Action Alert!

UK GOVERNMENT PROMOTES TRADE WITH BURMA DESPITE EVIDENCE OF GENOCIDE OF THE ROHINGYA

On 18 March 2019 the UK Department for International Trade will co-host a Myanmar trade and investment conference in London where a number of Burmese leaders are expected to speak.

Given the damning report of the UN Fact-Finding Mission (September 2018) into massive human rights violations in Myanmar, particularly against the Rohingya in Rakhine State, we are shocked to see that the UK is co-hosting this trade conference.  

The UK’s own Mission to the United Nations urged the UN to ‘advance accountability for appalling violations in Burma’ stating ‘there can be no equivocation on the part of this Council when it comes to responding to the possible commission of atrocity crimes.’

Further, the UK Mission stated on the 28th February 2019 “it is the Burmese military who are the root cause of these longstanding problems.” It is well-known that some of the companies attending the trade conference will be linked to the military. These include the military-owned companies Union of Myanmar Economic Holding Limited (UMEHL) and Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC), which are the key stakeholders of Myanmar economy. The military, family members and relatives of generals and cronies, who own these companies are complicit of the Rohingya genocide.  

It is therefore a mark of shame that our government is prepared to ignore the calls of its own Mission, and the overwhelming evidence of atrocities, and seek to sponsor trade with the regime that is culpable.

Take action now!

  1. Contact your MP to write to the Prime Minister to cancel the trade conference. (www.writetothem— find out who your MP is)
  2. Write to Prime Minister Teresa May to cancel UK’s sponsorship of this conference and to work with the UN to bring the perpetrators of the atrocities against the Rohingya to justice.
  3. Contact your local police and the Director of Public Prosecutions (Jeremy Wright QC MP) to ask them to consider whether each Myanmar military officer and government officer should be subject to arrest for crimes under domestic and international law.
  4. Write to the Minister for International Trade (Liam Fox MP) demanding that human rights conditions feature in any future trade conditions, and not to countenance any trade agreement while the Rohingya remain in exile and those remaining in Myanmar continue to be oppressed with their citizenship denied.
  5. Contact the media to cover this story. 
  6. Raise greater awareness about this and the suffering of the Rohingya and other minority populations in Burma.
  7. Sign the JFRM petition calling for the cancelation of the trade conference – to be released shortly.

 

Support the work of JFRM in pursuing the perpetrators of genocide in Myanmar. Donate today! https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/jfrm/

 

Thank you.

 

Justice for Rohingya Minority

www.jfrm.org.uk