Transcript: Episode #169: Leaving On A Jet Plane
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Host 00:06
Before we start today's interview, please allow me a word or two about our podcast, even as Myanmar plunges into a civil war because of the military's bloody coup. The international community and media organizations have all but turn their backs on the country and its people. But this humble platform is committed to staying the course. We conduct nuanced, long form interviews with a variety of guests connected to Myanmar, so our listeners can better understand the ongoing crisis. Thank you for choosing to spend the next couple of hours with us today.
00:58
Ha ha ha ha, ha, ha ha ha ha, ha, ha ha ha, ha, yeah, absolutely.
Brad 01:39
And welcome back, everyone. So our topic today is going to be one that has been chronically overlooked in the Myanmar context, but is nevertheless of utmost importance, particularly when it comes to the military's capacity to murder civilians and destroy civilian villages with impunity. And that is ultimately, fuel specifically aviation fuel that the military requires for its helicopters and for its aircraft. And my guest today, has actually worked on a very, very large, very significant report on the different avenues and uses of aviation fuel within the Myanmar context. So I would like to welcome her and, and invite her to introduce herself for our audience.
Montse 02:25
All right, bye. Thanks for inviting me. And hello, everyone. My name is Juan Sephora, and I am currently the interim Deputy Regional Director for Research in the East and Southeast Asia and the Pacific Regional Office of Amnesty International. At the time, I worked on the report that has just been mentioned. I was a researcher, legal adviser in the Business and Human Rights team at Amnesty. So it was in that capacity that I worked on this piece of work. Thank you.
Brad 02:56
So thank you for that. So the first question is, why do we care about aviation fuel, we conventionally talk about ammunition and weapons shipments, the helicopters, the aircraft, the tanks themselves, but we consistently see calls for sanctions on aviation fuel or jet fuel, as it's more commonly referred to, why does this rank among things as obviously deadly as munitions?
Montse 03:19
Yeah, absolutely. The reason why aviation fuel is important or very important, I wouldn't, I wouldn't put it higher up than ammunition necessarily. But it is more important than what one usually would think it is. Because since the military cool, Amnesty International and many other NGOs have reported a significant increase in the use of air attacks by the Myanmar military and conflict ridden zones around the country. And the only way you can power a fighter jet is with aviation fuel, as simple as that. So in order to minimize or impact the ability of the Myanmar military to conduct such airstrikes, many of which are unlawful and have caused terrible, terrible impact on communities, including massive displacement and also, of course, deaths and injuries, is to have an impact on the ability of these airstrikes to be conducted by the Myanmar military.
Brad 04:20
So we we've obviously heard consistently, these these airstrikes, I mean, the coup has happened for what's been going on for a little bit more than 800 days. And in that time, we've heard of 600 airstrikes, and of course, quite recently, we saw in income below because eg village was was horrifically hit. What is it that that you're actually able to do with regards to the jet fuel? Are you actually able to track the military's acquisition of jet fuel? What information are you able to to obtain in this research?
Montse 04:53
Sure, so what we were able to obtain, or maybe I'll step back we wanted to understand first How does aviation fuel generally speaking, you know, pre and post coup enter Myanmar? How is that then stored distributed? Is the aviation fuel that enters Myanmar going to commercial flights? Is it also going to the Myanmar military? Are these two what we could refer? What we could refer to as two separate supply chains? Are they connected? Do they overlap, so we wanted to understand that generically. And then, of course, in finding information about those two supply chains, what we were trying to identify is, what relationship is there between the aviation fuel that enters for commercial and kind of civilian purposes and the aviation fuels that enters and ultimately is used by the Myanmar military. So what the report meant to do was really look at this at these two supply chains step by step. So from the moment, for example, aviation fuel departs from the Port of Singapore, for example, in a large tanker by vessel to the last use of that aviation fuel, which is an airstrike that amounts to war crimes in a certain location in Myanmar. That's what the report meant to do, and and ultimately did.
Brad 06:15
Excellent. And so the obvious question, then, then is, you know, we know that that resources like money are very, very often sort of funneled around in strange ways. Its origin, its destination is hidden. And there are ways to evade authorities who are trying to track financial transactions, when it comes to a tangible good, like jet fuel. How confident can we be that that we're able to follow and, and see and actually be able to sort of measure and report upon the movement of something like jet fuel? Okay,
Montse 06:51
so I'll start by saying that aviation fuel is a commodity, it's a good that moves across borders. And so any good, you know, we're talking about aviation fuel, but we're could also be talking about grain or rice or any any good moves around borders, countries, etc, and leaves a record. In order to be able to transport any good, you need a means of transport and that means of transport will have paperwork that relate to that, transport, etc. So in other words, there's a paper trail for any good that crosses any border around the world. Of course, there are some goods, especially if transporting them is countered to sanctions that will likely rely on processes individuals, companies, etc, that will try to hide the origin sometimes of the good hide the nature of the good hide the destination of the good, but ultimately, every good in the world leaves a paper trail and aviation fuel is no exception.
Brad 07:56
Okay. And so, in looking at your the report itself, how much insight does that give us into understanding the the amount of aviation fuel that is going into the country? How much does it let us know? Who is giving us? Who is who is giving the aviation fuel to Myanmar? And does it give us any insight into what capacity the Myanmar military continue to have and what we can expect in the future?
