UN Envoy Razali in Business Deal with Burmese Junta

by Ma Nguyen Tong

9-5-2002

The United Nations special envoy serving as a mediator between Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the military government was linked to a business deal that some said could undermine his work in the country. A company headed and partly owned by Ismail Razali, who had received widespread praise for his patient negotiating tactics that resulted in the May 2002 release of the pro-democracy leader, signed a business deal during the last week of April with the Rangoon junta, thus demonstrating that much of what went on behind the scenes was not as clean as it seemed.

"This innuendo is really below the belt. It is unfair. Some people don't understand my sense of integrity. I was never in Myanmar [Burma] to clinch the deal," Razali said.

"I have not even once talked to the leaders in Myanmar about Iris," he said, adding that the deal was only for a pilot project.

Staff rules prohibit UN employees from undertaking any business dealings that may benefit from association with the UN, the IHT said. All high-level full-time UN employees were required to submit financial disclosure statements showing there is no conflict of interest between their business interests and their UN work, the IHT added. It could not be determined whether Razali was involved in business negotiations or discussions while on his mission for the UN.

"This business deal, if true, casts the pall of conflict of interest across Razali and his entire initiative," said Maureen Aung Thwin, director of the Open Society Institute's Burma Project.

IHT reported UN procurement experts and analysts as saying the deal might not necessarily violate the UN's rules but could hurt the peace effort and damage the role of the envoy as an independent mediator.

The deal struck by the company headed by Razali, a Malaysian, is under the auspices of the Malaysian government's high-tech promotion effort, the Multi-Media Development Corp, the IHT said. The report said Iris Technologies, whose chairman is Razali, would shortly begin work on technical specifications for a trial run of passports for Burma with embedded microchips. Razali owns 30 per cent of Iris Technologies, a smartcard firm that deals mainly with governments. The deal was obliquely reported in late April in Burma's state-controlled news media days after Razali visited the country for the UN.