Justice For Myanmar Among Winners of This Year's Right Livelihood Award
New Delhi: Justice for Myanmar (JFM), a collective of covert activists working to trace and expose the Burmese military junta's sources of funding and which has drawn attention to Indian entities' dealings with the military government, is one of this year's recipients of the Right Livelihood Award.
Also known as the ‘Alternative Nobel Prize’, the Right Livelihood Award is given to four recipients annually who “have greatly contributed to a more just, peaceful and sustainable world”.
JFM was declared one of this year's winners on account of its “courage and … pioneering investigative methods in exposing and eroding the international support to Myanmar's corrupt military”.
The other winners of this year's prize are the ‘Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change’ organisation – a distinction it is sharing with Guamanian human rights lawyer Julian Aguon – Taiwanese technologist Audrey Tang and civil war-torn Sudan's Emergency Response Rooms initiative.
Created amid the Myanmar military's persecution of the Rohingya in 2019 and ramping up its work after the junta seized power in its 2021 coup, JFM has “revealed how international corporations, investors and governments facilitate repression, leading to sanctions, divestments and criminal investigations across various jurisdictions”, the Award's website said.
Two years ago, JFM had reported that the Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) public sector undertaking exported ‘military-end use’ goods, technology and documentation worth $5 million to the junta as well as to ‘arms brokers’ and a firm it linked with Naypyidaw between November 2022 and April 2023.
Earlier this year, the ethics body that oversees Sweden's four national multi-billion dollar pension funds recommended excluding BEL from their portfolios on the grounds that the firm's “sale of weapons to the Myanmar military is deemed to contribute to human rights violations”.
JFM had earlier flagged the Indian Air Force's as well as other defence public sector undertakings' shipments to Myanmar, including to its air force, which it noted was responsible for carrying out ‘indiscriminate’ airstrikes that ‘kill civilians including children and destroy whole communities’.
Leaked documents it obtained and which were reported on by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation also showed that Adani expressed interest in exporting coal from Myanmar and was exploring a power transmission deal even as it announced its exit from a port project in Yangon.
The conglomerate at the time told the broadcaster that Adani Power and Adani Transmission “do not conduct business in Myanmar and [have] no interest in doing so”.
Right Livelihood noted that JFM's modus operandi involves “using open-source intelligence, leaked documents and financial data” to “trace the flow of money, arms, and influence that sustains the junta”. “Their use of infographics visualise these networks, making opaque systems legible to activists, journalists and policymakers.”
It responded to winning the award by saying:
This article went live on October second, two thousand twenty five, at thirty-nine minutes past two at night.“Receiving this award is a powerful reminder that the world has not forgotten the Myanmar people’s struggle for democracy, peace and justice. We see this recognition as not for us alone – it belongs to the countless people in Myanmar who have lost their lives resisting the junta’s brutality and defending democracy and humanity, and to those who continue to oppose the military junta with extraordinary courage, sacrifice and dignity. We accept this award in their honour.”
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