NLD urges Canada to probe Ivanhoe over sanctions, driver

Thursday, 22 July 2010 12:46 Thomas Maung Shwe

A National League for Democracy member of parliament elected in Burma’s annulled 1990 election and labour minister in Burma’s exiled government, the National Coalition Government for the Union of Burma, has formally asked the Canadian government to investigate Canadian firm Ivanhoe Mines for violating Ottawa’s sanctions against Burma.

The Vancouver-based mining company led by controversial chairman Robert Friedland stands accused by advocacy group, the Canadian Friends of Burma, of secretly selling its 50 per cent stake in the joint venture that operated Burma’s Monywa copper mine to cronies of the Burmese regime linked to Chinese weapon’s firm Nornico and mining giant Chinalco.

khun-myint-tunThe NLD MP, Khun Myint Tun, who is also a trained geologist, last week sent a detailed letter to the Canadian government urging it to immediately subpoena Ivanhoe executives to determine the ownership of the firm’s 50 per cent stake in Myanmar Ivanhoe Copper Company Limited (MICCL), the joint venture created by Ivanhoe and the Burmese regime to run the Monywa mine.

He told Mizzima: “The matter of Ivanhoe’s apparent departure from Burma must be thoroughly investigated by the Canadian government. I’m deeply disturbed by reports that Ivanhoe has allowed cronies of the Burmese regime to obtain the firm’s 50 per cent stake in Monywa on behalf of the Chinese weapons firm Norinco.

“Reports that Norinco will give Burma’s regime howitzers in return for copper from Monywa are also deeply disturbing, we ask that Prime Minster [Stephen] Harper’s government force Ivanhoe to publicly reveal the shady business deals that transpired,” Khun Myint Tun said.

If Ivanhoe’s 50 per cent stake in MICCL was indeed sold or given to cronies of the junta this would violate Canadian sanctions against Burma. Canada’s financial and investment restrictions targeting Senior General Than Shwe’s regime were significantly strengthened following the crushing of the September 2007 popular uprising led by Burmese monks.

In February 2007, Ivanhoe placed its 50 per cent stake in MICCL under the direction of an ostensibly “independent trust”, which was given the task of selling Ivanhoe’s Burmese assets. Despite repeated requests from media and human rights groups Ivanhoe has so far refused to disclose the individuals or firms that operate or oversee the trust.

Ivanhoe declared on the firm’s website on July 6 that the “independent trust” had not in fact sold its stake as Mizzima had reported May 27 in a story titled: “Chinese arms maker’s copper mine deal raises queries over Canadian stake”.

The Mizzima article quoted an anonymous source and declarations made in filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) by former MICCL employee Gerald Nugawela, who stated that he had brokered a sale of MICCL, appeared on June 27 and was followed three days later by a second Mizzima story revealing that the regime was trading copper from Monywa in exchange for howitzers from Chinese weapons maker Norinco.

Ivanhoe’s statement titled “Attempts by anti-Myanmar activist to link Ivanhoe Mines with reported Monywa Copper Mine developments are dishonest and nonsensical” also contradicted reports from The Wall Street Journal, the Canadian Friends of Burma and the Democratic Voice of Burma that Norinco had become involved in the Monywa copper project Burma’s largest mine.

According to Ivanhoe’s statement “Unfounded allegations and speculation have been distributed in recent days as part of a discredited, long-running disinformation campaign by the Canadian Friends of Burma non-governmental organisation, assisted once again by the India-based Mizzima News Agency”.

While Ivanhoe was unable to be reached for comment to elaborate on the specific nature of the “disinformation campaign”, Tin Maung Htoo, executive director of the Canadian Friends of Burma, did respond. The exiled democracy activist told Mizzima that he was not surprised by Ivanhoe’s response and said that “on several occasions over the years in their open letters and statements Ivanhoe has called me an anti-Burmese instigator of a disinformation campaign targeting them. I had nothing to do with a statement posted on Norinco’s own website about their involvement in Monywa nor did I have anything to do with The Wall Street Journal report on the Norinco press release. Ivanhoe is really just trying to hide the fact that their illegal deal with Burmese junta cronies has been exposed.”

Khun Myint Tun, a Thailand-based exile regularly vilified by the Burmese regime, told Mizzima that Ivanhoe’s insistence on referring to its critics as anti-Burmese was shameful. “Ivanhoe’s despicable characterisation of its critics … as anti-Burmese echoes the kind of paranoid angry language used by Burmese state-controlled media, which regularly smears Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and all those who in stand in the military’s way, of being anti-Burmese and under foreign influence.”

Tin Maung Htoo accused Ivanhoe of using the anonymous independent trust to shield the firm from US and EU sanctions that blacklist MICCL. He added that Canadian sanctions would also prohibit the firm from selling its stake in MICCL to those connected to the Burmese regime. “Ivanhoe is using the so-called independent trust to avoid western sanctions targeting the Burmese regime; that’s why Ivanhoe won’t disclose any details about this secretive trust and that’s why they stoop so low as to call me anti-Burmese. It’s really quite shameless.”

The Ottawa-based activist told Mizzima that, “either Ivanhoe’s stake in the 50 per cent joint venture that runs Monywa has been sold as we at CFOB believe or it hasn’t been sold and Ivanhoe still owns it by way of the trust. Ivanhoe’s insistence on suggesting that nobody owns the stake is increasingly ludicrous.”

