EIA exposed – the campaign against Myanmar’s teak trade accused of making false allegations against innocent timber trader
A London-based campaign group which achieved international headlines by alleging massive corruption in Myanmar’s timber industry now stands accused of getting its facts wrong. The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) claimed in its report State of Corruption: the top-level conspiracy behind the global trade in Myanmar’s stolen teak that the legal trade in timber authorised by the Government’s Myanmar Timber Enterprise (MTE) is “as corrupt and illegal as any blatantly smuggled across the border into China.”
Myanmar judged incapable calling for intervention and the abolition of the Myanmar Timber Enterprise to be replaced with a new multi-stakeholder system “to continue preparing Myanmar for possible Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade discussions with the European Union,” it concluded that “Myanmar cannot reform this multi-layered, complex but highly organised international timber trade by itself.” The Report achieved considerable publicity, encouraging the international view that the Myanmar Government cannot run its own country’s affairs. The EIA – whose funders include the aid agencies of the Norwegian and UK governments – has also used the report as part of its money-raising appeal for more donations. But the wide-ranging allegations in the Report have come under scrutiny.
