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Behind Myanmar's Bluster, Gas Deals for Daewoo,
China and India, UN's Ban No Comments
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
December 5 -- As Myanmar has
stepped up the pace of its imprisonment of political opponents,
bloggers and
journalists, the UN's Ban Ki-moon met Friday with his "Group of Friends
on
Myanmar." Afterwards he told the Press that he will only go to Myanmar
if
there are some positive moves by the Than Shwe government, including
release of
political prisoners. Inner City Press asked him about the
responsibility of
private corporations doing business in Myanmar, giving the specific
example of
South Korea's Daewoo and its deal with Myanmar Oil and Gas. I cannot
comment on
specifics, Ban said, adding that "whoever has influence" should try to
convince Myanmar to improve its record.
Along with
India and corporations like Daewoo and Total, a major influence is
China, whose
foreign minister visited with Than Shwe just this week. The problem is
that all
of these parties want natural resources from Myanmar. Inner City Press'
analysis is that these resources make Myanmar feel impervious to
outside
pressure; its business partners however prefer having the fig leaf that
Ban
Ki-moon's involvement and visits provide. This is the small leverage
that the
UN is trying to use: no photo opportunity with Ban until a few
political
prisoners are released. "They can just be locked back up later," one
cynic said.
After
Ban's spokesperson had tried to say that the query -- about the Congo
-- before
Inner City Press' was the "last question," Inner City Press had asked
if Myanmar's oil and gas deals with China and India were helpful, or
made
Myanmar more intransigent. Ban to his credit waved off his spokesperson
and took the question, although ultimately he did not answer it.
Standing behind Ban was his Indian chief of staff,
Vijay Nambiar. Sources tell Inner City Press that the United Kingdom is
putting
pressure on this position, previously held under Kofi Annan by the UK's
Mark
Malloch Brown. While incongruous, as Inner City Press asked the UN's
British
humanitarian coordinator John Holmes earlier on December 5, the UK's
minister
for international development Gareth Thomas this week criticized the
current UN
as unworthy of leading the fight against poverty, click here
for that.
UN's Ban, with Vijay Nambiar and Brit John
Holmes behind, greets Indian minister
Footnote: Ban's "no comment" on whether and how
responsible businesses would do deal with Myanmar right now seems
incongruous given his attendance, earlier on December 5, at a forum of
educators for responsible management. Two of
these educators told Inner City Press that, as regards Myanmar, the
UN should have disclosed when it was losing up
to 25% of value to Than Shwe through government-required currency
exchange, as only revealed after an internal UN memo
was leaked to Inner City Press.
Click here for Inner
City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
Click here for Inner City
Press Nov. 7 debate on the war in Congo
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
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reports are
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Click
here
for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali
National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
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