Each one of us has the ability to directly influence corporate power. Companies have no choice but to be responsive to the demands of consumers…it is up to us what we demand.
If you demand that every major investor in Myanmar condemn the #RohingyaGenocide, demand that they intervene and pressure the government to halt the military operations, to halt the ethnic cleansing…I assure you, these companies have the combined power to force the government to capitulate. They have already forced them to capitulate on any number of laws and regulations they previously resisted.
There is simply no question as to whether or not multinational corporations and foreign investors have the upper hand in Myanmar.
The regime is doing what it thinks it has to do, what it thinks the international business community WANTS them to do, in Rakhine. They are securing control of land and resources in a collaborative effort with global business. And it probably IS what global business wants. But we have the power to change that.
We can impose consequences upon business that will make the genocide UNPROFITABLE for them. And, believe me, until that happens, there will never be an incentive to stop it.