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Some
Companies Involved in Myanmar Are Also Missing in Action In Cyclone's Wake
Byline: Matthew
Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
May
12 -- In the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, questions are growing about
which
companies have been doing business in Myanmar, and how they are
responding to
the mounting death toll. On Monday Inner City Press asked UN
Humanitarian
Coordinator John Holmes about a series of companies, several of them
members of
the UN's high-minded Global Compact, which are listed as doing business
in
Myanmar: Germany's Siemens, Denmark's Novo Nordisk, France's Total and
BNP
Paribas, Japan's Mizuho and South Korea's POSCO Steel.
This
last company, POSCO, which has a joint venture in Myanmar, is not a
member of the Global Compact; Inner
City Press had wanted to ask Secretary-General BAN Ki-moon about it,
but he
could only take three questions before leaving the hour-long briefing.
South Korea's Pusan port was visited earlier this year
by
Mynmar's shipping tycoon Tay Za, head of the Htoo Trading Company, for
the purchase
of a tanker and a freight ship. Whether these are being used for aid
after the
cyclone is not known.
In BAN's
wake, Holmes said he would welcome help from corporations, that
contributions
by those "heavily involved in Myanmar would be particularly
appropriate." He quickly mentioned that Total has offered to "donate
fuel free of charge." Video here,
from Minute 37.
But Total,
like U.S-based Chevron,
has
been under fire from
human rights groups for its involvement in oil and gas in Myanmar.
Are Total
and Chevron, and the other companies, giving back enough?
Inner City Press has sent request
for comment by e-mail to Japan-based Suzuki, which makes cars and
motorcycles
in Myanmar, which yet receiving any response. Likewise responses have
yet to be
received from POSCO, Novo Nordisk, Siemens and Hong Kong-based Hutchison
Whampoa, which along with owning in the UK Superdrug, 3 Mobile and
luxury properties,
operates a large port in Myanmar. We'll see.
Myanmar's generals, names on boxes and
business partners not shown
Holmes was
asked, by a major U.S.-based television network, whether he intends to
resign.
Appearing taken aback, Holmes said no, that the logic of the question
escaped
him. The questioner said that China has blocked Security Council
action, that 100,000
people may be dead, and not enough is being done. Holmes said that
China has
sent aid, and that he is not considering resigning.
Inner City
Press asked for his response as Humanitarian Coordinator to reports of
Myanmar's general's putting their names on boxes of aid, as a form of
propaganda. Holmes said he has seen the
reports, that it is "to be condemned" as "totally
hypocritical," but that it is undermined by the name of the actual
donor
remaining on the box (albeit smaller, Inner City Press pointed out). So
should
donors put their names more prominently on the boxes of aid? We'll see. Responses from corporations will be reported
on this site.
* * *
These reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
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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