MEDIA RELEASE BY AUSTRALIAN COUNCIL FOR INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE & JUSTICE FOR MYANMAR, 30 March 2021

Pressure builds on Adani Ports investors as new report reveals Adani Ports paid tens of millions to Myanmar military company. Human rights groups call on Adani Ports’ investors to divest

A new report by the Australian Centre for International Justice (ACIJ) and Justice For Myanmar (JFM) exposes shocking new links between Adani Ports, and the Myanmar military owned company Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC). Last week, the United States imposed targeted financial sanctions against MEC and another Myanmar military conglomerate, MEHL.

The report ‘Port of Complicity: Adani Ports in Myanmar’ publishes leaked documents establishing for the first time the amount paid by Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Limited’s (Adani Ports) Myanmar subsidiary, the Adani Yangon International Terminal Company Limited, which is constructing a container port in Yangon on military owned land. The Adani Ports subsidiary paid a minimum of US$30 million in land lease fees to MEC and a further US$22 million in land clearance fees.

The report publishes explosive photos of Adani CEO Karan Adani exchanging gifts with the Commander-in-Chief of the Myanmar military,  Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, in a tour of Mundra Port in India in July 2019. At the time of his visit, the Senior General was barred from visiting the United States because of the military’s atrocities against the Rohingya ethnic minority. Further targeted sanctions, including financial sanctions, against the Senior General were imposed by the USA, Canada, the UK and the EU for his role in the military’s serious human rights abuses, and the recent military coup. The photos contradict Adani Ports’ February 2021 statement that deny engagement with military leadership.

The damning revelations exposing Adani Ports’ financial transactions with the MEC have prompted calls for major investors like HSBC, Norges Bank, BlackRock, PGGP and TIAA among others, to immediately sever ties with Adani Ports.

Building on the legal analysis of the UN Human Rights Council’s International Independent Fact-Finding Mission Report in 2019, the report warns that investments in companies who partner with the MEC can help finance the activities of the Myanmar military. These activities  include systematic and widespread human rights abuses, some of which amount to atrocity crimes and are the subject of investigations by international tribunals.

Foreign investments also facilitate endemic corruption which has allowed the military to channel crucial funds away from the public purse. The military led a violent coup on 1 February toppling the democratically elected civilian government, which has resulted in mass repression and the killings of over 250 peaceful demonstrators, and the arbitrary detention of thousands.

The report also finds that contrary to claims made by Adani Ports, the Yangon port operation is connected to its Australia operation through shared management. In Australia, Adani Ports’ direct ties to the controversial Carmichael coal project were recently exposed. Adani Ports owns the Bowen Rail Company which will operate the coal haulage from Adani’s Carmichael mine to its port on the Great Barrier Reef.

The groups warn that investors in Adani Ports are not only supporting Adani’s business dealings with the MEC and the Myanmar military but could also be supporting the funding of critical elements of Adani’s controversial Carmichael coal project.

Pressure is building on Adani Ports investors with major bondholder PIMCO cutting ties with Adani Ports this week over its links to Adani’s controversial Carmichael coal project. The release of the damning new report also comes as the Adani Ports inclusion on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index is being reviewed after campaigners raised concerns over its links with the Myanmar military and the Carmichael coal project.

Yadanar Maung, spokesperson for Justice For Myanmar says:

“Adani Ports has continued its business in Myanmar, despite an illegal military coup, and the military’s ongoing crimes against humanity. Adani Ports’ business partner in Myanmar, now sanctioned by the US, is committing crimes against humanity as they deliberately kill peaceful protesters, torture detainees and steal public assets. Adani Ports’ stands complicit in the military’s atrocities and corruption through their direct payments to a military conglomerate. Despite repeated calls, Adani Ports has failed to take action by cutting ties with the criminal Myanmar military. We therefore call on Adani Ports’ shareholders and creditors to uphold their human rights responsibilities by cutting ties with Adani Ports for its continued business with the criminal junta. Stand with the people of Myanmar.”