Montse 08:21
Okay, so to answer your question, what I'm going to do is kind of tell you what we did have, it will enlarge part answer your question, but there are some gaps. And that's just the nature of this kind of information. So when Good Goods leave a paper trail, they also leave a different type of trail. So I'm going to be very specific here. We identified every shipment of aviation fuel that entered Myanmar since the military coup of February 2021 until February 2023. So two years, we were able to track all the shipments that entered Myanmar that specifically stopped in a location in Tilawat port Yangon, greater port. And we were focusing on aviation fuels that entered by vessel. Why because the majority of aviation fuel actually the majority of all fuel is transported around the world by in terms of large quantities when they're being imported into a country they're transported by vessel, because that's the way that you can transport the largest amount of any, any good. So so that's the information that we that we were able to obtain. So back to the paper trail paper trail is papers, but here we're talking about a ship trail if that doesn't even exist, but the concept that ships move around the world, they when they do they provide information to the radar system so that other vessels know that they're coming or the port authorities know that they're coming and that information is actually accessible to the public. information today about the vessels that are moving right now are accessible for free information about the past retroactive information that you require, usually some form of financial means to obtain it. So, but it's available. So in other words, we were able to try to track the vessels that were bringing in aviation fuel into Myanmar. Maybe I'll stop there, because that's with respect to, to what comes in. But to go back to your original question. With that information, we obtained specific amounts of aviation fuel that were that were being brought in, we were able to identify the amount that sorry, the quantity of of shipments in terms of the number of vessels that were coming in, and then all the information pertaining to the companies involved in all of that transportation. So that's just the first step by the way I and I won't go into every single step of the supply chain, because I'm sure we're going to discuss it throughout the next hour. But basically, that was the beginning of a supply chain that ultimately ends to the Myanmar military. So every step after the aviation fuel arrives, the report is something that we tracked. And so ultimately, yes, we are able to tell you, this is the amount of aviation fuel that the Myanmar military had access to. We don't know exactly the amount that they ultimately stored in their storage units. But we know the amount that comes into the country. And we know from what we found that the Myanmar military has access has misappropriated and in many times does directly receive a lot of this aviation fuel that we identify.
Brad 11:33
And so just to make sure that, you know, we're dotting all the I's and crossing the t's, you mentioned Thilawa port. And that was the focus. Why not Yangon port? Why not? You know, a lot of other like there are quite a few ports cities around Myanmar Why Why are you focused so much on tillow?
Montse 11:55
Sure. So the reason is quite simple. Prior to the cool, the infrastructure in the country then managed all aviation fuel, oh, with no exceptions, for a few years at least, was managed by a company called Puma energy. It's a very large company. Some of you may have heard of it. Some of you will be very aware of it because it is very, it's a very well known brand in a number of countries. But it's owned by Trafigura, which is one of the largest commodity traders in the world. This company had an exclusive agreement with the government of Myanmar. And for a few years, it was exclusive, and they created all the infrastructure they updated. In some cases, the infrastructure that already existed in Myanmar, they were the only ones who could import and distribute aviation fuel. And they built this port in port terminal rather than a specific terminal and a larger port in tilava. So for many years, that's the only way that aviation fuel was entering the country. There was a time even before the coup where the monopoly on paper no longer existed. In other words, other companies could apply to also be involved in aviation fuels. But our understanding from our research and our sources is that in practice, that was a very small amount of aviation fuel that could enter the country and was was being imported by others. Post cool, we're talking situation didn't change, not drastically. Anyway, we continue to hear from many sources that the number one entry point of aviation fuel, not the only one, but the number one was the same port until our managed until recently by promo energies affiliates in Myanmar, that are linked to companies and Myanmar Companies and the now Myanmar military regime that controls one of the state owned agencies that has has been part of this industry.
Brad 13:54
And so, again, in the theme of just just making sure that we're being comprehensive why sort of jet fuel like we have fuel and Myanmar itself actually produces petrochemicals? It's one of the major industries of the country. So why, why is jet fuel something that they that they're importing, as opposed to just, you know, making their own or getting the regular fuel that they would put into a car and just sort of purifying it or cleaning a little bit?
Montse 14:24
Sure. I think the first question is, are they able to refine aviation fuel, you know, crude oil into aviation fuel? And the answer isn't super clear. If you go on the website of some of the state agencies that are involved in the wider industry of oil will you will see websites for a couple of the refineries in the country saying that there is capacity for our refineries that allow for the production of aviation fuel, and in a few cases there, the websites have said that they used to at some point information is not They produce aviation fuel. So that's that's what the websites have said. In practice, though, my understanding is that that is not the case that post cool, but even before cool, whichever capacity there was to actually produce aviation fuel was extremely limited. It whatever was produced did not meet international standards of aviation fuel. And for any commercial airline to fly on aviation fuel, it has to meet quite high standards and their international standards. And third, that, therefore, because whatever was produced was very small, and he did not meet any international standards, we've come to understand that actually, it has no bearing on the amount of aviation fuel that really is used in Myanmar, or by commercial airlines or by the Myanmar military.
Brad 15:55
So I'm glad that you that you mentioned commercial. So this is another very important question. Is there a distinction between the aviation fuel that is used in the commercial sector, Myanmar has its own domestic airline, and the aviation fuel that is used for military applications?
Montse 16:12
Great question, one that took us a long time to get to the bottom of and if you speak to 10 people, you know, you might find a few people who will disagree with what I'm about to tell you. So this is the answer that I'm providing is very specific to the Myanmar context. So in theory, and even in practice, there are different types of jet fuel of aviation fuel. Broadly, there are many different types are broadly there's kind of two types. But even in the type that we're talking about, which is referred to as Jet A one, there are different types, you may have heard of the term military grade jet, a one or military grade aviation fuel and kind of non military grade aviation fuel, the military grade presumably is or not, presumably, is J, eight to the number eight versus Jet A one. So there is there is a distinction, or there can be rather a distinction between aviation fuel that is used for commercial and for military and one of the distinctions I'm no expert, but what I've come to understand is that, for example, for some jets that fly, different speeds and a different heights, the kind of aviation fuel needed needs to be resistant to, for example, very high, sorry, very low temperatures, very, very low temperatures. That's not true of a commercial airline. So that's in theory. Now in practice, the reality is that most most airlines or rather, jets are commercial. airplanes that use genuine can use the same genuine for all types. So in other words, military, air jets can use j one. And in the case of Myanmar, they use j one. And I'll tell you why we were able to confirm this, even though if you ask again, you might find people who disagree with you, we had access to documents to contracts that showed what the Myanmar military specifically was purchasing. And they were purchasing Jet A one, which is the type of fuel that commercial airlines use.
