Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) exported shipments worth 5 million dollars to the Myanmar junta and its arms brokers during the period of November 2022 to April 2023, an investigation report by an activist group has revealed.
Justice For Myanmar’s (JFM) investigation showed that the shipments from the Indian public sector undertaking consisted of military end-use goods, technology and technical documents to be used by the Myanmar military.
In February, Myanmar’s military junta regime announced an extension to the state of emergency that has existed in the country since a military coup in 2021. Earlier, the junta had pledged to hold elections in August 2023.
BEL, which comes under the Defence Ministry, “transferred the equipment knowing that the Myanmar military junta is the end user and that it is committing ongoing war crimes and crimes against humanity with total impunity,” the activist group said in a statement.
According to the activist group, the exports may aid and abet the junta’s international crimes.
The group also called the shipments a “continuation of India’s flagrant disregard for its obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law and its commitments under the Wassenaar Arrangement.”
“These new and significant exports to Myanmar from Bharat Electronics Limited make India further complicit in the junta’s ongoing war crimes and crimes against humanity, said JFM spokesperson Yadanar Maung.
Earlier in May, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar had said that entities within India, including state-owned entities, have shipped at least 51 million dollars worth of arms, raw materials, and associated supplies to the Myanmar military junta and known Myanmar arms dealers.
Nearly 65% of these exports came from BEL, the report showed.
The report said that “India’s continuing transfer of materials used in surveillance, artillery, and, probably, missiles—all manufactured by state-owned entities—arguably runs afoul of its obligations under customary international law and international humanitarian law.”
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