Ahsan Ul-Haque from the Burmese Rohingya Community in Australia says:

“The images of Adani Ports hosting the Senior General Min Aung Hlaing in Mundra, India less than two years after the General led a campaign of ethnic cleansing against my people shows that Adani Ports is willing to disregard human rights in pursuit of business profits. Businesses who continue to indirectly support the military through making deals with their companies assist in shielding the military from accountability. It’s time to hold such businesses accountable in the same light. We call on investors to immediately divest from Adani Ports.”

Former Member of the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, and Member of the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar, Chris Sidoti said:

“The report establishes the links between the Myanmar military and Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Limited, which is intimately involved in the Carmichael coal project in Queensland. The question for Australia and Australians is whether we want to be hosting a company that is contributing to the enrichment of the Myanmar military. The question for investors in Adani is whether they want to fund the operations of the Myanmar military, because that is what they are doing indirectly by investing in Adani. This is a question also for sovereign wealth funds and pension funds that should have a highly ethical basis for their investment decisions.”

Rawan Arraf, Executive Director at the Australian Centre for International Justice said: 

“We’ve studied several statements from Adani Ports since May 2019 regarding its deal in Myanmar involving the MEC and we have no confidence it will uphold its obligations to respect human rights and disengage from Myanmar. It has been put on notice publicly by the UN on several occasions. At each turn it has denied or obfuscated its commercial operations in Myanmar.”

“Adani Ports has had plenty of time to consider and review its operations in Myanmar. While other major multinational corporations are moving to suspend their operations in Myanmar, Adani Ports appears to have dug in its heels. And that’s appalling. If doing business with those accused of genocide does not trigger a fundamental revaluation of your business, one would have thought, that when your business partner stages a violent coup – that would be the final straw. From our point of view, Adani’s actions or omissions show that it doesn’t care about the human rights impacts of its deal in Myanmar. That’s why we’re calling on governments, investors and shareholders to act and divest from Adani Ports. By doing this, investors are showing that they support and stand with the people in Myanmar in their struggle to end the abuses and economic control of the military.”

Pablo Brait, campaigner with Market Forces said:

“Investors and bond arrangers like Barclays and BlackRock should not be risking their reputations by supporting a company that is so mired in controversy. Adani Ports’ role in the Carmichael thermal coal project – a project that will fuel the climate crisis and the extreme weather it is causing – shows it is not a responsible or ethical company. When you add its reported links to the Myanmar military you get a picture of a company with a very concerning environmental, social and governance risk profile.”

Footage of the Senior General of the Myanmar military meeting and exchanging gifts with Adani Ports CEO Karan Adani is available here.

Media Contact: 

Australian Centre for International Justice: Rawan Arraf, 0450 708 870  

Justice For Myanmar, [email protected] 

See below for the interactive map (above image is an illustration only).

As the Adani Group's businesses proliferate, the group's geographic footprint has enlarged accordingly.

The tentacles of the sprawling Adani Group reach into more and more aspects of the lives on people in India, including coal mines, power stations, ports, edible oils, airports, defence industries, solar power, real estate and gas. Adani in Australia is attempting to open up the vast coal deposits of Queensland's Galilee Basin. Adani in Indonesia is excavating huge quantities of coal from a tiny island off the coast of Borneo. Adani in Myanmar is developing a large container port next to the Yangon River - on land leased from a company owned by Myanmar's brutal military.

The interactive map of Adani's hot spots has been updated to show locations featured in recent stories, such as the East Container Terminal at Sri Lanka's port of Columbo, the immense array of solar panels on farmland at Kamuthi in Tamil Nadu, and the Gondulpara coal block in Jharkhand. It also shows sites featured in numerous stories about the Godda power station and Hasdeo forests.

