Activists hail BAT's withdrawal from Burma

Campaigners today hailed British American Tobacco’s withdrawal from Burma, and urged other multinationals to follow suit to protest at the military junta’s alleged human rights abuses.

British American Tobacco, the world’s second largest tobacco company, announced yesterday that it would sell its holding in a Burma cigarette company, whose joint owner is the Burmese military.

Opponents to the military regime believe foreign investors in the country help extend undemocratic rule by keeping the military government afloat financially.

The British government asked BAT to leave Burma in July, after the junta detained pro-democracy leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi following a clash between her supporters and a pro-junta mob.

Michael Prideaux, BAT’s director of corporate and regulatory affairs, said the decision was made in response to the British government’s request.

“As a UK-based multinational, we have taken the request seriously,” he said in a statement, received by fax in Bangkok. “We believe the solution is a balanced outcome to a difficult dilemma.”

The company had also been deluged with thousands of postcards and e-mails urging it to leave Burma, according to Burma Campaign UK, a political pressure group.

BAT was the last of the major British companies to pull out of Burma. In recent months, Triumph International, the women’s undergarments manufacturer, and Premier Oil pulled out at the British Government’s request.

Among the other big foreign names doing business in Burma are the American oil giant Unocal and the French oil company TotalFinaElf.

“BAT’s withdrawal from Burma is a significant victory for the Burmese democracy movement,” said Zar Ni, the director of the Washington-based Free Burma Coalition.

“The remaining foreign investors, specifically TotalFinaElf and Unocal, should consider following the BAT’s example,” he said.

US civil rights leader the Rev Jesse Jackson said he supported the withdrawal of US companies from Burma.

“I think to end a repressive regime you have to apply as many forms of non-violent pressure as possible. Clearly economic sanctions is a method. Divestment is a method. Quiet diplomacy is a method,” Jackson said.

Analysts were, however, were less welcoming of the BAT decision, saying it would hurt workers and the poor more than the owners, just as recent US economic sanctions have.

“If the United States is serious, it should sanction its own big companies - Unocal for example,” said Chaiyachoke Julasiriwong, a Burma expert at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University.

BAT’s Burma operation, Rothmans of Pall Mall Myanmar Pte Ltd, is a manufacturing and marketing joint venture 40% owned by the Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd, the business arm of the military regime.

The remainder is owned by Rothmans Myanmar Holdings Pte Ltd, a Singapore-based holding company for BAT.

BAT said it would sell its shares to a Singapore-based company, Distinction Investment Holdings Pte Ltd. Financial details were not released and the divestment should be completed within 12 months.