Myanmar's Junta regime diverting civilian jet fuel to military, claims Amnesty International
Military Junta allegedly diverting civilian jet fuel to military
Amnesty International said on Thursday that aviation fuel intended for junta-ruled Myanmar's civilian aircraft is instead being transferred to the military, whose air force has been implicated in war crimes.
Since the military took over last year and began a harsh crackdown on opposition, Myanmar has been in chaos.
Fighting has erupted between ethnic rebel groups and more recent anti-coup "People's Defence Forces," and rights organisations have accused the military of committing war crimes by carrying out airstrikes on civilians.
According to a study issued on Thursday, Amnesty monitored eight shipments of aviation fuel that arrived at the Thilawa port terminal, outside of the commercial centre of Yangon, between February 2021 and September this year.
Two Myanmar affiliates of the oil giant Puma, one of which is a joint venture with a state-owned corporation, handled, stored, and dispersed the cargoes.
According to Amnesty, who used satellite imagery and hacked papers, some of the supplies were carried to airports that shared refuelling facilities with adjacent military sites.
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According to Amnesty, who cited customs information and letters describing the shipments, at least two of the consignments — from the PetroChina-owned Singapore Petroleum Company and Thai Oil — were transferred straight to the military.
As perthe report, one of Puma's Myanmar affiliates also paid a local company to deliver gasoline to a jet fuel storage facility under military supervision.
Amnesty International claimed to have recorded air attacks fired from two air bases using flight tracking data and interviews with former military personnel.
Some of these strikes consisted ofwar crimes,it said, based on interviews conducted with civilians on the ground.
(With inputs from agencies)
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