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Dfat spends more than $1m on hotels linked to Myanmar’s military junta, report finds
Australia’s department of foreign affairs and trade has spent more than $1.6m at hotels linked to Myanmar’s military junta, since the junta’s illegal coup in February 2021, a new report from advocacy group Justice for Myanmar details.
The money was spent on accommodation and other services at three venues, in Myanmar’s largest city Yangon, and the country’s capital Naypyidaw. The spending has been detailed in freedom of information requests and in questions on notice in the senate.
The Australian government spent nearly $994,000 at the Shangri-La Residences in Yangon; more than $571,000 at the LOTTE Hotel in the same city; and $107,000 on short-term accommodation at MGallery in Naypyidaw.
The Shangri-La and LOTTE hotels are linked with Shangri-La Asia. MGallery is owned by the Max Myanmar group.
The UN’s independent international fact-finding mission on Myanmar’s report into the business interests of the Myanmar military named both Shangri-La and Max Myanmar as being financially linked to the Myanmar military and urged the international community to cut ties with them.
That report stated Max Myanmar’s chairperson, Zaw Zaw, donated – through a foundation – more than US$650,000 to the military to fund the construction of a fence along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border in 2017 around the time of the military’s genocide against the Rohingya, in which more than 25,000 people were killed, and more than 770,000 forced to flee across the border into Bangladesh.
The report said officials from Max Myanmar “aided, abetted, or otherwise assisted in the crimes against humanity of persecution and other inhumane acts”.
In response to a question on notice about the government spending, the department of foreign affairs told the Senate “the Australian government’s operations in Myanmar do not directly fund the Myanmar military,” and that the list of property providers were not subject to targeted financial sanctions in Australia.