Brad 18:15
So just to clarify, when you say that the documents showed that they were purchasing Jet A one, your understanding is that that's also actually true. Like they were purchasing J. One, they were not purchasing. J eight.
Montse 18:28
Yeah, that's our understanding.
Brad 18:32
They're interesting. So in the Myanmar context, there's just no real way that we can specifically target military jet fuel without negatively impacting the civilian air industry.
Montse 18:48
Exactly. And I think I want to add a little bit more to that. So the reason why is not because they use the same type of fuel, because even if you had the same type of fuel, you could have for example, let's just say fuel arrives and point A Tilawat port. Okay. But from there, the, the aviation fuel that's used by commercial airlines is stored in Tank A, and the one that's used for the military is stored in tank B, the companies that the trucks for example, that distribute aviation fuel for commercial from tank, a go one route with one company managing that distribution. And same thing for tank B, you could have that so in other words, the fact that they use the same fuel doesn't mean that, that they're indistinguishable once they arrive in country. However, what we found in our report, and this was the large the most important finding, in many ways, the most problematic finding as well is that there is no tank a and there is no tank be when they come in. They're both stored at the same both being whichever the end user ultimately is whether that's a commercial airline or the military. The fuel is initially stored in the sea Same location. And then a lot of the steps that are taken afterwards, for example, the trucks that distribute the fuel, the stops that those trucks take, even the storage tanks where the aviation fuel is stored in airports. And a few other things showed us that there is a direct overlap, in other words, that it's the same fuel that is being stored that maybe the same company, the same truck, not always, but in many ways there is overlap, such that in reality, there's no way to distinguish between aviation fuel that is supposed to enter the country for commercial use, versus the military, because the infrastructure overlaps in various ways, because some of the companies are the same ones. It's impossible to have, as we're talking about sanctions, it's impossible to have kind of like targeted sanctions, were your only targeting aviation fuel that is used for the military in the Myanmar context, that is impossible.
Brad 21:03
Okay, so So you brought up sanctions, and I'm glad that you have that's, that's going to be sort of the big topic of discussion here. But in order to understand that, let, I think we should the first thing to understand who is supplying the fuel here, because if this is, this is a military good, but you're also saying it's a civilian good if if I wanted to buy ammunition, or if I wanted to buy a tank or a rocket launcher, chances are I would have to contact either a foreign government, or I would have to contact an arms supplier, who is under very strict conditions with a foreign government and could not just sell to anyone for the sake of it. But because this is also a civilian good, that would necessitate that the purchase of jet fuel is a little bit easier. So how does this actually work? Who do you go to and who is willing to sell to the Burmese?
Montse 21:58
So aviation fuel, as you said, is a dual use good, it can be used for good reasons, you know, to fly commercial airline. And it's can be used for simply put bad reasons. And and that's what makes aviation fuel a complicated good. But anyway, to answer your question. The companies that are involved or rather, let's even take step back, the agents, the entities that are involved in selling aviation fuel for commercial purposes in Myanmar are the same agents that are selling aviation fuel that may lead into the Myanmar military's hands. In other words, the suppliers are just companies. What we identified our report, specifically the shipments that we identified, we're talking about companies that many of you will have heard of before, company like Petro China company like Exxon, Mobil, Chevron, et cetera. So companies that generally sell aviation fuel, to whoever. And what we found is that these companies sold, in some cases, they had a contract, or in all cases, actually, that we identified, they had a contract that said, this is for commercial purposes. But in practice, a number of these goods, or a number of these, of this aviation food that arrived, even on a commercial contract, a contract that's supposed to say this is only for civilian purposes, once it arrived in the port was immediately redirected to the Myanmar military. But we're talking about the same actors. So for example, there isn't a cut from what we reported, in practice, maybe things are changing now, or could change or maybe even in the past, but generally speaking, you know, there'd be a company, this was a company that was mat co managed, it was co managed by Puma energies is international company, co managed by a Myanmar domestic company and CO managed by a state agent, a state owned entity that that is controlled by the Myanmar military. This entity, which is just a company would say, hey, we want to buy aviation fuel who's willing to sell to us and what are the prices that you're offering, and then they choose the one that most interested them. And then then once the aviation fuel arrives in country, different things would happen to that to that aviation fuel. But my point being is that whoever's whoever was requesting and it's this company called nippers, whoever was requesting aviation fuel was not telling this the supplier Hey, you know, by the way, when it gets here, we're going to use it for the military. They weren't does that does that answer the question?
Brad 24:43
So it does, but it just sort of opens up. So many additional question. So so you're you're basically saying that the suppliers the external suppliers, have been told falsely, that They are selling aviation fuel to a private and civilian company based in Myanmar, which, unbeknownst to the international sellers, is actually basically just a front for the Burmese military to get its hands on aviation fuel, would that be an accurate summary?
Montse 25:16
I think that's an accurate summary. I would just say that it wasn't always the case. And we don't know exactly whether the company's what they were told. But in the cases where we do know, yes, that what you just said, is accurate. A company believes. I'm not saying whether it's a reasonable belief, by the way, I think that's another question whether these companies should be selling in any case, knowing the situation in the country, but let's just put that aside for a second. Yes, there were companies that we engage with, who believed that they were selling for civilian purposes. And that same shipment was directly diverted to the Myanmar Air Force on arrival.
Brad 25:56
So let's just go back to to the topic that you just touched upon, because I happen to know that you you actually have a background, I believe in international criminal law. And so let us then raise this question. If a private company, for example, something like ExxonMobil, something like Chevron companies that are registered in western states, states that have put sanctions on the Burmese military, not specific to jet fuel, but have generally put sanctions on the Burmese military, and recognize the Burmese military as a as an unlawful and criminal entity that is engaged in war crimes, if they are providing the means by which those war crimes are being committed. Is there criminal liability on the part of these companies?
