Arakan News Agency
Officials familiar with the ongoing discussions say the EU and the United States are considering specific sanctions targeting military generals in Myanmar because of the attack that has led to more than half a million Rohingya Muslims leaving the country.
Interviews with more than a dozen diplomats and government officials in Washington, Yangon and Europe revealed that punitive measures targeting particularly senior generals are among a number of options being considered in response to the crisis.
The sources said nothing had been decided so far and that Washington and Brussels may decide to refrain from implementing this option at the moment. An increase in aid to the Arakan state is also under consideration.
The active discussions, which were not even on the table a month ago, show how much pressure the large exodus of Rohingya from northwestern Myanmar has exerted on politicians in the West.
While overseas criticism has focused on Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, almost no Western diplomats see an alternative to her leadership. Suu Kyi has no control over the army, which has great powers under the constitution drafted by its generals.
On October 16, the EU foreign ministers’ council will discuss the Myanmar problem, although officials do not expect any step in the path of sanctions soon. Denmark’s Development Cooperation Minister Olla Tornais told Reuters that Copenhagen was working to add the crisis to the agenda “with the aim of putting more pressure on the military.”
Two US officials familiar with the Trump administration’s deliberations on Myanmar said the discussions included sanctions against General Min Aung Hlaing and a number of generals as well as Rakhine ethnic Buddhist leaders accused of burning the Rohingya villages.
Such sanctions would most likely include the freezing of US assets, the travel ban and the ban on Americans from dealing with them. The US officials said Washington was moving cautiously in its consultations with governments in Europe, Japan and Southeast Asia.
A senior European diplomat in Yangon also said Western countries were coordinating their response to the crisis and agreed that it was necessary to target the army, and in particular its general commander, with punitive measures.
Diplomats in Yangon said any sanctions would be symbolic at first to allow room for further talks and cited as an example the ban on the army commander, who last year visited Brussels, Berlin and Vienna, from traveling to Europe.
Western diplomats acknowledge their power is limited as US and European investments and cooperation with Myanmar’s military are small compared with China, whose relations with Myanmar have improved since Suu Kyi took office 18 months ago.
Diplomats also fear damaging the economy in general or destabilizing already tense ties between Suu Kyi and the military.