In 2019, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the commander in chief of Myanmar's military and the leader of last week's coup, visited the Adani Ports and SEZ company at its massive port in Mundra, India.

According to the senior general's website:

'The Senior General and party visited Adani Ports and Logistics at Mundra Port. Officials of Adani Port & SEZ Limited (APSEZ) gave a presentation on operating the functions at the port to accept docking of container ships for export and import processes. The Senior General asked about safety process in preventing natural disasters and other points he wanted know. The Senior General and party viewed round undertakings of safety process for disasters at factories and tasks being undertaken along the deep seaport. Officials conducted them round the port. Then, commemorative gifts were exchanged at the meeting hall.

'Adani Ports and Logistics, a deep seaport at the Gulf of Kutch in India, is one of the ports which can admit docking of large vessels.It is a main gatepost of transporting commodities to inner part of India.The port stores and distributes crude oil, automobiles, and other export and import items. The port which has jetties to admit docking of many tons of cargo ships is the world’s largest coal import port to supply coal to Adani coal-fired power plant and TATA coal-fired power plant.'

Adani Ports and SEZ is leasing land from a company owned by the Myanmar military for its port development in Yangon, Myanmar. This has led to several instances of criticism of the Adani Group by human-rights advocates. There have been renewed calls for Australia to impose sanctions on the military leader since last week's coup.

Calls for international sanctions against the head of Myanmar's military have intensified after Monday's coup. The main target is Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, who visited Adani's massive Mundra port in July 2019, exchanging gifts with officials of the Adani Ports company.

On Monday 1 February 2021, in the wake of the military coup, human-rights groups intensified calls for international sanctions against Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, who is Commander-in-Chief of Myanmar's armed forces.

The rights group ‘Justice for Myanmar’ said in a media release that the coup had been ‘been orchestrated by Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and his enablers in the military leadership’. It said that the general is the ‘main beneficiary’ of the coup and called on ‘the international community to apply immediate and comprehensive targeted sanctions against the Myanmar military, their leaders and their business accomplices’.

The company Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (‘Adani Ports’) is developing a container port in Myanmar’s biggest city on land leased from a company owned by the Myanmar military.

In January 2019, it was reported that the Adani Yangon International Terminal Co Ltd (a subsidiary of Adani Ports) had received approval from Myanmar authorities to establish a container port in Yangon. The company was to develop, operate and maintain the Ahlone International Port Terminal on the Yangon River about six km from the centre of the city. (See interactive map for location) The deal was said to be worth $US290 million. About 20 hectares of land were to be leased from the Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC), a large company owned by the Myanmar military.

According to the UN Mission that investigated the 2017 human-rights abuses in Myanmar, the MEC is fully owned and controlled by the Myanmar Ministry of Defence and is a direct source of revenue for the military. The Mission cited evidence that the MEC and other military-controlled entities generate revenue that dwarfs that of any civilian-owned company in Myanmar. The MEC therefore helps enable the operations of a military machine accused of genocidal crimes.

The MEC also has a wholly-owned private subsidiary, Myanmar Economic Corporation Ltd (MEC Ltd), whose board is reported to include Chiefs of Staff of the Army, Navy and Air Force, with the implication that it is influenced by senior leaders such as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing.

Off the north-east coast of Borneo is the small island of Bunyu. Adani’s huge coal mine here has been blamed for degraded water supplies, reduced fish stocks and plummeting agricultural production. According to an Indonesian advocacy group, the very existence of the mine violates an Indonesian law aimed at protecting small islands from the predations of mining companies.

Bunyu lies in the Indonesian province of North Kalimantan. It is home to 11,000 inhabitants, including the indigenous Tidung people, as well as numerous migrants from Java and Sulawesi. For generations, Bunyu provided its people with abundant fish, rice and fruit. However, large-scale extraction of coal since the 1990s has severely degraded the island’s natural resources. The Adani Group arrived in 2006 and owns the largest mining operation on Bunyu.