Montse 26:45
Okay, great question and one that we thought a lot about. I think based on the evidence that we collected, these kinds of cases would be very hard to build. But let me take a step back. So in order to prove that a company is complicit, because in this case, they will be complicit. For those who don't know what complicity is complicity is that you are involved in a wrongdoing or in a crime, but you're not the main perpetrator. Right, you are also referred to as aiding and abetting in different judicial context or legal context. But the idea is you're not the main perpetrator, but you're facilitating as you just said in your question. So in order to prove one of these cases, you need to prove the act, the so the act of having contributed to an ultimate crime, you need to prove something called linkage, which is that that specific contribution, so for example, the sale of that shipment, shipment, eight, whatever, actually is linked to a war crime. linkage is always very hard and criminal cases and three, which is usually the hardest, not always, sometimes it can be presumed, is what we refer to as the mental state or mens rea, which is what mental state that this company have when it when it's sold these goods? And by mental state, we're talking about intent. Did the company when it's sold these goods intend for there to be a crime at the end of the supply chain? Does it intend to sell aviation fuel, knowing that it would be used to commit war crimes? So it's like extremely high bar? I think depends where you file a case depends. Yeah, where? Or rather, depending on where you file a case, you will have different law applicable, even in terms of how do you define complicity or aiding and abetting, there's some countries where the threshold is lower others higher? So I don't I'm going to generalize here by saying that's what you need. And just specifically know what what am I kind of referring to is that in some cases, courts will require in this in this specific scenario, a company to have intended the ultimate death, for example of an individual. In other cases, all you'd have to prove is that the company knew or that it was foreseeable that the aviation fuel would be used to kill someone. So as you can see, there's a distinction there, which jurisdiction we look at which country which type of chord, that will change but But going back to the principle of what we need, the mental state in this specific case is the hardest. I think we were quite close on the others, for sure, because we had a lot of direct linkage between the shipments that were arriving and the military bases from where the jets took off and committed war crimes. But we didn't know what the company knew or didn't know. That's where a prosecutor could do a much better job than us. You know, a prosecutor would have a right to ask or question a company they'd have the right to take in documents, so as not to use legal, legal legalese But they'd be able to require companies to share all their emails, and to share board meeting notes, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And that could maybe give you a better sense of, for example, that company, why did they know ultimately that this fuel was going to the Myanmar military? Or? Or should they have known questions of that sort based on this email, even though it was a commercial contract, they were engaging with a with an individual who they knew was linked to the Myanmar military, etc, etc. That's the kind of stuff we didn't spend time in the report, because all we were trying to show in the report was that this field was ultimately used for war crimes, but we didn't spend time investigating whether these companies knew or didn't.
Brad 30:44
And I appreciate the legal complexities that are inherent in this. And I think another another one of the points is that, correct me if I'm wrong, the actual transaction itself, right, the the process by which the money moves from one country, or money moves from Myanmar to the company, and the jet fuel arrives in Myanmar, is a very complex interconnected process that, that calls upon many different companies and agencies that provide many different services. piecemeal, each one operating sort of largely independently of the others. And so I imagined that would also mean that who would actually be responsible, could just not be as simple as the question of is it Chevron? It could be well, he's at this holding company that's based in Singapore, is that this insurance company that's based in the United Kingdom, and so on?
Montse 31:36
Yeah, and I think that what you just raise is one other of the key findings in our report, the fact that each shipment that we identified, had, anywhere between 10 to 20 Different companies involved, we identified around seven or eight per shipment, but those are the ones we identified knowing that there were many others. So you have anything ranging from the vessel itself. So who owns the vessel, which is always going to be a different company are almost always then the company that insures the vessel. Another one would be the cargo, who who insures the cargo, a different company, you already have three, and you're only talking about the vessel and the cargo, add the staff who manages the staff of the vessel, a different company who manages the vessel, not the vessel owner, you have another company who manages the vessel on arrival, that's another company six. So I could go on and on when we look at the entire supply chain, so many companies are involved. And the interesting thing is that each company that I've just mentioned, is part of an industry sector. And each industry sector has not only different companies, but in many times, obviously different states. So for example, there's one type of insurance referred to as p&i insurance, of which the companies that manage p&i insurance are almost all out of the UK. So that's one aspect. And this is one of again, one of like 20 companies that are were involved in one shipment. So we have the UK playing a role in a very specific way. But without that company, there is no shipment without a shipping agency, there is no shipment, going anywhere without a vessel, etc, etc. So yeah, there are many, many different companies involved. And also, one thing that I want to say is that we didn't identify, or we'd rather, we identified many different companies per shipment. So in other words, vessel owners were different in almost every single shipment. So you didn't have the same vessel transporting the same goods, you didn't even have the same vessel owner transporting aviation fuel, you had different ones. So ultimately, from the companies that we identified, I mean, we're talking over 100 companies.
Brad 34:02
Wow. So so this one is complex. But then, although we discussed it, as far as criminality is concerned, you know, even when we have what we might very favorably referred to as an actus Reyes, we can't get that mens rea a standard to be passed. And it would be difficult to, you know, identify exactly which jurisdiction will take precedent. But this doesn't sort of escape from the fact that in a much simpler scenario, if a deranged person comes into a gun store, and I sell them a gun, and they use that gun to kill someone, at the very least, I am I'm liable in terms of negligence because I didn't do my due diligence to identify whether or not this purchase of a potentially dangerous good and we've discussed the jet fuel is a jewel us commodity it has a overt stated and known potential military application. In the same way that if I were to sell uranium, these could be used for civilian uses perfectly legitimate, or it could be useful for military uses less legitimate. Surely there has to be some sort of oversight and some sort of standard to ensure that people are not able to sell potentially lethal goods to just anyone, especially in a context like Myanmar, where we know that there is an active civil war. Is there no legal oversight and restriction on these companies freedoms? Unfortunately, not.
