An Indian electronics firm has exported millions of dollars’ worth of equipment to the Myanmar military since late 2022, according to the investigative activist group Justice For Myanmar (JFM).
Citing Indian export data, JFM found that Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) had sent seven shipments with a total value of more than US$5m to Myanmar, which included sonar, radar, and radio components designed for use on warships and battlefields.
These exports consisted mostly of dual-use technologies, meaning goods or materiel other than weapons with known military applications, such as equipment used for reconnaissance, intelligence, or communication during combat.
One of the shipments was delivered to Alliance Engineering Services—a firm owned by relatives of the junta air force chief—while three were sent to the private military contractor Mega Hill General Trading, and three were sent directly to the military.
According to JFM, BEL knew that the Myanmar military would be the final recipient—or end-user—of the exported equipment.
The United States and other Western governments, as well as the European Union, have targeted specific arms brokers and suppliers for the Myanmar military, but neither Alliance Engineering Services nor Mega Hill General Trading is subject to specific sanctions. India does not adhere to international sanctions imposed on the Myanmar junta or its suppliers.
However, India is one of the 42 members of the Wassenaar Agreement, a set of controls intended to discourage participants’ export of weapons and dual-use technologies. The Wassenaar Agreement, adopted in 1996 with the stated goal of limiting the global arms proliferation, is not legally binding.
“The shipments may aid and abet the junta’s international crimes and are a continuation of India’s flagrant disregard for its obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law and its commitments under the Wassenaar Arrangement,” JFM said in a public statement released on their website.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar published research in May of this year documenting more than US $1bn in arms and dual-use technology supplies from or via five other countries to Myanmar between the February 2021 coup and the end of 2022. Transfers from 22 entities in India to Myanmar accounted for five percent of the value of these supplies.
The BEL exports to Myanmar found by JFM occurred more recently, and were not included in the UN report.
Another Indian firm, which was licensed to produce European-designed weapons parts, shipped Indian-manufactured fuzes for Swedish Gustaf rifles to Myanmar in 2022, allowing the military to circumvent the EU’s blanket arms embargo and providing an example of how the junta is able to evade international sanctions.
“The Indian government and its state-owned arms companies are continuing business as usual in Myanmar,” said JFM spokesperson Yadanar Maung. “By selling arms and equipment to the terrorist junta, India is choosing to ignore the voices of the Myanmar people, the legitimate National Unity Government, civil society, UN resolutions and its responsibilities under international law.”
While the Indian government holds most of the shares in BEL, the firm’s remaining shares are publicly traded, with its minority shareholders including Western entities such as Goldman Sachs, Blackrock, Fidelity, and the Canada Pension Plan, according to JFM.
In addition to urging the imposition of new sanctions against the Myanmar arms brokers Alliance Engineering Services and Mega Hill General Trading, JFM called for BEL’s minority shareholders to divest from the firm.
The new findings about BEL emerged amid other concerns about the recent human rights record of the Indian government, specifically the ruling Hindu nationalist party Bharatiya Janata and its leader, Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Modi is currently visiting Washington as the United States seeks closer ties with India on technology and defence in an apparent effort to counterbalance China’s influence in Asia. More than 70 US lawmakers have asked US President Joe Biden to address issues of religious intolerance and curtailed press freedoms in India during the visit.
“It is crucial that India’s allies step up and start using their leverage to stop India’s support for the junta,” Yadanar Maung said. “We urge President Biden, his government and members of Congress to push Prime Minister Modi to immediately stop all shipments of arms and dual use goods and technology to the Myanmar junta. The US should start imposing conditions on US military aid to India to help end Indian support for the junta.”
On Thursday, the US treasury department announced new sanctions against the Myanmar junta’s defence ministry as well as two regime-controlled banks–the Myanma Foreign Trade Bank and Myanma Investment and Commercial Bank.
The department’s press release noted that these financial entities facilitate the junta’s conversion of Myanmar kyat to foreign currencies, which is vital in enabling the junta defence ministry’s procurement of arms and equipment from abroad.