According to some advocacy groups such as JATAM, Adani’s large mine should not even be permitted on Bunyu. Indonesia is a vast archipelago of over 17,000 islands. Its coastal region encompasses over 160 million people, about 60% of the nation’s entire population. According to JATAM, there are over 9700 mining leases in Indonesia, with exploration licences of coal companies covering over 35% of the islands’ area. JATAM says that 55 small islands are at least partly covered by such leases.

Small islands are particularly vulnerable to the social and environmental impacts of mining. As a result, government authorities have attempted to define small islands and the operations permitted on them. In North Kalimantan’s zoning plan, a ‘small island’ is one with an area of less than 200 square kilometres. The area of Bunyu is 198.32 square kilometres. Article 23 of Law (UU) Number 1 of 2014, states that it is not justified to have mines on small islands.

In other words, Adani’s coal mine should not be permitted on Bunyu.

Unfortunately, Indonesia’s governments also have laws designed to encourage investment in mining. Under such regulations, Bunyu is classified as a ‘Class A’ strategic area for the development of oil and gas. The inconsistency between one set of laws designed to protect small islands from mining and another set of laws designed to encourage mining has yet to be definitively resolved in a court of law.

According to JATAM, more than 50% of Bunyu's land area has become a mining concession. Coal mining on Bunyu has therefore proceeded according to the agenda set by Adani, the other coal company active on the island, and the state-owned oil-and-gas company.

The Adani Group is coming under increasing scrutiny for its links with Myanmar’s brutal military. Myanmar military organisations perpetrated the 2017 killings, torture, dispossession and rape of Rohingya people, becoming the subject of UN investigations and international sanctions.

The Adani Group’s links to the Myanmar military include an Adani port development on land in Yangon owned by a corporation run by the military, and the 2019 visit to one of Adani’s ports in India by Myanmar’s commander in chief, a senior general on whom the USA has imposed sanctions. A UN mission to Myanmar found that the Adani Group was a ‘stark example’ of how foreign businesses can risk contributing to – or being linked with – the crimes against humanity carried out by the Myanmar military. To add further controversy to this mix, Australia has invested in the parent company of Adani’s Yangon port development.

In December 2020, the ABC reported that Australia’s sovereign-wealth body, the Future Fund, had invested $3.2 million in Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (‘Adani Ports’), the parent company of the developer of a new port in Myanmar’s biggest city, Yangon. The port is being established on land owned by a corporation that is, in turn, owned by the Myanmar military (otherwise known as the ‘Tatmadaw’).

In January 2019, it was reported that the Adani Yangon International Terminal Co Ltd had received approval from Myanmar authorities to establish a container port in Yangon. The company was to develop, operate and maintain the Ahlone International Port Terminal on the Yangon River about six km from the centre of the city. (See interactive map for location) The deal was said to be worth $US290 million. About 20 hectares of land were to be leased from the Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC), a large company owned by the Myanmar military.

According to the UN Mission that investigated the abuses in Myanmar, the MEC is fully owned and controlled by the Myanmar Ministry of Defence and is a direct source of revenue for the military. The Mission cited evidence that the MEC and other military-controlled entities generate revenue that dwarfs that of any civilian-owned company in Myanmar. The MEC therefore helps enable the operations of a military machine accused of genocidal crimes.

The MEC also has a wholly-owned private subsidiary, Myanmar Economic Corporation Ltd (MEC Ltd), whose board is reported to include Chiefs of Staff of the Army, Navy and Air Force, with the implication that it is influenced by senior leaders such as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing.

Senior General Min Aung Hlaing has been described as a potential future president of Myanmar. On 5 November 2020, the Tatmadaw declared that his rank is equivalent to that of Vice President of Myanmar. In December 2019, the USA imposed sanctions on Senior General Min Aung Hlaing for his role in presiding over the military while it perpetrated atrocities on the Rohingya people.

