Corporate Complicity

Forced labour, forced relocation, beatings, murder, rape....these are just some of the violations companies who trade with or invest in Burma risk supporting. When Levi Strauss pulled out of Burma in 1992, the company made the following statement:

"It is not possible to do business in Burma without supporting the military regime and its pervasive human rights abuses."

While international investment may help to bring positive change in some countries, this is not the case in Burma. Foreign investment and trade in Burma helps perpetuate the cruelty of a repressive unelected junta.

Unfortunately, many Canadian companies continue to do business in Burma. In so doing, these countries are acting against the express wishes of Nobel Laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, and Burma's democratically elected, National League for Democracy (NLD), which won 82% of the vote in the country's 1990 elections.

Mining Investment

Mining investment provides Burma's military regime with its largest source of legal income and Canadian mining companies are in the thick of it. The Canadian mining company Ivanhoe Mines, which is in a 50/50 joint venture with Burma's ruling junta, operates the biggest foreign mining venture in Burma. In addition, there are about four or five other Canadian junior mining companies doing business in Burma, all of whom inevitably support the regime through their business there. (Click here for list)

CFOB is particularly concerned about the Ivanhoe Mines project called the Monywa Copper Mine. Monywa (pronouned Mo-yu-ah) is a city located in Sagaing Division in the North-West part of Central Burma close to the mine site. Environmental damage is often an outcome of copper mining and the Monywa project is no exception.

FOR MORE INFO (Click Here)

You Can Stop to Corporate Complicity!

Voices Against Corporate Complicity in Burma

List of Canadian Companies in Burma

Complete List of Companies Linked to Burma

The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) released a report in January 2005, outlining how business and foreign investment in Burma strengthens the country's brutal military regime.

The report specifically mentions Canadian investments, such as Ivanhoe Mines, which is earning the military regime revenue each year which is spent on maintaing Burma's massive armed forces. The report asserts that economic sanctions can help bring democracy to Burma.

Please Visit:

Burma Victories at home and abroad! Corporations that have pulled out of Burma as of Jan.2003:

Canadian Companies that cut ties to Burma

Many corporations still remain and many are Canadian! Write to the companies and to the Canadian government to STOP THE COMPLICITY! For information on our on-going corporate pullout and other campaigns and what YOU can do to support this work, please see Campaigns

Write these companies!

Write these companies and your Members of Parliament and ask them whether they can ensure their business in Burma is not supporting the junta's human rights abuses. Ask them if they are aware that the military uses forced labor to construct an estimated 75% of rural infrastructure projects. Evidence of corporate complicity have been found in Burma's oil and gas sector, mining investment, tourism, telecommunications, and much more (see campaigns). In your letters ask them if they know that the military is also laying waste to Burma's environment, liquidating the country's precious rainforests, marine resources and oil and gas reserves in order to fund its stay in power. Do they know the military maintains its stranglehold on Burma's people by using weapons bought with foreign currency gained in partnerships with multinational companies?