Please share with us about your background and role as a Myanmar covert group of activists working to expose the financial architecture and global corporate complicity sustaining the military junta?
We founded Justice For Myanmar in 2019 following the military’s campaign of genocide against the Rohingya. For decades, the military ruled Myanmar with an iron fist, perpetrating mass atrocities against ethnic minorities and waging wars that fuelled long-running civil conflict. This enabled the military to seize control of public assets and build vast military conglomerates that enriched generals and financed mass-scale brutality against the people. The military and militias aligned with it made billions by exploiting natural resources and expanding global illicit trade, while the lucrative cyber-scam industry, run with trafficked labour, flourished under military protection.
Foreign companies have made themselves complicit in this system of criminality, investing billions in military-linked enterprises and supplying the arms and aviation fuel that sustain the military’s international crimes. Businesses, banks and investors continue to enable the junta’s war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Our role is to expose this financial architecture and global corporate complicity. Through forensic research and a “follow the money” approach, we work to reveal the networks connecting international corporations, investors and governments that facilitate repression. Our mission is to dismantle the military’s cartel and help pave the way for a just, peaceful, federal democratic Myanmar.
How was being recognised as Right Livelihood Award 2025 and how did it help with your activities and mission to boost urgent and long-term social change in your country?
We are deeply honoured to receive the Right Livelihood Award. The award belongs to the people of Myanmar, who have courageously defied the military junta for nearly five years and have made immense sacrifices in the struggle to dismantle the brutal military. The recognition shines a light on this ongoing struggle, particularly following the junta’s illegal 2021 coup attempt.
It also sends a clear message to the military: the world is watching, and the people of Myanmar will not be forgotten. Governments, companies and investors must take urgent action to stop the flow of funds, arms and aviation fuel to the military. They must sever the ties that enable the junta to commit international crimes.
What is the current situation in your country and how are you benefiting with all this visibility? How could we support your cause?
Following the military’s coup attempt in 2021, the military junta is currently preparing for its sham elections, planned for December and January, amid an escalating nationwide campaign of terror involving mass killings, arbitrary arrests, indiscriminate airstrikes, rape and sexual violence, torture, and the systematic burning of villages. Increasingly, children are among the victims. More than 22,600 people have been arrested, including political leaders; voters are surveilled and punished for speaking about the election; and military’s indiscriminate airstrikes are intensifying. There can be no free or fair election in Myanmar. This is a staged process designed to legitimise an illegitimate coup and prolong the junta’s campaign of terror.
In the immediate term, governments must be urged to reject this sham election. Support must be directed to the people of Myanmar, who are building bottom-up systems of governance and administration that form the foundations of a future federal democracy.
You can call on your government to cut all ties with military-linked businesses, halt the flow of aviation fuel, and end the provision of arms to the junta. Governments should impose coordinated sanctions on the military’s key revenue streams, including its conglomerates, arms brokers, aviation fuel suppliers and the banks that enable their transactions, while regulators need to investigate and prosecute companies complicit in the junta’s international crimes and that are violating sanctions. Investors and pension funds must divest from enterprises that sustain the junta’s war machine, and civil society, media and academic institutions can amplify the voices of the Myanmar people, challenge disinformation and help document atrocities for future accountability. International solidarity is vital. The people of Myanmar are risking everything to resist a murderous junta and build an inclusive, democratic future, and with sustained external pressure and principled support, we can help cut the junta’s financial lifelines and move closer to the federal democracy that Myanmar people are fighting for.
What is your opinion on the importance of human rights education in the field of democracy and the fight against corruption?
Human rights education is essential for any democracy to take root and for corruption to be meaningfully challenged. The knowledge you gain today could help you to understand your rights, recognise abuse, demand accountability and stand up and speak truth to power at a time when authoritarianism is on the rise throughout the world. This is a privilege that the people of Myanmar were robbed of for generations under military rule. Human rights education can revive, rebuild and flourish a political culture that is grounded in dignity, humanity, equality and accountability that nurtures empowered people who can build a world resistant to authoritarianism and fascism. It is a key foundation of a democratic society.
What are the most important challenges ahead in the field of Human Rights and Democracy in the world? Could educational programmes like ours at the Global Campus of Human Rights contribute to create a safe space for discussion on these challenges and accountability?
Around the world, we are witnessing the resurgence of authoritarianism, digital repression, transnational organised crime, and impunity for grave human rights violations. These challenges are interconnected, shared and urgent. From Palestine to Ukraine, East Turkistan to South Sudan, conflicts are increasingly fuelled by opaque financial networks, disinformation, and the complicity of global corporations. One of the greatest challenges ahead is ensuring accountability in a world where perpetrators can operate across borders with ease as partners in crime. For example, Russia, China, India and Belarus are the Myanmar military’s partners in crime, funding and arming its atrocities while lending support to its sham election.
Educational programmes like yours play a vital role. They can create critical spaces where students and practitioners can amplify the people’s messages, learn from each other, share strategies, and build solidarity across regions. You can organize to push the EU and other governments to sanction the military and the enablers that fuel its international crimes. Programmes like the Global Campus can help to strengthen global efforts to defend human rights.
Could you give a message to the students, professors, alumni, partners and staff of the Global Campus of Human Rights?
Your work, your voice and your action matters. We hope that you take notice of the courage and strength of the people of Myanmar and stand with oppressed communities throughout the world who are fighting not only for their own survival but for a future built on justice, dignity and equality in a life under a democratic government. This is something that can be easily robbed by those in power if not practiced and actively defended throughout the world. Your solidarity and action will continue to strengthen our resolve to work towards dismantling the military and building a just and peaceful Myanmar.
For more information contact our Communications and Press Offices:
Elisa Aquino – Isotta Esposito
pressoffice@gchumanrights.org - communications@gchumanrights.org
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