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Myanmar energy tycoon lobbies for smart sanctions

AFP, Yangon
AN energy magnate lauded as a rare "legitimate" tycoon in crony-dominated Myanmar has quietly lobbied for an end to Western sanctions — except those targeting cronies who flourished under military rule.
Michael Moe Myint is part of Myanmar's "One Percent" — a jetsetting moneyed class comprising fewer than two dozen families who have long monopolised the business landscape of the poor but resource-rich nation.
Many of them are accused of harvesting wealth by currying favour with the military junta that ruled Myanmar with an iron grip until last year when a quasi-civilian government took charge under President Thein Sein.
Some of them are under individual sanctions for propping up the military, even as Western powers in recent weeks have eased restrictions on trade and investment to reward the new regime for a raft of sweeping reforms.
But Moe Myint, who enjoyed a meteoric rise from a pizza delivery boy in West Virginia -- where he pursued a degree in Physics --to the head of a multi-million dollar oil and gas empire, has "repeatedly declined 'offers' to enter into a typical crony relationship", according to a 2009 US embassy cable.
Although known to be former dictator Ne Win's personal pilot while working for Myanmar Airways before launching his company, "he is a legitimate businessman... who earned his success through hard work and ingenuity rather than ties to the regime," said the diplomatic note released by whistleblower website WikiLeaks.
That is no small praise in one of Asia's most corrupt nations where success for a large enterprise was considered impossible without the patronage of former military rulers endowed with arbitrary powers to issue business permits and licenses.
The kleptocratic system of governance enriched a small clique notorious for its entrenched vested interests and sometimes nefarious business practices — while a third of the population subsists below the poverty line.
The US diplomatic cable, which praises Moe Myint for being the country's "largest single taxpayer", notes that "regime crony Tay Za, who allegedly earns more annually, pays far less in taxes, as his companies have a tax holiday”.
Tay Za, of the Htoo Group, has a reputation as Myanmar's wealthiest and flashiest tycoon, with a penchant for Italian sports cars and travel by private jets.
He is accused by the United States of being an "arms dealer and financial henchman" of the military junta — a charge he denies.
Zaw Zaw of the Max Myanmar conglomerate meanwhile is "one of several mid-level cronies that actively do the regime's bidding" to expand his commercial enterprises, which include a jade mine and a professional soccer team, according to another US diplomatic cable from 2007.