Thai government to meet banks over alleged arms deals in Myanmar

BANGKOK (Reuters) – The Thai government will meet with commercial banks and state agencies next week to investigate transactions allegedly used for arms purchases by Myanmar’s junta and call for tighter oversight, the foreign minister said on Thursday.

Thai banking officials told a parliamentary committee last week that they had complied with regulations but did not have the capacity to investigate all transactions that could be used for arms purchases, in response to a U.N. expert’s report on an increase in funds being transferred through Thai lenders for weapons used by the junta against civilians.

Thai Foreign Minister Maris Sangiampongsa told parliament on Thursday that the July 24 foreign ministry meeting was aimed at ensuring that banks follow proper due diligence processes and monitor their transactions.

He was responding to the chairman of the House National Security Committee, who had demanded answers from the prime minister about alleged arms-related money transfers.

Myanmar is embroiled in a civil war that pits the military, which seized power in 2021 after a decade of democracy, against a loose alliance of ethnic minority armies and a resistance movement loyal to a shadow government.

The military has been accused of involvement in systematic atrocities, which it has dismissed as Western disinformation.

Maris said Thailand has no policy to support banking transactions that violate human rights, nor does it support economic sanctions against the country.

The report by Tom Andrews, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, said companies registered in Thailand used local banks to transfer funds for arms and related equipment to Myanmar worth $120 million in fiscal 2023, up from $60 million the previous year.

The deals, he said, undermine global efforts to isolate the military, which faces one of the biggest battlefield challenges of its five-decade rule over the former British colony.

A spokesman for Myanmar’s ruling military council could not immediately be reached for comment on the report Thursday.

The five Thai commercial banks named in the U.N. report – Krung Thai, SCBX, Bangkok Bank, TMB Thanchart Bank and Kasikorn Bank – did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

Thailand’s central bank said it plans to work with international and local agencies to create a database of information on companies linked to the Myanmar junta.

(Reporting by Panu Wongcha-um, editing by Martin Petty)