Montse 35:27
That's the big gap here in in the wider space of Business and Human Rights, which is the overlap between corporate activity and human rights, which is that should any of these companies have sold aviation fuel? Well, obviously, we would say no, they shouldn't have if they had done what the United guys, that's how the UN guiding principles on business and human rights require of companies is that companies conduct human rights due diligence. And human rights. Due Diligence means that you identify the risks involved in your operation. So say a company says, Okay, I've decided I want to sell aviation fuel to a company looks like a civilian company in Myanmar, the risks, the risk assessment that this company should have conducted or should conduct in any case, would be, well, what, who could use this aviation fuel? Is this country in conflict? Well, clearly, in this case, it is, is the military in this country in Myanmar, using aviation fuel for for any kind of war crimes, human rights abuses, violations, etc. And, you know, any reasonable assessment would conclude that this is an extremely high risk. And that's before our report. I mean, of course, our report brought to light things that I do not think the companies knew, probably because they didn't want to know, or probably because they couldn't have known. I mean, we investigated for a while. But still, the risk was very obvious, you do not need anyone to tell you what the risk is of selling a dual use good in a context where there's a conflict, and we're airstrikes are reported repeatedly, as the number one cause of massive displace displacement. So, so there's no doubt that the company should have now if you turn to what what legal protections? Do people like victims have visa vie this kind of behavior, reckless behavior, negligence, whichever one we want to call, and there is none. I mean, at a state level, as in domestically, maybe some states have some, some requirements on due diligence, but we're talking about a handful with France, having passed one of the most well known laws, called the vigilance law, which requires a small percentage of its companies to conduct human rights, due diligence, but in, in pretty much everywhere in the world. There are no obligations for companies to conduct human rights, due diligence. So a company can say, oops, you know, I didn't know. And that's it. That's the end of the story. Unless you can show that this company intended for the ultimate outcome. This company is off the hook.
Brad 38:02
I mean, that's, I mean, this seems absolutely ridiculous. I mean, if we were discussing a, an Australian mining operation, selling uranium to a, an Uzbek, let's say, nuclear research company, that later turned out to just be a blatant front for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and they were purchasing uranium to make nuclear weapons. I mean, you know, the alphabet agencies would be would be taking people away, they would be seizing files, there would be an international criminal investigation like that there would be repercussions for that. And the analog, although nuclear weapons are probably more dangerous, the analog is, I think, very similar. And you're telling me that in this particular context, there is no legal recourse at all, like a government's at least looking into this. Is there? Is there any movement on this front? Is there anything going on? Well, that's
Montse 39:02
where sanctions come in. So generally speaking, when you talk about, say, uranium, selling to being sold to a country, X, whatever, generally, or in many cases, those goods will be sanctioned. So you won't have a generic law that ensures or requires other companies to make sure that they don't sell goods to, et cetera, et cetera. But what you will have are sanctions that don't allow for the sale of goods, which is why going to the topic here at hand, or one of them anyway, is that Amnesty International and many other NGOs called for what Some will call a sanction, we call a ban or suspension but it's it effectively is quite similar or the same is basically saying states you should not allow for any companies or any state agents in your country to participate in any way in the export of of aviation fuel to Myanmar. That's what has been called on for years because of the gap that we have in this specific situation. And again, looking at aviation fuel as a dual youth military good.
Brad 40:13
So, okay, so we were talking about sanctions now. And one thing that has struck, I mean, me and a lot of other people as alarming, and this is not directly connected to aviation fuel. But I think there is a link is that when we saw the United States passing legislation, specifically the Burma bill, now Burma Act that was passed as part of the National Defense Authorization Act, they this document had been on the table for quite a long time, it was actually pre coup, documented its origins. And there was consistently an exception carved out within sanctions for MLG E, Myanmar, oil and gas enterprises. A Myanmar based petrochemical enterprise that had, I believe, close connections to a number of foreign petrochemical companies, including Chevron in the United States, Woodside in Australia and totally in France, there seems to be a heavy reluctance. And Alan, correct me if I'm wrong, but there seems to be a very heavy reluctance when it comes to placing sanctions that affect fuel and significantly less reluctance when it comes to placing sanctions that affect, you know, individual people or that affect firearms and ammunition. Is that an accurate representation of the situation?
Montse 41:30
Absolutely, absolutely. That's an accurate representation. And maybe I'll be more generic here to say that there is a hesitancy to place sanctions that could have impacts beyond people in Myanmar, and maybe, maybe to put in a note in a better way, in a different way, there is hesitancy to to impose any sanctions that could have an impact. For example, we're talking about us on US interests. And that's true of any sanctions regime. I do want to clarify that Amnesty International doesn't call for sanctions. And we didn't in this case, we really saw this as a dual use goods. So we refer to as differently. And so I'm no sanctions expert. But I can say, in my experience, there is always always a hesitancy to pass sanctions, in cases where there will be an impact on your interests, whether that is your companies or your state interests abroad.
Brad 42:29
So what what then is the interest like Myanmar, it's, it's been very perverse to be to be quite blunt, watching what has happened internationally with regards to Myanmar since the coup in that time, you know, on this podcast and and throughout the contacts, I've seen multiple different industries I've discussed with multiple different experts. And there is this pattern that I've noticed of self imposed in many cases, sanctions and embargoes by companies saying, Well, we're going to cut off contact with Myanmar, we recognize that the workers who work in the industry that we that we operate within have come on to the military thumb, we understand that many of the companies and the factories that we collaborated with, have basically just become slave labor, and it's not what it used to be. And there's a big show song and dance about it. And then within, you know, six months to a year, those same companies come back and they continue those operations. Because the heat has died down the situation has not ameliorated in Myanmar, but But the media is not as interested in reporting on that. And I've seen that in a number of different, different industries. So I do understand the commercial pressures. But when it comes to petrochemicals, my understanding is that petrochemical interests, for example, Chevron, and totaal, and Woodside have all announced that they're pulling out the other no oil fields are running low on on oil, and the interest in exploiting new fields is not particularly high. It's not assumed that they're going to return on that investment. So what's what's going on that I'm missing? It's it seems to me that there isn't much value in protecting foreign petrochemical interests in Myanmar, because there just isn't much of a foreign investment in the petrochemical sector left to protect.
