[Intl-tobacco] BAT quits Burma after human rights pressure

[Robert Weissman]

BAT quits Myanmar after human rights pressure
Reuters Update
 November 6, 2003

 David Jones

 London - The world's second-biggest tobacco group, British American
Tobacco, bowed to UK government pressure to pull out of Myanmar on
Thursday after international criticism of the Asian nation's
human-rights record.

 BAT said it had agreed the sale of its 60 percent share in its Myanmar
business to a Singapore investment firm after the British Foreign Office
asked the tobacco group in July to quit the country, which is run by a
military government.

 "The sale agreement follows the exceptional formal request by the
British Government in July for us to reconsider our investment in the
joint venture," said BAT's director of corporate and regulatory affairs,
Michael Prideaux.

 Foreign companies investing in Myanmar have long been a target of
Western human-rights groups who say the firms are
 indirectly supporting a regime guilty of human-rights abuses. BAT
entered Myanmar in 1999 when it took over the tobacco
 business of London-based Rothmans. Following the government's pressure
in July, BAT had said it was reviewing its presence.

 The UK government welcomed the move, saying it reinforced Prime
Minister Tony Blair's message in June that trade and
 investment with Myanmar is not appropriate so long as the regime
continues to suppress the basic rights of its people.

 "I am delighted that BAT, the largest remaining UK investment in Burma,
has responded to the British government's request that they leave the
country. I appreciate that this was a difficult process, but I am in no
doubt that the decision was the right one," said Foreign Office Minister
Mike O'Brien.

 In a clamp-down on pro-democracy movements, Myanmar's military, which
has ruled since a 1962 coup, has confined democracy leader and Nobel
peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to her home since September after major
surgery and nearly three months in detention at a secret location.

 Suu Kyi was detained on May 30 after a bloody clash between her
followers and government supporters, and Myanmar's ruling generals have
ignored U.N. requests to release her. BAT is the last major UK company
to pull out of Myanmar and follows the move earlier this year by Premier
Oil to unravel its involvement in a Myanmar gas project transferring its
stake to U.S. company Amerada Hess and Malaysia's Petronas.

 Lobby group the Burma Campaign UK also welcomed the move, and said it
will shift its focus to campaign for a ban on imports of Burmese gems
and timber into Britain and the European Union which are an important
source of income for the regime. "This is a huge victory. They had to be
dragged out kicking and screaming but at least they are out. If a
company like BAT can be forced out of Burma, any company can be," said
John Jackson, director of the Burma Campaign UK.

 In the BAT deal, the London-based group is selling its 60 percent stake
in Rothmans of Pall Mall Myanmar Pte Ltd to
 Singapore's Distinction Investment Holdings Pte Ltd for an undisclosed
sum. The remaining 40 percent will continue to be held by the Union of
Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd. BAT will license the production of its
London and State Express 555
 cigarette brands for the Myanmar domestic market to the Singapore
company. Completion of the deal is expected over the next 12 months, BAT added.

 The Rothmans business in Myanmar was established in 1993 at a time of
significant foreign investment in Myanmar. As the
 nation's leading tobacco group, it runs one factory in the capital
Yangon and employs 500 people.