JAKARTA - The amount of pressure and sanctions imposed by the international community, especially Western countries, is immense. Make Myanmar's military regime try to find "allies and support" for what they are doing.
For this purpose, the Myanmar military regime has partnered with former Israeli military intelligence official, Ari Ben-Menashe, who has experienced representing Zimbabwean Prime Minister Robert Mugabe and the Sudanese military rulers as a lobbyist.
As an experienced intel figure, Ben-Menashe will be paid USD 2 million. In the consultation agreement document, his duties include helping to explain the true situation of the military coup to the United States and other western countries. This is as contained in a document submitted to the US Department of Justice, as reported by Reuters.
Apart from the United States, Ari Ben-Menashe and his company, Dickens & Madson Canada, will represent the Myanmar military government in Washington, as well as lobby Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Israel and Russia, and international bodies such as the United Nations (UN), according to the consultation agreement.
The Montreal-based company will also help design and implement policies for development that benefit the United Republic of Myanmar. It also calls for efforts to repatriate Rohingya Muslims back to Myanmar.
Submission of this agreement is subject to compliance with the US Foreign Agent Registration Act and is published online. A spokesman for the Myanmar military government did not answer phone calls from Reuters seeking comment.
"It just doesn't make sense that he can convince the United States of the narrative he's proposing", said John Sifton, director of Asian advocacy at Human Rights Watch.
Other documents submitted by Ben-Menashe show that an agreement was reached with the Defense Minister of the Myanmar military regime, General Mya Tun Oo and that the government would pay the company USD 2 million.
Former US Treasury Department senior sanctions adviser Peter Kucik said Ben-Menashe could violate sanctions because Mya Tun Oo and a number of other Myanmar generals had already been sanctioned by the United States and a number of other countries.
"To the extent that he provided services to sanctioned parties from the United States without permission, that would appear to be a violation of US law", said Peter Kucik.
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Ben-Menashe told Reuters he had received legal advice that he would need a license from the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and the Canadian government to receive the payments, but he would not break the law by lobbying the junta.
"There is a technical problem here, but we will leave it up to lawyers and OFAC to deal with it", he said, adding his lawyer had contacted a Ministry of Finance official.
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