"Japan Aid Project Still Helping Myanmar’s Military Tokyo Should Suspend Payments, Impose Targeted Sanctions," 21 May 2024

... a Japanese Foreign Ministry official told the Diet this week that Japan’s construction giant, Yokogawa Bridge Corp., will make further payments to the military-owned Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC) for an aid project.

In March 2021, Myanmar Now reported that a steel mill owned by the MEC was supplying steel for Japan’s Bago River Bridge Construction Project and “profiting enormously.”

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The MEC generates vast revenue through businesses in sectors including manufacturing, mining, and telecommunications, according to a 2019 report by the United Nations-backed Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar. The US, United Kingdom, European Union, Canada, and Australia have sanctioned the MEC and Myanmar’s other military conglomerate, Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited, for their role in generating significant revenues that help fund military abuses...

Since the February 2021 military coup, Myanmar’s military has been responsible for widespread and systematic human rights abuses... Prior to the coup, Myanmar’s security forces committed crimes against humanity and acts of genocide against the Rohingya in Rakhine State, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee to Bangladesh in 2017...

Prime Minister Kishida needs to take responsibility for his pledge to “appropriately handle” the issue and should suspend further payments to the MEC, stop all non-humanitarian aid to Myanmar’s junta, and impose targeted sanctions on its military leaders and military-owned conglomerates.