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Justice For Myanmar condemns the decision of the Vietnamese regime to invite war criminal and illegal junta head Min Aung Hlaing for an official visit.
The visit, scheduled to run from September 4 to 6, is a continuation of Vietnam’s longstanding business and defence ties with the Myanmar military, spanning telecommunications, aviation fuel, the supply of military equipment and military training.
During the upcoming trip, Min Aung Hlaing is scheduled to attend a Myanmar-Vietnam business forum, which will only further Vietnamese corporate complicity with the junta.
Vietnam’s biggest state investment in Myanmar is the Mytel telecoms operator, a joint project between the Vietnamese Ministry of National Defence-owned Viettel Global Investment, the military conglomerate Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC) and Myanmar cronies.
Mytel is highly lucrative for MEC, which Min Aung Hlaing oversees.
Justice For Myanmar’s earlier analysis of confidential profit projections from Mytel’s operating company, Telecom International Myanmar Company Limited, show that the Myanmar military may be entitled to receive over US$700 million in dividends over ten years for their share in the military-controlled mobile network operator.
Beyond financing the Myanmar military, Mytel also serves strategic military and surveillance purposes.
As Justice For Myanmar exposed in 2020, the Viettel subsidiary Viettel Construction led the building of at least 38 Mytel towers in military bases. Most are in ethnic areas and house military units that are directly perpetrating grave human rights violations.
At least four of these towers are located in arms manufacturing compounds of the Myanmar military.
The Myanmar army's signals directorate is also operationally linked to Mytel and the mobile operator uses the military's network of fibre optic cables.
Mytel additionally plays a significant role in the junta’s digital dictatorship. As Justice For Myanmar has exposed, Mytel implemented a commercialised version of China’s Great Firewall from Geedge Networks in its Yangon and Mandalay data centres, enabling the tracking of network traffic at the individual level and the geographic location of mobile subscribers in real time.
This gives the junta an enhanced capability to effectively track down, arrest, torture and kill human rights defenders, journalists and revolutionary forces across the country.
As a result of its surveillance and financial support for the junta, Mytel has been targeted for export restrictions by the US Department of Commerce. Its parent company, MEC, has been sanctioned by Australia, Canada, the EU, UK and USA.
Viettel Global's interim financial statements as of June 30, 2026 show Mytel owes it VND 9.8 trillion (around US$375 million) in overdue loans, of which it has written off VND 8.8 trillion as unlikely to be recovered.
Despite that, on June 29, 2026, Viettel Global’s board approved participation in Mytel's 2600 MHz spectrum auction, according to its most recent corporate governance report.
Mytel is on Min Aung Hlaing’s mind ahead of his trip to Hanoi. During a meeting with Foreign Minister Le Hoai Trung in Naypyidaw on August 26, 2026, Min Aung Hlaing pledged continued support for Mytel and other Vietnamese businesses, and committed to facilitate further investment in telecommunications.
Earlier in the day, at the 10th meeting of the Vietnam–Myanmar Joint Committee, which Trung co-chaired with junta foreign minister Tin Maung Swe, they agreed to promote defence and security cooperation through increased delegation exchanges, expanded training cooperation and young officers' exchanges.
Vietnamese companies have also been linked to the junta’s aviation fuel supply chain, which sustains its widening campaign of indiscriminate airstrikes that target civilians and civilian infrastructure.
One of these is Hai Linh Co. Ltd., a Vietnamese company that operates Cai Mep Petroleum Terminal, which Amnesty International found to have been used to transship aviation fuel to Myanmar and obscure its real destination.
Two further Vietnamese companies are linked to the vessel LS MERCURY (previously named MT. YONG SHENG 56), IMO Number 9657507, which delivered a shipment of aviation fuel to Myanmar in 2024.
Allsea Management JSC is the commercial manager and ISM manager of LS MERCURY and Legendsea Co. Ltd. is the vessel’s owner.
Beyond aviation fuel, Vietnam has played a key role in the supply of military communications equipment to Myanmar. The Vietnamese company OSB Investment and Technology JSC and its Myanmar partner Terabit Wave, part of A1 Group of Companies, have supplied satellite communications equipment and capacity to the Myanmar military since 2014.
This has included German ND SatCom modems shipped from Vietnam to the Myanmar Army's Directorate of Procurement after the military’s coup attempt, which led to a criminal investigation in Myanmar.
Justice For Myanmar continues to call for sanctions against Telecom International Myanmar, Viettel Global Investment, Hai Linh, Allsea Management, Legendsea, OSB Investment and Technology, their principals, and the wider network of companies and individuals that supply the junta with funds, arms, equipment and aviation fuel.
By receiving Min Aung Hlaing as a head of state and by continuing its business with an illegal, brutal and corrupt military junta, Vietnam is helping to keep the money flowing, backing a criminal cartel and aiding and abetting ongoing war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Vietnam must immediately end all transfers of military equipment, technology and funds to the junta and stop its complicity in the junta’s international crimes.
Justice For Myanmar spokesperson Yadanar Maung says: "Justice For Myanmar condemns Vietnam’s decision to award false legitimacy to the illegal junta and its deepening complicity through business and military ties.
"The Myanmar military’s ongoing war crimes and crimes against humanity are supported by revenue, technology and surveillance support from Vietnam through Mytel.
"Vietnam must stop backing a military junta that is slaughtering civilians, committing rape and sexual torture, causing mass displacement and destabilising the region through transnational crime.
"Australia, Canada, the EU, UK and USA must respond to Vietnamese complicity in the junta’s international crimes with sanctions against the network of companies and individuals sustaining this terror campaign against the Myanmar people."