Montse 44:22
I mean, that is I think that's true. I can't speak for the whole industry. So I'm gonna focus on aviation fuel, because that's what I know. But it's true that from the information we obtained, for example, there were almost no UK companies involved. Okay, the the only ones that we identified, and I'm just choosing UK, but I could choose us. Us there were more for sure. But, but the UK, for example, we did identify a link with what I just said just one type of insurance insurance that kicks in when there's an accident. This is to cover third party liability. But other than that, not many interests. So you'd ask well why when Why would the UK not pass this sectoral it's referred to as sectoral sanction, which is all aviation fuel. They're different. They're different reasons. And I'm not. And I'm not going to speak on behalf of the government, of course, mostly because whatever I've been told doesn't necessarily mean that is the reality. But there are legitimate interests, or legitimate concerns as the right word when you're addressing sectoral sanctions of any type. And one of them is, well, what are the unintended consequences? What happens if you if you ban, what happens if the entire world comes together, which is never going to happen, but the entire world comes together and says, Well, we're going to ban the import or export whatever it is the the trans shipment of aviation fuel into Myanmar. And so basically, Myanmar will have no aviation fuel. So one immediate question could be what Okay, so how do people fly from Yangon to Mandalay? What about humanitarian aid assistance? Is there any impact to that? There are different questions, and we can actually answer them. And I'm happy to answer them, because we did look into this. But the point is that suddenly, when you're looking at not very specific targeted sanctions, then you're having a wider impact. And in this wider impact, you are maybe, for example, impacting flights that foreign diplomats take when they come into the country, or you're impacting something that doesn't seem directly related to a company's interests or to a country's interests. But indirectly they are. And those are the interests that obviously only states, no, they're not shared with NGOs. That's why I can't speak to them. But the point is that there are always going to be what we refer to as unintended consequences. And that is where a lot of states will only go to unintended consequences when there is a lot of political will. And that's what we've seen in Ukraine. There have been massive unintended consequences with respect to the price of energy across Europe, for example, but a lot of European states have been willing to pass sanctions that they had never passed in the past in any other context. And why because there was political will, unfortunately, and you've kind of made reference to this. There is no such political will visa vie Myanmar. I don't think and cannot speak for the international community or states individually. But there isn't a willingness to take action the same way that there is in other contexts.
Brad 47:30
I mean, that's quite depressing. So with accepting as a fact, of real politic, that there is not pressure to act. What What can feasibly be achieved? Because it seems very strange. It's not governments themselves who are involved in this trade. It's not like the United States is saying, Well, we, the United States, as the government of the United States, are personally involved in the sale of this good to this other country, and we don't want to lose that revenue. They they seem rather to be saying, well, some of our companies who pay taxes to us are involved in this trade, and they're lobbying the government very hard. So there is at least some degree of separation. But you're also talking about sectoral sanctions. And you don't sound very optimistic about the prospect of actually coordinating enough countries and enough governments across enough sectors to shut down the supply the supply chain, is there a sort of a strategy that would be effective to stop the flow of jet fuel is anything you've identified as potentially viable?
Montse 48:41
Look, I will say that a few months ago, we wouldn't have expected to be where we are now, in in the specific context of many states, not all, obviously. And it's mostly the ones that we expect. So the US the EU, with respect to sanctions to Myanmar, the UK, they have passed sanctions in the aviation fuel context, they have not been the kind of sanctions that we've we've been pushing for specifically, there hasn't been a suspension on aviation fuel, which is what we called for. But for many other NGOs, who were calling for targeted sanctions and specific sanctions, you know, a lot of these states have done it. So that was, I wouldn't say, unimaginable for six months ago, but it didn't seem like it was about to happen at all. So in other words, there, there are trigger points that can move countries specifically in this context to, to consider this and I think, in a few cases, the context of passing a sectoral ban, like the one we've called, almost happened, and you know, I know because I yeah, I was there and it really was very, very close. Can we get over those obstacles? I don't know. This is really a state decision, but we're not. We're, we're far but we're not employed. possibly for that's on on the on the sectoral sanctions and that topic separately. And so what Amnesty International has done and what Amnesty International, like other NGOs are known for is campaigning, you know, and so we focus very much on the companies involved. We do not believe that any of the companies, or pretty much any of the companies that we identified in our report, after this report came out after they knew about our findings, they were not repeat offenders, if we want to call them I mean, affine, if you know what I mean, they they weren't involved in another shipment, not all of them, but the vast majority. So that's a huge positive sign. But of course, there are other companies that have come in. And there are companies who have come in who don't care about in their specific country, there will not be civil society, there's going to protest about them participating. So there is always that risk when you target or when you when you campaign against companies, you get the companies that kind of care about human rights out. And then new companies come in that really don't care. And there's no pressure point their leverage. But I do think that one way that many of us have been working on is targeting specific companies or industries that are involved in these shipments. So even though obviously, the most efficient way forward is a sectoral suspension or ban on aviation fuel. There are definitely other ways to fight this as well, more piecemeal, and harder, but, but also possible.
Brad 51:31
So you've touched on a couple of things that I want to follow up on the first, just saying you've reached out to companies, you've, you've laid out the facts to them. And and they have not subsequently been involved in in further shipments, which, which is an incredible outcome. Now, so let's then, you know, perhaps give them the benefit of the doubt. Is it possible? Do you think that in companies that are very, very large, that are trading this commodity globally, that the decision makers in the company might not actually have consciously thought, oh, wait, we're selling to a company that may or may very realistically be affiliated with the military in a comparatively small market? In a country that we don't think about very often? Where there is an ongoing civil war? Is it? Is it possible that it just genuinely slipped under the radar of a very large company?
