Thai banks are helping the junta keep the helicopters and fighter jets it uses to kill and maim civilians in the air and well-armed after their competitors in Singapore began recoiling from doing business with the regime’s military last year, a report from the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar says.
“Thailand has now become the [junta’s] leading source of military supplies purchased through the international banking system,” explains the report “Banking on the Death Trade: How Banks and Governments Enable the Military Junta in Myanmar.”
The transfer of weapons and related materials from companies registered in Thailand to the junta using the formal banking system doubled from just over US$60 million in fiscal year 2022 to more than $120 million in the next fiscal year, which ended in March 2024, according to the report from special rapporteur Tom Andrews.
It follows a report released by Andrews in May of last year – “The Billion Dollar Death Trade: The International Arms Networks that Enable Human Rights Violations in Myanmar” – that found that Singapore-based companies had become the junta’s third-largest source of weapons and related materials.
The Singaporean government responded with an investigation and the flow of weapons and related materials to Myanmar from Singapore-registered companies dropped by nearly 90 percent. “In FY2022, Singapore-based banks facilitated over 70 percent of the junta’s purchases that passed through the formal banking system. By FY2023, that percentage had dropped to under 20 percent, with most of the purchases occurring in the first quarter,” the report says.
As Singapore became a less welcoming jurisdiction for the junta to seek weapons, it turned to Thailand.
Exports of weapons and related materials to Myanmar from Thailand-registered entities more than doubled, from about $60 million in FY2022 to almost $130 million in the year ending March 2024, “Banking on the Death Trade” says. “Many [junta] purchases previously made from Singapore-based entities, including parts for Mi-17 and Mi-35 helicopters used to conduct airstrikes on civilian targets, are now being sourced from Thailand,” it explains.
Siam Commercial Bank has been particularly attractive to Myanmar’s military. “While Siam Commercial Bank facilitated just over US$5 million in transactions related to Myanmar military procurement in FY2022, that figure leaped to over US$100 million in FY2023,” the report says.
During the two fiscal years, the junta began relying on a new bank in Myanmar to purchase military supplies internationally – Myanma Economic Bank (MEB) – after sanctions were placed on state-owned Myanma Foreign Trade Bank by Washington in June 2023. The junta responded by shifting much of its banking to MEB, including military procurement, receipt of international taxes and fees, and repatriation of foreign revenues from state-owned enterprises. MEB’s international transactions surged in just six months, from slightly more than $70 million of incoming and outgoing payments in the first quarter of FY2023 to almost $500 million in the third quarter. These included the equivalent of at least $55 million in Thai baht every month from revenues to Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise.
“It is essential that the international community shut down MEB’s international banking access through coordinated sanctions,” Andrews says.
His most recent report is more optimistic than the last two. It notes that the volume of weapons and military supplies the junta purchased using the international financial system fell by one-third after his last report was published.
“If the government of Thailand were to respond to [the information in this report] as the government of Singapore did one year ago, the [junta’s] capacity to attack the people of Myanmar would be significantly reduced,” Andrews says.
“Banking on the Death Trade” notes that there is “compelling evidence” that actions by the international community to support the people of Myanmar “are isolating an already weakened junta, reducing its access to the funds, weapons, and other goods that it needs to sustain itself and continue to attack and oppress the people of Myanmar.”
Andrews calls on governments that support human rights to strengthen financial sanctions on the junta by, among other measures, sanctioning all four of Myanmar’s state-owned banks.
“Now, more than ever, it is imperative that governments engage in a significantly higher level of sustained action that is robust, coordinated, and rigorously enforced,” he says.
