investigated as possible crimes against humanity.”

The IIMM is already set up and working. It provides a mechanism for just such an investigation. Those doing the shooting should be aware of this.

For further information:

The Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM) on Facebook

International Accountability Mechanisms for Myanmar (learning materials in English, Myanmar, and Karen)

Lin Htet is a pen name for a team of Myanmar and international writers

Lin Htet

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At least eight killed in junta’s bloody crackdown in Aungban, Shan State

A resident said armed forces used drones to monitor the crowd before opening fire on them

Myanmar Now

Published on Mar 19, 2021

Men carry a wounded protester in Aungban, Shan State, on the morning of March 19 (Supplied)

At least eight anti-coup protesters were killed in Aungban, southern Shan State, during an attack by the military junta on demonstrations on Friday morning, according to the Aungban Free Funeral Service Society.

Sixteen military trucks carrying more than 100 policemen and soldiers arrived at the protest site at around 9:00 a.m. and began shooting at protesters. Seven died at the scene, and another protester who had been shot in the neck was taken to Kalaw Hospital and died by 11:00 a.m.

All eight victims were men.

The body of the man who died at the hospital was sent to his family’s home, but those who were killed at the protest site were taken away by the junta’s armed forces, a representative of the Free Funeral Service Society told Myanmar Now.

Aungban resident Nay Lynn Tun told Myanmar Now that police and soldiers had destroyed the doors of nearby homes in order to arrest people, and that at least 10 people had been detained.

“Initially, police arrived at the site. When the crowd surrounded the police, armed soldiers arrived at the site and began firing,” he told Myanmar Now. “In the coming days, if we cannot gather to protest, we will do it in our own residential areas.”

Since March 13, around 300 volunteer night guards have watched over these residential areas to protect locals from the dangers posed by the junta’s nighttime raids. These forces use drone cameras to monitor the activities of the night guards from 3:00 a.m. until 5:00 a.m. every day, Nay Lynn Tun said.

He added that hours before Friday’s crackdown, military and police had also used drone cameras to monitor the gathering of protesters in Aungban.

Over the last week, at least 11 protesters have been arrested in Aungban. Only three-- the protesters who were minors-- were released.

South of Shan State, in the Kayah State capital of Loikaw, two pro-democracy protesters were also shot with live ammunition by the regime’s armed forces on Friday. One, 46-year-old Kyan Aung, was shot in the lower abdomen and died from his injuries. The other wounded protester was a nurse, according to eyewitnesses.

According to a March 18 tally by the advocacy group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, at least 224 people have been killed across the country by junta’s armed forces since the February 1 coup. Thousands more have been arrested.