Amnesty Intl. links fuel supply to war crimes in Myanmar
Bangkok, Nov 3 (EFE).- Amnesty International implicated several companies Thursday, including Singaporean oil company Puma Energy, in supplying fuel to the Myanmar Army, accused of alleged war crimes for air attacks against civilians.
In a report published Thursday, the rights organization traced the fuel supply chain to the Myanmar Army, which took power in a coup in February 2021, with companies involved such as Puma, which announced its departure from the country on Oct. 6 after being informed of this investigation.
Thai oil company Thai Oil and Singapore Petroleum Company, owned by China’s PetroChina, is also involved in supplying fuel to the Myanmar military, according to the report carried out in collaboration with the NGO Justice for Myanmar. and Myanmar Campaign UK.
In the worst air strike since the military coup, between 50 and 80 people were killed on Oct. 23 during a concert organized in a rebel zone controlled by the Kachin ethnic minority in the northeast of the country.
Entitled “Deadly Cargo: Exposing the Supply Chain that Fuels War Crimes in Myanmar,” the report presents evidence through leaked documents, satellite images and other sources of supply to the military between December 2021 and August 2022.
“The aviation fuel supplied, stored and distributed by some companies has been essential for the Myanmar Army to carry out these horrific airstrikes,” Montse Ferrer, Business and Human Rights researcher at Amnesty International, said in a statement.
“It is time to break the fuel supply chain to the Myanmar Air Force once and for all,” Ferrer added.
According to the organization, Puma said that, through its subsidiary Puma Energy Asia Sun and joint venture National Energy Puma Aviation Services, it only supplied fuel to Myanmar for civil use between February 2021 and Oct. 5.
However, the report would show that part of the fuel reached the Myanmar Army through the port of Thilawa, south of Yangon – the former capital and the country’s most populous city.
On Sep. 26, Amnesty International told Puma the conclusions of its report and 10 days later the company announced it was withdrawing from Myanmar.
Other companies such as the American ExxonMobil and Chevron and the Russian Rosneft have supplied fuel to Thilawa, but it is not proven that they ended up in the hands of the Myanmar military. EFE
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