Irrawaddy-Aug 3
Justice For Myanmar (JFM) is calling on the Singaporean government to expel junta cronies from the city state and demanding that it do more to stop their businesses from providing the junta with funds, arms and military equipment used for escalating war crimes in Myanmar. The advocacy group launched a Twitter campaign on Tuesday—with the hashtag #DoMoreSingapore—calling on netizens to pressure Singapore’s government to do more against the Myanmar junta and the cronies who supply it. Arms traffickers have moved hundreds of millions of dollars through Singapore banks as they supply the Myanmar military with weapons and equipment used to slaughter people, including women and children, JFM said. “The Singaporean government needs to do more and block the junta from Singapore’s financial system,” it added. In July, the number of Singapore-based entities known to have supplied the Myanmar junta’s military rose to 138 with the addition of 91 entities newly identified by the city state’s government with the help of UN Special Rapporteur to Myanmar Tom Andrews. The Singapore government identified the additional entities, adding to an initial list of 47 revealed earlier by Andrews. Its foreign minister said investigations were ongoing, suggesting the number would rise.
The Singapore government has not imposed a general trade embargo on Myanmar. Last year, Singapore’s bilateral trade with Myanmar totaled 5.8 billion Singapore dollars (US$ 4.3 billion). Although Singapore is more than 1,000 kilometers from Myanmar, business deals made there resulted in the murder and mass suffering of innocent people in Myanmar, rights groups say. In a report published in May, Andrews documented that at least US$ 1 billion of weapons, dual-use technology and materials used to manufacture weapons were imported by the junta between February 1, 2021—the day it launched its coup—and December 2022. Read more at:
