While Myanmar has faced sanctioned from the United States for human rights violations, the Adani Group is allegedly paying up to 52 million US dollars to a Myanmar military-controlled company.
According to a media report, the leaked documents in a report by human rights lawyers and activists obtained by the ABC reveal the scale of cooperation extended by the Adani Group to the Myanmar junta over a proposed container port in Yangon.
The report said the video and photos show Adani Ports’ boss called on the junta’s top general in 2019, contradicting the company’s February claim that it had never “engaged with military leadership” in Myanmar.
It has been reported that the sanctions imposed by the US government against Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC) are likely to create pressure on the Australian government’s Future Fund to drop its 3.2 million dollar investment in Adani Ports, which owns North Queensland operations, linked to Carmichael mine.
The leaked documents from the Yangon Region Investment Commission have exposed that Adani’s subsidiary is paying 30 million US dollars to MEC in “land lease fees”.
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The Gautam Adani-run Adani Group has also won the rights to run the Guwahati Airport for 50 years.
According to a joint report by the Australian Centre for International Justice (ACIJ) and activist group Justice For Myanmar (JFM), another amount of 22 million US dollars in “land clearance fees” is likely to flow to MEC as the owner of the port site.
Rawan Arraf, the report author and ACIJ human rights lawyer stated that the documents were leaked “shortly after the violent February 1 coup perpetrated by senior general Min Aung Hlaing and his cartel of the Myanmar military”.
“What these documents reveal in particular is the amount that was provided to the MEC, a Myanmar military conglomerate that is controlled and owned by the Myanmar military [which] stands credibly accused and is being investigated at the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice for crimes against humanity, war crimes, and even in the case of the crimes against the Rohingya, genocide,” the report quoted Arraf as saying.
Hundreds of people have been killed in various parts of Myanmar during military crackdown since the coup.
A series of airstrikes by Myanmar military along the country’s border has also raised concerns as more and more villagers might flee to neighbouring country Thailand and India.
More than 1,000 Myanmarese nationals, mostly police personnel, have taken shelter in Manipur and Mizoram.