YANGON/VIENNA - A UN expert has called on the European Union and Austrian authorities to investigate whether a Vienna-based company violated an arms embargo by selling drones to Myanmar.   

Christopher Sidoti, a member of the UN fact-finding mission on Myanmar, made the call after government documents showed Myanmar’s military-run Defence Ministry requested millions of US dollars to buy the aircraft.

The company, Schiebel, denies the Myanmar military is its client and refuses to give further details about its customer citing “confidentiality agreements”. 

But footage from a military-run TV station showed the drones landing on Myanmar Navy ships in late 2018. 

And Sidoti said the fact the company’s Camcopter S-100 drones are mentioned in a Defence Ministry budget “raises questions” about its claim they were sold only for non-military use. 

The EU and Austria have a responsibility to probe the sale, he added: “We very much hope they will act on it.”

Myanmar’s Defence Ministry proposed a downpayment of 27 billion kyat, roughly $18m, for a batch of the drones in a budget for the financial year starting October 2018.

The payment was 30% of the total cost of the sale, meaning the ministry’s planned outlay for the drones was roughly $60m. 

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Shiebel said that the drones were sold for “the modernisation of the country's infrastructure and transport system as well as for monitoring and mapping in mining and road construction.”

The buyer of the drones has an obligation to only use them for their stated purpose, the company added. 

But one analyst said the company’s explanation of the sale was questionable.

“I find it difficult to classify it as dual-use,” said Pieter Wezeman, an expert on military expenditure and arms procurement at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). “For me it is military. But that's a matter of interpretation.” 

He added: "I find it really remarkable that such an export was allowed by the Austrian authorities. That should be investigated."

Each Camcopter S-100 costs $400,000, but the cost for an entire system including control stations and training for operators is about $2m. It is therefore unclear exactly how many individual drones the military procured.

Unveiled by Navy

The Myanmar Navy revealed it had acquired the drones on its 71st anniversary in December 2018, when a video aired on the military-owned Myawaddy TV channel showing one of the drones landing on an ‘Aungzaya’ frigate. 

Military spokesperson Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun told Myanmar Now that the camcopters were purchased about a year ago. The vehicles are not weaponised and are being used in surveillance, as well as navy research, he said. 

The drones are over three meters long and can fly for up to six hours, with Shiebel boasting that they can operate day or night and in bad weather. 

Senior General Min Aung Hlaing travelled to Austria in 2017 and visited the premises of the Diamond Aircraft Industry company, which sells military aircraft, according to state media. Shiebel said none of its employees were present during the Senior General’s trip. 

Sidoti’s fact-finding mission on Monday named Shiebel alongside dozens of other companies in a report detailing how foreign and local businesses have enabled the Myanmar military to commit what it described as “brutal” human rights abuses. 

The military has not responded to the report but the foreign ministry said it “categorically rejects the latest report and its conclusions.” 

Shiebel said that it sold the drones to Myanmar before the European Union tightened its arms embargo against the country in April 2018.

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The UN report, referring to EU restrictions that have been in place since 2008, noted that even goods that have a civilian use are still banned by the embargo if there “are serious grounds for believing that their end-user will be the armed forces.”

In the case of Shiebel and others, the report said it was “clear” that the end-user would be the Tatmadaw because the company’s products were listed in a Ministry of Defence budget.  

Myanmar Now asked Shiebel to provide evidence that the sale was completed before April 2018. It also asked for more details about the purchase mentioned in the budget proposal, which covers spending from October 2018 and so appears to show a sale made after the embargo was tightened. 

Shiebel declined those requests, citing confidentiality agreements.

Wezeman, the arms sales expert, said that even before the embargo was tightened there were export restrictions that under certain circumstances could have applied to the Camcopter S-100. 

EU rejection

A US-based rights group, the Kachin Alliance, has also called on the EU to probe the sale. “We strongly urge the EU to immediately investigate Shiebel’s sale of Camcopter S-100s to Myanmar,” the group said in a statement. 

It added that there was strong evidence the Myanmar military had used drones during fighting in Kachin state and there was an “imminent risk” of Shiebel’s aircraft being used to escalate military campaigns.

The EU delegation in Myanmar told Myanmar Now it was not the bloc’s responsibility to investigate Shiebel.

“Export licensing falls under the Member States' own competence, which means it is Austria that needs to take steps to investigate the issue,” a spokesperson said. 

Used in Yemen and Libya 

The camcopters can be used in search and rescue missions, damage assessments after disasters, and to monitor pollution and oil spills. 

But a 2008 report by defensereview.com indicated they can also be fitted with missiles, though there are no known examples of the drones being weaponised this way in a conflict zone. 

Shiebel has said this 2008 instance was a mock-up by a third party company, France’s Thales, and that Shiebel never had any intention for the craft to be fitted with missiles, adding that the drone cannot be armed. 

Military uses for the drone include surveillance of targets and, with its loudspeakers and leaflet-dropping container, psychological operations. 

Shiebel has sold the drones to a number of authoritarian governments including China and they have been used in conflict-zones including Libya and Yemen.

The Austrian Ministry for Digital and Economic Affairs refused to disclose information about export licenses granted to Schiebel, citing privacy laws. 

“We would like to point out that Austrian procedural and licensing practice in the field of export control complies with the requirements of the European Union and the applicable international legal provisions,” the ministry said. 

Shiebel’s statement to Myanmar Now said: “As an internationally operating and globally successful company, Schiebel supplies customers all around the world based on applicable regulations. The Myanmar military is not one of our customers and no products have been sold to them.

“In the context of the modernization of Myanmar’s infrastructure and traffic system, Schiebel has exported Camcopter S-100 to Myanmar in the past. The export took place before the EU embargo was imposed and it fully complied with all national and international regulations. The usage is determined according to the specifications of the end user certificate.”

It added that “due to confidentiality agreements we are not able to disclose any further customer information or contract details.”

(This report is a collaboration between Myanmar Now and the Austrian weekly magazine Profil)

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