Montse 52:27
Yeah, it's possible. Sure. I mean, it's no excuse or justification. But sure, yeah, I honestly, I don't know. But I don't think that most of these companies sat down and said, Oh, we hope people die. Let's sell them aviation fuel. No, I don't think that's not especially because, well, first, I don't think many companies operate like that. Very few do some do. But in cases where they do really, it's they know, the risks they're taking. And, and at the end of the risk, journey, there's a nice, you know, pot of money. And in this case, honestly, it's not a very, very lucrative business. I mean, if you're selling one shipment of aviation food, or you're providing shipping agency fees, or rather, you're receiving shipping agency fees, which are not much. Yeah, the incentives for, for becoming involved in such a risky business are relatively low, which is why I do think, really thinking strategically, a lot of the companies that came back to us and said, we'll never do it again, or we were leaving the country, or we will no longer participate in these kinds of shipments. Yeah, I mean, I don't think it was a massive cost to their business. Maybe the exception is Puma energy, because they invested a lot. And they were a company that was, you know, very much present. It wasn't a company that just sold one shipment. But but other than Puma energy, the rest, yeah, it was a kind of like a minor, minor loss, the possibility of potentially participating in another shipment.
Brad 54:04
And so this is I mean, I'm gonna call for conjecture. And I, I don't expect you to be able to necessarily answer with authority on this. But these companies, would you think that they're motivated by the potential for negative press? Or are they just genuinely motivated by moral imperative? And the recognition that what they were doing is bad and a desire to no longer do a thing that is bad?
Montse 54:30
I can't answer that question, because I don't know the individuals involved in each decision making what AI decision making process what I can answer, because I used to work for companies is that of course, people have morals, some more than others, but generically or rather, generally, what I have seen has the most impact on company behavior is not morals is one of two things legal risk or reputational risk. So legal risk means there is A law and you are about to break it. And so the question is, do there's a lot of profit at the end of this exercise. But the risk is that you might have to pay a massive sanction. And I've seen companies that debate Well, actually, the profit that we could get out of this is, you know, whatever 100. And the sanction is 50. Well, let's do it. So, but anyway, legal risk is very important, and companies absolutely take it into consideration. The second one is reputational risk, and this will definitely vary by industry, company, country, etc. And by individuals, you know, you might have a CEO and a team and a company that cares about reputational risk in ways that others don't for sure. But reputational risk is important, because in many countries are many companies are either they have consumers or they have so they have kind of customers, consumers, or they have banks that are their creditor, sorry, they're there. They're the ones who give them credit. Or, you know, they're different, kind of, we'll call them stakeholders, although maybe that's a misnomer. But they're different entities, companies, individuals who will care about reputational risk, or rather the reputation of a company that they're either invested in or they're purchasing from, or they're affiliated to. And so a company will consider that broader reputational risk when they make a decision. And that reputational risk many times is linked to the concept of morality, you know, is it badly seen in the industry, we operate for us to be paying bribes to be doing XYZ or for us to be operating in a context where those who are impacted by our operations are negatively impacted, their human rights are being infringed upon. And, and so there is an A Link Between reputational risk and morality, but they're distinct, in my mind, and I think that's what it comes to. Of course, again, there's morality, and there are individuals who work in a care, but I don't see that because a company as a whole doesn't have a morality, you have individuals who have their own morals, and it's never always aligned.
Brad 57:05
So so valuable insight. So moving back to the actual sanctioning itself, this is something that that is sort of sticking out for me is a gray area. So we're talking about sanctions, and you're talking about the companies that have moral guidance sort of falling out of this industry, and they're being replaced by other companies. But we're also talking about a physical tangible, good. So I'm wondering, because there are only so many places, I presume, there are only so many places where the raw material can be taken out of the earth, only so many places where it can be refined only so many places where it can be stored. Are there certain bottlenecks? Are there certain countries, or certain companies that if we take them out of the equation, they can't readily be replaced by others?
Montse 57:53
Well, I think the question is slightly shifted, everyone can be replaced pretty much because the whole concept of you know, anti competition law in Europe, or whatever anti monopoly is the idea that there is no industry that is fully dominated by one company. And I do not believe that the industries involved in the shipments of aviation fuel that we identified are part of an industry where there's only one or two actors such that et cetera, et cetera, so so no, but what I do think that is a monopoly and such that it's additive. So what I've just said, however, what I do think is that there are some industries that are far less known, that are not campaigned against that are not targeted, that are not spoken about that play a massive role. And I will now just note, one, but this is not the only one. And that's insurance. And it's not the first time that someone brings it up. This was brought up in shipments of oil, actually, in the context of Ukraine, Russia, but there will be nothing moving from the context of a good without that good, and the means of transportation being insured. But no one really talks about insurance or is rarely talked. But if you take out insurance, nothing happens. And we haven't done a whole analysis on the different types of insurance. There are many different types of insurance, the primary two are the insurance to the means of transports in this case of vessel or the insurance to the cargo. So what's being transported? I do not believe that there's like two or three companies in each industry. I believe there are many more. But I do believe that as an industry, the role that insurance plays is much larger than the public as a whole has acknowledged and so bottlenecks. I don't believe there's any one given bottleneck. We were to identify something that will not happen without it for sure. Ah, that's insurance.
Brad 1:00:02
Fascinating. And so And yet despite this, you're still saying that sanctioning or getting individual companies is having a positive impact? Like, would you would you say that there is improvement with regards to a reduction of fuel shipment to Myanmar? Currently?
