''Tay Za owns the largest network of businesses in Burma. becoming a billionaire through his connections with Burma’s dictatorial military junta, No foreign journalist had ever been allowed to meet him. Raimondo Bultrini, an intalian journalist, did it recently with strong reservations''
You are at the top of sanctions list. How have you managed to create a turnover of 500 million dollars a year and to own dozens of companies, with interests ranging from helicopters to rubies? My holdings show that actually your Western sanctions don’t bother me. In fact, they suit me fine, and that goes for everyone else on your black list, including the generals themselves. But I don’t like seeing our economy depending on Chinese trade alone. They have the money and can afford everything.
Don’t the generals share this fear of Chinese control ? You can be sure of that. But people abroad don’t seem to realize that sanctions are bound to thrust us into the arms of Beijing in the end. Just the other day, China offered a loan of 30 billion dollars, which the government hasn’t yet accepted but certainly will soon. In exchange, they will obviously get more concessions. But you should realize that the real victims of your measures against us here are the poor, who live hand to mouth.
Aung San Suu Kyi has claimed the military government is to blame for its mismanagement of the economy and the IMF has said the same. Besides, the sanctions are explicitly to punish human rights violations. China is always being accused of violating human rights, but where are the sanctions against them ? As for the champions of these sanctions, why do America and France let Chevron and Total operate here with no restrictions whatsoever? They’re the hypocrites, moralizing while they knowingly swell their government coffers.
Don’t you feel disturbed by the poverty, the arrest of dissidents, the selling off of natural resources? Sure, there are problems. We are all human, and we make mistakes. Let’s say I agree about 80 per cent with the way my country is run. The dissidents pay the price of breaking the law, and as for principles, I think that here in Burma a high percentage of the administration and the armed forces love this country and want to see it grow. Now we are much stronger than we were in the past. Besides, the military really is gradually giving way to civilians.
Many people say this is just a superficial change. However limited you think it is, it is more democratic than a socialist or communist system where everything is nationalized. Here, any entrepreneur can come and do business whether there are sanctions or not. I kept on working even when they froze my accounts in Singapore, and I had to turn to banks in China and the Middle East. There is a race on and, mark my words, we have resources that are unique in the world. Education is the only thing we lack. Once, our elite used to study in America and England. Today, all we have are Russian schools.