Burma

Burma

When the Burmese military regime, the SLORC, began offering large stakes in the country's mineral resources to outside interests in 1995, Canadian venturers were first off the block. Two thirds of the initial sixteen mineral concessions were taken by Canadian juniors, of which no less than eight were controlled by Friedland's Ivanhoe Myanmar Holdings. By late 1998, six such juniors - Pacarc, East Asia Gold Corporation, Palmer Resources, Leeward Capital Corp, Mindoro Resources and International Panorama Resources, were still actively pursuing their "interests" in the country. In mid-1999 Friedland renamed IGL Ivanhoe Mines. It is the Monywa project that is now at the heart of Friedland's tawdry empire. Output from the Monywa copper mine, by early 1999, was running slightly ahead of schedule, allegedly with some of the lowest operating costs of any such mine, anywhere [Reuters 18/5/99 and Press Release from Ivanhoe Mines 10/7/99].

However, last year local people reported the tangible effects, such as skin irritation, of what appears to have been local water contamination caused by discharges from the Monywa plant [private communication]. There is also no doubt that this mine lends more credibility to the infamous regime - a 50% partner in Monywa - than any other mineral project in the country. Ivanhoe pays a 3-5% royalty directly to the military and is destined to be one of the country's biggest single foreign exchange earners. The SLORC has already benefited from selling Friedland further extensive mineral rights in Burma [Indochina Goldfields Ltd Press Release, Canada Newswire 8/8/97]. Friedland has boasted that his operations could generate at least an extra 100,000 tonnes of copper a year - to add to what is currently being sold to the mine's partners Marubeni and Sumitomo in Japan, and customers in Hong Kong, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Korea and Pakistan [Ivanhoe Press Release 10/7/99].

A year ago (September 1998) Burmese pro-democracy campaigners in Canada challenged Friedland personally (by phone) about his vital promotion of the Monywa mine. Claiming that he had entered into negotiations over the project as long ago as 1990, had resisted requests for bribes ("signature bonus"), and was channelling the mine profits into various good works within the country ("I put out more for medical care [in Burma] than the government "), Friedland could scarcely disguise his admiration for the most vilified regime in Asia. According to him, the generals were not corrupt and were pursuing very enlightened forestry policies, while the way to "gain their approval" was by recognising that "they love their country". His only concession to public revulsion was to remark that "if they [the military] start killing students en masse, we would have to re-evaluate our involvement in Myanmar [Burma]" [private communication, Vancouver September 1998].