The Guardian
The ObserverMyanmarJamie Doward
Sun 20 Dec 2020
Campaigners say the deals revealed in new report are a breach of firms’ human rights responsibilities
The report says companies ‘have human-rights due-diligence responsibilities [in Myanmar] that they have breached’. Photograph: Ye Aung Thu/AFP via Getty Image
Human rights groups are demanding that two of Britain’s biggest banks explain why they have lent tens of millions of pounds to a technology company building a telecoms network that is part-owned and used by the Myanmar military.
HSBC and Standard Chartered have loaned $60m (£44.5m) to Vietnamese telecom giant Viettel in the last four years, a period when the Myanmar military has been accused of committing war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. Viettel is a major investor in Mytel, a Myanmar mobile network that, since its launch in June 2018, has grown to become the second-biggest operator in the country with over 10 million users.