Montse 1:00:19
I cannot say that you can't say, I'd love to say that. But I cannot. Because I don't know what I do know. And I, and this is the very unfortunate note is that even if there is a reduction, what Well, let me take a step back and say, look from our sources, we've understood that our report and not because it's our report, but you know, the findings of the campaign, this kind of work. And by the way, we joined a much larger campaign of other NGOs that have been doing this for many years. So it's not amnesty at all, the only actor here, but we have heard from sources in the country, that there has been a, we can call it a positive impact in that it is becoming harder for the companies that were able to before easily purchase aviation fuel, it's become harder for them. There are far fewer companies that want to be involved, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So there has been an impact for sure, in that sense. But how does that translate into the ability of the Myanmar military to conduct airstrikes? That's really hard, because one thing that we do know is that there is storage, there's stock, Spike stockpiling of aviation fuel. So it's hard to know today, how much how much aviation fuel is in storage? And how much of that needs to be restored? Or rather restocked? So there's that question already, and that we don't know. And I don't believe anyone would know, other than, you know, the, the Myanmar military. But there's also a question of who has priority to the aviation field that does exist in the country. In other words, I think we can all confidently say that if the Myanmar military had to pick between using aviation fuel for its operations versus allowing, you know, a Myanmar national airline, even if it has links direct or indirect to the Myanmar military, but for a national domestic commercial airline to use it, they'll choose to use it for their own purposes. So even if we had a significant impact on the amount of aviation fuel that's coming in and say, if there was 100, before, it goes down to 30, that 30 would still be used by the Myanmar military. This is a presumption, but I think it's a kind of an educated presumption, if we can call it that. So. So that's why there's more work to be done in the space and why suspension. sectoral sanction is really important to kind of reduce the amount of aviation fuel that can enter so that the real impact ultimately is to this. Smart this 30% that I just said really goes down to two even less than that the Myanmar military has to ration basically, its its aviation fuel.
Brad 1:03:07
Okay, interesting. And that I think that's a much more realistic goal as well, getting them to minimize that. So with that in mind, and because I'm conscious of your time as well, by convention, we end the episode by giving the guests the opportunity to leave us with thoughts on the future, what we should be doing, what we should be focusing on, and what the sort of enduring lesson of your work really is for the audience and what you want the audience to consider as they as they go on about their day. So I'd like to just invite you now to to leave us with with your final thoughts on this topic.
Montse 1:03:49
Great, thanks for that question. I will be quite brief. And I think there's two things one very technical and one less technical, the technical one is the approach that we took here was very much focusing on companies. So it will be from a company perspective, to those of you who work in companies to those of you who know, people who work in companies to those of you who campaign or take active roles in, in whichever kind of behavior whether that's protests or, or more subtle activities, like writing letters, to companies, in companies, for companies that are involved in this wider industry. Remember, there is something you can do. There is something to be said to all of these companies, companies, you have to care companies, you have to do your due diligence on human rights. Because at the end of that supply chain, is, you know, disaster and death. So that's one thing, but again, the fact that companies do play a huge role here. Second, I think it's a more general call. I mean, we've made this also 10 Technical and I'm, I would say, my my expertise really is very much on kind of the nitty gritty what comes in what goes out. But there's a massive human factor here, which I don't need to talk about, because I imagine everyone who's listening to this knows, but but at the end of this very technical supply chain is, is massive displacement of communities, families broken down and a lot of death and a lot of injuries. And, yeah, I mean, a lot of misery. And I think I just want to end on that, because it's that's kind of a very sad note. But I think that sometimes when we talk or think a lot about kind of tactical strategies, and who do we target and who's involved, we sometimes miss the bigger picture, or at least we put it aside, and I just want to, to say the that we don't and that everyone who's working towards that is thinking very much about about them. And maybe the last thing to say very, very briefly is there is hope in this specific context is very specific. But I have said a little earlier that we do think there are some states some civil servants who really do want to have the right impact with their sanction regimes or their the actions taken. And so I do think there's hope for more behaviors such as the one we've seen from states, but we need to put pressure on our states to do better to do it.
Host 1:06:42
Thank you for taking the time to listen to this episode. As regular listeners are aware, we often remind our audience about our nonprofit mission better Burma at the end of the show. Truth be told, fundraising is hard work. And I can personally attest the fact that it's really no fun to keep asking for contributions. Yet the situation on the ground now in Myanmar is so distressing, that we continue to do so on behalf of the Burmese people. What is most helpful at this time are recurring donations, which help alleviate both the stress and time involved in fundraising. If you were able to pledge a certain amount per month, our team can plan around having at least a consistent minimum amount to work within each month. If you would like to join in our mission to support those in Myanmar who are being impacted by the military coup, we welcome your contribution in a forum currency transfer method. Your donation will go on to support a wide range of humanitarian and media missions. In those local communities. Post donations are directed to such causes as the Civil Disobedience movement CDM families of deceased victims, internally displaced person, IDP camps, food for impoverished communities, military defection campaigns, undercover journalists, refugee camps, monasteries in mental education initiatives, the purchasing of protective equipment and medical supplies COVID relief and more. We also make sure that our donation Fund supports a diverse range of religious and ethnic groups across the country. We invite you to visit our website to learn more about past projects as well as upcoming needs. You can give a general donation or your mark your contribution to a specific activity or project you would like to support. Perhaps even something you heard about in this very episode. All of this humanitarian work is carried out by our nonprofit mission that or Burma. Any donation you give on our insight Myanmar website is directed towards this fun. Alternatively, you can also visit the better Burma website better burma.org and donate directly there. In either case, your donation goes to the same cause and both websites accept credit card. You can also give via PayPal by going to paypal.me/betterbirth. Additionally, we can take donations through Patreon Venmo, GoFundMe and Cash App. Simply search better Burma on each platform and you'll find our account. You can also visit either website for specific links to these respective accounts or email us at info at better burma.org. That's better Burma. One word, spelled ve t t e r b u r n a.org. If you'd like to give it another way, please contact us. We also invite you to check out our range of handicrafts that are sourced from vulnerable artists and communities across Myanmar. Available at a local crafts.com. Any purchase will not only support these artists and communities, but also our nonprofits wider mission. That's a local crafts spelled a LOKCR a ft s one word a local crafts.com Thank you so much for your kind consideration and support.
1:09:59
How's it going Wi Fi or whatever Iran UNGA we're gonna do we're gonna do is I'm gonna we're gonna visit here and basically yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda