26 June 2008

Myanmar

I am working on a project involving Burma at the moment (unrelated to the disaster unfolding there), which means I am paying more attention to the country than I ever have before. I was aware that things aren't as they should be there (human rightswise) but I'm something of a wimp when it comes to keeping informed about things that are
  1. upsetting
  2. completely out of my control.
This is partly why I made a donation to Unicef as soon as they had their appeal up and running, i.e. so I could feel better about not reading about it anymore.

But now I have been looking into it all.
I have mixed feeling about organisations such as the Burma Campaign and their dirty list (not their intentions, just their methods), but I found myself rather shocked today when in the course of my research I discovered this.
A New Zealand company, HelicoptersNZ, is on the list - a company that recent worked or is working in Burma and on a project involving the junta. Not only that but it is a company owned by one of NZ's richest men, a man with a reputation for being a philanthropist and a Christian namely Allan Hubbard. I looked around and it doesn't seem to me that anyone has called attention to this fact. Which I think is somewhat remiss. The company is definitely not hiding either fact, and maybe no-one else thinks it deserves comment, but oddly enough I do.
So, while I ponder if, and it is probably a big if, I do anything else. At least I mentioned it somewhere.


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