Thai banks and registered companies are taking on an expanding and leading role securing weapons to Myanmar’s military regime even as it grows increasingly isolated amid a brutal civil war claiming thousands of lives, a United Nations report released Wednesday says.
The report, Banking on the Death Trade: How Banks and Governments Enable the Military Junta in Myanmar, says international sanctions have helped to slash the regime’s purchase of weapons through the global financial system by a third from the 2022 to 2023 fiscal year, which runs April to March, to some $253 million.
“That is a very significant step in the right direction and shows the impact that international action can take,” said the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, Tom Andrews, the report’s author.
Andrews attributed much of the drop in trade to Singapore, which investigated its own banks and companies in the wake of a report he wrote last year that named the city-state among Myanmar’s main pipelines for arms since the military’s 2021 coup.
The new report says Myanmar’s military purchases through the global financial system from companies registered in Singapore crashed between 2022 and 2023 some 90% as a result, from $110 million to just $10 million last year.
“The bad news is that we’ve seen the opposite happen in Thailand, where there has been a significant increase in both the facilitation of weapons procurement transactions by Thai banks and the export of weapons materials from Thai companies into Myanmar,” Andrews told VOA.
According to his report, Myanmar’s military purchases from companies registered in Thailand over the same period doubled to $120 million, topping all other countries, including China and Russia.
China and Russia saw their companies’ arms trade with Myanmar through the global financial system fall in 2023, to $80 million and $10 million respectively. India’s trade stayed steady at $15 million.
Myanmar’s recent military purchases via Thailand, the report says, included items ranging from chemicals to machine tools and radios to spare parts for fighter jets and helicopters, which the junta is widely accused of using to deadly effect on civilian targets.
Myanmar’s military regime has denied targeting civilians and claims it is taking proportionate action against “terrorists.”
Andrews’ report does not claim that the Thai government was directly involved in the arms trades, or that all the military material and goods were made or assembled in, or exported from, Thailand. It also does not capture any arms trade outside of the global financial system, including any deals that may have been settled with hard cash or by barter.
Previous research by Andrews and others showed most weapons shipments to Myanmar since the coup starting out from China and Russia.
Even so, this week’s report highlights the major role international commercial banks continue to play in arming Myanmar’s military despite the mounting allegations of the junta’s war crimes. It names 16 banks in Thailand and six other countries across Asia handling $630 million worth of military-related purchases for the junta over the past two years.
Despite the impact sanctions have had in stemming that trade, Andrews told VOA countries keen on thwarting Myanmar’s junta can do much more to enforce, coordinate and add to the sanctions, to leave fewer gaps for the junta to exploit.
Countries that have placed sanctions on Myanmar have not all sanctioned the same companies, and some companies vital to the junta’s arms trade still have not been sanctioned at all.
Andrews said the junta has reacted to sanctions on two of its key banks for military trades, for example, by redirecting most of that business through another bank still free of sanctions. The junta has also gotten better at disguising its arms purchases.
“What is critical now is that the response of the international community, specifically with respect to sanctions, be coordinated, be strategic and be focused, and that the international community work together to enforce these sanctions and eliminate these loopholes,” he said.
“The reason that is so important is because, given the fact that the junta is on its heels … their response is to escalate attacks on civilians,” he said.
Citing research by Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, a U.S.-based research group, he said the junta has picked up air strikes fivefold in the past six months alone. The junta has lost significant territory to armed resistance groups across the country over the same period and is now believed to be in control of less than half of Myanmar.
Andrews said the junta’s weapons supplies would also be hit hard if Thailand were to follow Singapore’s lead and crack down on its own companies doing business with Myanmar’s military and known suppliers.
Unlike Singapore, though, Thailand’s government has not explicitly come out against trading arms with Myanmar.
Asked for comment, Thailand’s Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Nikorndej Balankura said the government was looking into the report.
“Our banking and financial institutions follow banking protocols as any major financial hub. So we will have to first establish the facts before considering any further steps,” he said in a statement shared with VOA.
“This is a matter of policy which has to be carefully considered, particularly the impact of sanctions on the wider population,” he said. “Thailand has always taken the position not to support any action that impacts the wider population.”
In a separate statement, a group of past and present lawmakers from across Southeast Asia said it was “alarmed” by Myanmar’s shift from Singapore to Thailand to source weapons and urged all 10 governments of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to learn from Singapore.
The bloc agreed to a five-point peace plan for Myanmar in April 2021 but has failed to make any headway besides providing some humanitarian aid.
In the statement, Philippines lawmaker Raoul Manuel said the role of Southeast Asian companies in helping to arm the junta only undermines the bloc’s peace efforts.
“ASEAN’s efforts to resolve the conflict in Myanmar cannot be taken seriously if ASEAN member states are helping to arm and fund the murderous Myanmar junta, which has already killed thousands of its own people and continues to indiscriminately attack the civilian population,” he said.
