"Given the current circumstances, we’ve no option but to terminate our current joint-venture partnership with Myanmar Economic Holdings Public Company Limited, which provides the service of welfare fund management for the military," Kirin said a statement on Friday.
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The company said they will be taking steps as a matter of urgency to put this termination into effect. "We will aim to provide updates as soon as practicably possible."
In the wake of past genocide against the Rohingya, ongoing mass atrocities against other ethnic minorities, and recent army coup d'etat, the Myanmar military finally stepped too far for its business partner, Kirin Holdings of Japan.
Simon Billenness, Executive Director of the International Campaign for the Rohingya said Kirin has finally acknowledged its grievous mistake in choosing to do business with a wholly-owned subsidiary of a brutal military with over a half a century of dictatorial rule, brutal civil war, venal corruption, and mass atrocities, including genocide.
"We call on corporations worldwide to cut all business ties with Myanmar military-owned and controlled companies. Facebook must suspend the accounts of the Myanmar military as the army recruits its soldiers and conducts its business through the social platform," he said.
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Billenness said jewelers such as Harry Winston, owned by Swatch of Switzerland, must stop buying Burmese "genocide gems," whose trade is dominated by the Myanmar military and a huge source of the army's revenues.
“We call on all governments to hold the Myanmar military accountable for its actions through sanctions against Myanmar military leaders, the army's extensive business empire, and the military's business cronies. We specifically call on the U.S. President to issue an executive order restoring U.S. sanctions under the JADE Act.”
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