According to his own website, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing toured Adani’s massive port complex at Mundra (India) in 2019 and exchanged gifts with officials of Adani Ports.

An Australian Senator has tabled the AdaniWatch dossier on the atrocious international record of the Adani Group on environmental and social issues.

The Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens, Senator Nick McKim, last week drew on parts of the dossier in a speech that slammed the Adani Group's proposed Carmichael coal mine.

Senator McKim also described the assaults on indigenous farmers opposing the takeover of their lands for Adani's Godda power station in India. This is the power station (under construction) for which Adani's Carmichael coal is destined. The land was seized from villagers using coercion and underhand tactics.

Also under fire was the Adani Group's deal with the Myanmar Economic Corporation, 'bagman' for the brutal Myanmar military, for a huge port development in Yangon. He quoted Australian human-rights lawyer, Chris Sidoti, who investigated atrocities against Myanmar's Rohingya people for the United Nations and said that Adani would be enriching the culpable generals through its Yangon port development.

Senator McKim chastised the Adani Group's joint venture with palm-oil giant Wilmar, which has profited from the large-scale destruction of rainforests in south-east Asia, including the habitat of elephants and orangutans. The palm-oil operations of Adani Wilmar have also been implicated in human-rights abuses.

Senator McKim described Adani's Carmichael mine, under development in Queensland, as a 'carbon bomb' that would have devastating consequences for the Earth's climate, as well as direct and indirect impacts on the Great Barrier Reef. Vision of his speech can be found here.

An Australian Senator has slammed the international track record of the Adani Group, calling for the company to be 'sent packing'. He also tabled the AdaniWatch dossier on the Adani Group's atrocious international record on the environment and human rights.

Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens, Senator Nick McKim, speaking in the Senate on 2 December 2020, described the assaults on indigenous farmers opposing the takeover of their lands for Adani's Godda power station in India. This is the power station (under construction) for which Adani's Carmichael coal is destined. The land was seized from villagers using coercion and underhand tactics.

Senator McKim also criticised the Adani Group's deal with the Myanmar Economic Corporation, 'bagman' for the brutal Myanmar military, for a huge port development in Yangon. He quoted Australian human-rights lawyer, Chris Sidoti, who investigated atrocities against Myanmar's Rohingya people for the United Nations and said that Adani would be enriching the culpable generals through its Yangon port development.

Senator McKim chastised the Adani Group's joint venture with palm-oil giant Wilmar, which has profited from the large-scale destruction of rainforests in south-east Asia, including the habitat of elephants and orangutans. The palm-oil operations of Adani Wilmar have also been implicated in human-rights abuses.

Senator McKim described Adani's Carmichael mine, under development in Queensland, as a 'carbon bomb' that would have devastating consequences for the Earth's climate, as well as direct and indirect impacts on the Great Barrier Reef.

Senator McKim took some of his materials from the AdaniWatch dossier on the Adani Group. His speech can be found here. 

This dossier on the Adani Group's environmental and social record outside Australia makes for sobering reading.

In Australia, Adani is best known as the company behind the proposed Carmichael coal mine in Queensland. However, the Adani Group is a conglomeration of companies engaged in a vast array of businesses, including coal-fired power stations, ports, palm oil, airports, defence industries, solar power, real estate and gas. The group’s founder and chairman, Gautam Adani, has been described as India’s second-richest man and is a close associate of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Adani Group is active in several countries but particularly in India, where accusations of corruption and environmental destruction have dogged its rise to power. In central India, Adani intends to strip mine ancestral lands belonging to the indigenous Gond people. Large tracts of biodiverse forest, including elephant habitat, are in the firing line. Around the coastline of India, Adani’s plans to massively expand its ports are generating outcry from fishing villages and conservationists. In the country’s east, Adani is building a thermal power station designed to burn coal from Queensland and sell expensive power to neighbouring Bangladesh. Investigations, court actions and allegations of impropriety have accompanied Adani’s progress in many of these business schemes.

