Banks bust Burma trade ban

The world's biggest banks are helping the brutal regime in Burma get round tough financial sanctions imposed on it by George Bush.

Swift, a technology business owned by leading financial institutions, is setting up Burmese bank accounts in euros just months after the US banned Burma from trading in dollars and US financial companies from doing business with the regime.

The sanctions came into force last August. They forced the Burmese government, which is the world's largest producer of illegal opium and denies a nation its most basic rights, to find alternative currencies to dollars so it could trade with the rest of the world.

It emerged last year that Burma was trying to convert its financial dealings into euros. Now The Observer has confirmed that the regime has been successful and that Swift, via one of its regional offices in Singapore, has helped supply software and other key data to do this.

Swift members include the biggest names in world banking: Citibank, JP Morgan, ABN Amro and Credit Suisse.

A spokeswoman for the Belgium-based business, which generates £500 million a year in revenues, confirmed that Swift was working in Burma to set up new banking systems and added that, from this March, the organisa tion was asked to bill the country's central bank in euros. The co-operative business is used in 200 countries across the gamut of financial services, from derivatives to e-commerce.

'We're shocked that such an important financial institution is doing secret deals with one of the most brutal regimes in the world,' said Mark Farmaner, media and campaigns officer for Burma Campaign UK.

'Those sanctions are designed to cut off finance to this oppressive government but Swift are helping to undermine this. We believe any US directors of Swift are in breach of US law and could be prosecuted.'

The news will be a severe embar rassment to the financial community, which is at pains to paint itself as socially responsible.

Burma is a country of around 50 million people ruled by fear. Millions work in forced labour.

The US is the first country to implement tough economic sanctions on the country. Foreign investment is vital to the regime, which has bankrupted the country, not least because of its massive army. International pressure has forced many firms to pull out in recent months, including PricewaterhouseCoopers and lately, British American Tobacco, which had a factory in the country.