The Guardian
One of the world’s largest brewers, Kirin – whose subsidiaries include San Miguel and craft beers brewed in the US and UK – has been linked to crimes committed by the Myanmar military following an Amnesty International investigation.
Kirin is partnered with a Myanmar-based conglomerate with interests in mining, beer, tobacco, garment manufacturing and banking, whose shareholders include military units directly implicated in serious human rights crimes against Rohingya people, analysis by the human rights group found.
Kirin told Amnesty it was “deeply troubled” by the findings and has launched an investigation.
Roughly one-third of all the shares of Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd (MEHL) are owned by military units, among them combat divisions, claims Amnesty in a report published on Thursday. Leaked shareholder records seen by Amnesty show that around £12bn in dividend payments was transferred over a 20-year period to military units after the conglomerate was founded by the country’s then military regime in 1990.
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