Through its joint venture with Wilmar, Adani is a major refiner and trader in palm oil, an industry responsible for devastating huge areas of rainforest in South-East Asia. The Adani Group is also developing a major port in Myanmar, leasing land from a corporation owned by that country’s infamously brutal military.

The Adani Group has benefited from human-rights violations and environmental degradation associated with many of the Group’s commercial operations. Some of the abuses have been carried out by governments acting for the benefit of the Adani Group. AdaniWatch has published articles about these issues since February 2020. Such stories have also appeared in many other media outlets. Many of the incidents described in these articles have led to court challenges against the Adani Group’s projects.

This dossier on the Adani Group's appalling environmental and social record was compiled from AdaniWatch stories published between February and October 2020.

For several decades now, India has been importing approximately half of the country's total requirement of edible oils. Most of the edible oil imported by India is refined palm oil or palmolein and much of the imported oil comes from Indonesia and Malaysia. India is the world’s largest importer of palm oil from its largest producers, Indonesia and Malaysia. Both countries have large palm plantations created out of rainforests and irrigated by year-round tropical rainfall. The multinational Wilmar group has been criticised by environmental activists over the years for its involvement in the establishment of mono-cultures of palm trees in place of rainforests, orangutan habitat and ancestral lands of indigenous peoples. The Adani Group is associated with Wilmar through its 50:50 joint venture, Adani Wilmar, which imports large quantities of palm oil into India. India’s second-richest man, Gautam Adani, is the patriarch of the sprawling Adani Group.

On 30 September 2019, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad stood before the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and launched an unexpected attack on India, accusing the country of violating the UN’s resolutions by ‘invading and occupying’ Kashmir, referring to India’s decision in early-August to revoke the special Constitutional status granted to Jammu & Kashmir, India’s only Muslim majority state. The subsequent lockdown and human rights abuses had been condemned across the world, but none were perhaps as high-profile as Mahathir’s barbs on the floor of the UNGA.

The Malaysian PM’s remarks were strongly criticised by the Indian government, and supporters of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. Reacting to Mahathir’s comments, the Solvent Extractors Association of India (SEAI), a Mumbai-headquartered lobby of some of India’s biggest edible oil companies, issued an unprecedented advisory to its members to stop importing oil from Malaysia. The unprecedented advisory added a geopolitical twist to one of the most fundamental aspects of India’s food security, and also one of its biggest businesses. The SEAI is currently headed by Atul Chaturvedi, former CEO and current board member of Adani Wilmar.

Mahathir’s remarks came at a time when the SEAI was already engaged in a trade dispute with Malaysia. Imports of palm oil from Malaysia increased dramatically in 2019 after a scheduled cut in import duties came into effect on 31 December 2018. SEAI filed for trade protection from the Indian government, claiming that the Malaysia oil imports had put Indian oil companies at the risk of ‘serious injury’. It won the dispute after the government imposed a ‘temporary safeguard duty’ on Malaysian edible oil in September 2019. Malaysia had initially retaliated with its own export duty, and Mahathir then commented against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

The CAA was passed by the Parliament of India on 11 December 2019. It amended the Citizenship Act, 1955 by providing a path to Indian citizenship for illegal migrants of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian religious minorities who had fled persecution from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan before December 2014. Muslims from those countries were not given such eligibility. Critics say this was the first time religion had been overtly used as a criterion for citizenship under Indian law.

In January 2020, the Indian government made a major decision to restrict imports of refined palm oil. The oil can now only be imported with a licence issued by the central government. This is the first time such a licence is being demanded for undertaking refined oil imports after the trade was opened up in 1994 as part of India’s shift towards liberalisation and globalisation.   

(See: https://www.newsclick.in/Samosa-Prices-Geopolitical-Twists-Palm-Oil-Imports-Benefit-Adani-Patanjali).