BAT Ends Direct Investment in Burma

Posted to the IUF website 08-Nov-2003

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The UK-based transnational British American Tobacco (BAT) announced on November 6 that it had sold its share in Rothmans of Pall Mall Myanmar Pte Limited, the subsidiary through which it had been directly involved in a joint venture with the Burmese military dictatorship, to the Singapore-based Distinction Investment Holdings. The move is a success for the disinvestment campaign pursued by the IUF and its affiliates together with the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (the government elected by an overwhelming majority in 1990 but forced underground by the military coup), the Burmese independent trade union federation FTUB and the UK Burma Campaign and other NGOs who have actively campaigned for disinvestment.

While the campaign goal has been achieved, we cannot claim total success in view of the principle which the IUF had sought to establish in its submission to the OECD: that investment as such, under the conditions prevailing in Burma today, is a violation of international human rights standards and of the OECD's own investment guidelines. BAT presented its withdrawal from direct investment in Burma as an act taken only in response to the request of the UK government, which had been pressing the company to withdraw since July. BAT continues to defend their involvement in Burma, which was undertaken in direct opposition to the repeated calls by the democratically elected government of the country for foreign investors to pull out. BAT will continue to license their brands for sale in Burma.

Nevertheless, all those in solidarity with the Burmese people's struggle for freedom and an end to the horrors of the military regime can view the company's retreat as a victory in the ongoing struggle for democracy in Burma.