In September, a Mytel technician in northern Shan State suffered serious leg injuries after stepping on a landmine while undertaking tower repairs, RFA reported. The complaint, brought by the Committee Seeking Justice for Alethankyaw, is ongoing. During the Rohingya genocide, a tower owned by Irrawaddy Green Towers and leased to Telenor in Alethankyaw village in Rakhine State’s Maungdaw Township was used as a sniper post by Myanmar soldiers in an attack against villagers.Ī complaint was filed at the OECD National Contact Point in December 2019 against Telenor for human rights due diligence failings. Telenor Myanmar last came under criticism for tower security breaches in 2017. The Board of Telenor, which represents its shareholders, should make sure that everything possible is done by Telenor in this case.” “Telenor should also try to coordinate its protests with its two main competitors, the Myanmar Post and Telecom (MPT) and Ooredoo. Stein Tønnesson, a peace researcher at the Peace Research Institute of Oslo with experience of Myanmar, urged Telenor to protest.
The military is the guilty party, but the businesses involved have responsibilities.” “They should demand from the military a list of towers that have been mined and they should publish that list widely as a preventive measure. Telenor did not respond to requests to disclose the list of mined tower sites that they own or lease.Īccording to former UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar expert Chris Sidoti, Telenor and other telecommunications businesses need to do more. Tower companies Irrawaddy Green Towers, Apollo, OCK and edotco also did not respond to requests for comment on the mining of tower sites.Īt the time of publication, Myanmar Now could not find any published warnings or details of mined sites on the websites of mobile operators or tower companies. A Nokia spokesperson confirmed that the company provides radio equipment that is fitted on Ooredoo towers and referred to Ooredoo for further questions. Ooredoo, a Myanmar telecoms provider majority-owned by the Qatari government, was among the companies who did not respond to a request for comment. However, Myanmar Now has learned that MPT and Ooredoo towers have also been mined. “We will continue our efforts to maintain the social infrastructure giving top priority to the safety of all concerned,” Sachiko Oda of KDDI said. Japanese companies KDDI and the Sumitomo Corporation, who jointly operate state-owned mobile operator MPT, both responded that they had not heard of any mines being laid at MPT towers.
“We are in close dialogue with tower partners on monitoring and reporting suspected mined sites,” the spokesperson said. In such cases, according to the Telenor spokesperson, it is the tower companies who are obliged to ensure security. Most of the mined sites are owned by tower companies who lease them to Telenor and other operators. The company has also stopped servicing unsafe sites. Telenor has put in place a tower security program, which involves sending text message notifications to Telenor subscribers who live near dangerous towers, warning them to stay away from telecoms infrastructure. “Telenor Myanmar is gravely concerned with these practices, as they represent a severe people safety challenge for operations and maintenance staff, and for the communities living around tower sites,” the spokesperson explained. several sites have been fitted with anti-personnel mines,” the individual told Myanmar Now in an email. Only Telenor confirmed the presence of mines.Ī Telenor spokesperson said the practice appeared to happen “indiscriminately across mobile and tower operators.” Myanmar Now contacted multiple telecoms providers-MPT, Ooredoo and Telenor-with requests for comment on the allegations that the Myanmar military had laid landmines around their towers as well, or towers owned by third-party companies and leased to them. The engineers, who left their posts after the February 1 coup, said that the move follows attacks by the anti-junta People’s Defence Forces (PDFs), who used bombs and makeshift explosive devices to target Mytel towers due to the company’s military links. Several striking engineers from Mytel-a telecoms provider jointly owned by the Myanmar military-told Myanmar Now that the junta has been planting “security landmines” at many of the company’s tower sites in recent months. Since September, the Myanmar military has laid landmines at telecommunications towers owned by or leased to mobile operators including Telenor, Myanmar Now has learned.