Lenihan Blocks Assistance To Myanmar

The Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan has completed an order prohibiting financial assistance to the country of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.

In the order, completed today, the country will be officially refused any financial assistance from the government, while Irish companies currently operating in the country will be forced to cease their business there.

Myanmar is notorious for mass human rights violations and for its oppressive regime, which has refused to cooperate with the European Commission.

The new order is part of a wider effort by the European Commission to put pressure on the Myanmar Government to begin a programme of reform using financial pressures.

However, humanitarian aid will still be afforded to the country in instances of natural disasters, such as the devastating Cyclone Nargis which struck the country's southern coast in May 2008. At the time of the disaster, which was believed to have affected some two million and led to the deaths of nearly 140,000, the country refused any external assistance.

Today's act prohibits financing or providing financial assistance related to military activities, equipment which may be used for internal repression, equipment and technology which may be used by enterprises engaged in the logging and timber industries or the mining of coal, gold, silver, certain base metals and precious and semi-precious stones.

The order also establishes the freezing of funds and economic resources belonging to individual members of the Myanmar Government the granting of any financial loans or credit to various individuals and enterprises controlled by the individual members of its Government and the acquisition or extension of a participation in Myanmar companies, or the creation of a joint venture with them.

(DW/BMcC)