NLD also asks Canada to investigate case of jailed Ivanhoe driver

In his letter, Khun Myint Tun also asked the Canadian government to investigate the December 2003 arrest of Ko Thet Lwin, a driver employed by Ivanhoe Mines who was jailed after his boss Andrew Mitchell, a senior Ivanhoe geologist in Burma, demanded to be driven to Aung San Suu Kyi’s home.

After driving to Suu Kyi’s lakeside residence both Ko Thet Lwin and Mitchell were detained by the soldiers who act as her jailers. Mitchell, a British national was quickly released however Ko Thet Lwin, according to his family, was sentenced to seven years in prison for doing what his superior had foolishly ordered him to do.

Apparently, Mitchell wanted to see the world’s most famous political prisoner to give her some sort of present and he wrongly believed his position with a foreign firm engaged in a joint venture with the Burmese junta gave him the authority to go where he pleased.

In response to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners Burma taking up Ko Thet Lwin’s cause, the New Light of Myanmar, the junta’s official English-language newspaper defended his jailing, reporting that the man it described as a driver employed by Ivanhoe Mines had been high on drugs and kidnapped his boss, a charge his family and the AAPPB denied.

When rights activists in Canada wrote to Ivanhoe in 2004 asking the firm to explain what had happened to Ko Thet Lwin, a senior executive coldly responded that no such individual was employed by Ivanhoe Mines in Burma. In fact, both Ko Thet Lwin’s family and the New Light of Myanmar described Ko Thet Lwin as being a driver working for Ivanhoe Mines.

It was not until five years later that Ivanhoe Mines, in an open letter last year to CFOB, admitted that it was familiar with the fate of Ko Thet Lwin’s while maintaining the regime’s version of events that Ko Thet Lwin had been on drugs and had kidnapped his boss.

In his letter to the Canadian government, Khun Myint Tun condemned Ivanhoe for taking more than five years to even acknowledge that it was familiar with the case. A political prisoner from 1996 to 2003, Khun Myint Tun told Mizzima “had Ivanhoe been more forthcoming with what happened to Ko Thet Lwin immediately following his arrest, it is very likely he and his family could have been spared great suffering, the way Ivanhoe has dealt with this case is criminal.”

“I’m particularly disgusted that last year when Ivanhoe finally chose to acknowledge they knew Ko Thet Lwin, they validated the regime’s ridiculous charges that Mr. Mitchell had been kidnapped by a drug-crazed follower of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.”

Ivanhoe driver’s whereabouts unknown, he is feared dead

AAPPB reported that in early 2004, Ko Thet Lwin, after being sentenced to seven years in prison, was sent to the Taungzun Labour Camp in Burma’s eastern Mon State and that his family had contacted the International Committee for the Red Cross to try to help him. According to AAPPB’s contacts, Ko Thet Lwin was later sent to Burma’s Insein prison following international interest in his case. The CFOB learned that Ko Thet Lwin was in Insein prison until at least early 2008.

CFOB’s Tin Maung Htoo said: “We have not been able to contact Ko Thet Lwin’s family to find out his condition or present location. All we know is that he was in Insein prison until just before Cyclone Nargis in May 2008. We fear that Ko Thet Lwin died the night of the cyclone when the much of the jail’s roof blew off and overwhelmed guards shot and killed at least 36 inmates and injured 70 others in a violent attempt to maintain order at the overcrowded facility.”

Even if Ko Thet Lwin did survive the prison massacre, the survival rate in Burma’s prisons is extremely poor. AAPPB and Amnesty International report that prisoners are routinely sent to remote malaria-infested jungles areas to perform forced labour for the Burmese army, where they are worked like slaves until they literally drop dead.

Ivanhoe’s controversial Mongolian mine boosted by Canadian state support

Ivanhoe Mines reported on Monday that Canada’s state-owned international financing agency, Export Development Canada, had agreed to provide vital low-interest loans for Ivanhoe’s deeply contentious Mongolian Copper/Gold Project at Oyu Tolgoi. The massive project launched in partnership the Anglo-Australian firm Rio Tinto will reportedly be one of the world’s largest mines and has been strongly opposed by a large segment of the Mongolian population.

Tin Maung Htoo said he strongly opposed Ivanhoe Mines receiving Canadian government support while serious questions regarding its Burmese mine remained unanswered. “Ivanhoe Mines does not deserve to have their operations in Mongolia subsidised by the Canadian taxpayer at a time when the firm refuses to tell the truth about the ownership of its stake in Monywa and the circumstances surrounding the illegal arrest of their Burmese driver Ko Thet Lwin at Suu Kyi’s residence.

“Ivanhoe chairman Robert Friedland is a multi-billionaire and if he wants to build a mine against the wishes of the Mongolian people let him pay for it himself. EDC’s decision to hand millions over to Ivanhoe really undermines Canada’s commitment to international corporate accountability. I urge EDC’s CEO Eric Siegel to immediately rescind all support to Ivanhoe Mines and its band of unaccountable corporate bullies,” Tin Maung Htoo said.

In April 2006, Ivanhoe chairman Robert Friedland was burned in effigy at a protest against Ivanhoe Mines in the Mongolian capital, one of the largest protests in the nation’s history.