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US to turn up pressure on
Yangon
By Katrin Dauenhauer
WASHINGTON - The US Congress is moving quickly
to punish the military regime in Myanmar for its current
crackdown against Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi
and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party.
The International Relations Committee of the US
House of Representatives on Thursday unanimously
approved legislation to expand existing US trade and
economic sanctions against Myanmar's military junta led
by General Than Shwe.
The vote, which sets up a
floor vote for next week, follows near-unanimous (97-1)
approval of almost identical legislation in the Senate
on Wednesday.
"Supporters of a free Burma know
that America must lead in defending democracy in that
country. They believe that serving the cause of freedom
is America's challenge and obligation. We should not
abandon the people of Burma during the greatest moment
of their need. It's time for the tyrants to fear in
Burma," said Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, who
introduced the bill in the Senate on Wednesday. Burma is
the old name for Myanmar, which the junta officially
renamed in 1989.
Representative Tom Lantos, a
Democrat who co-sponsored the House version, added: "The
[Yangon] regime has sunk to new lows and secured its
place among the world's rogues gallery of chronic
human-rights abusers, which includes North Korea and
Iran," he said on Thursday.
The measures
included in both the Senate and House versions would
expand a 1996 ban on new investments by US companies in
Myanmar. They ban all imports of Myanmese goods to the
United States, freeze the US assets of both the
government and its top leaders, and require the US
representative on the boards of the World Bank, the
Asian Development Bank, and the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) to oppose proposed loans to the country.
"This bill represents the strongest action that
any actor in the international community is taking so
far against Than Shwe's regime during this time of
political crisis," said Aung Din, director of policy of
the Washington-based Free Burma Coalition. "The
committee and the US senators are right to push other
countries to follow suit and to pursue additional
pressure for regime change in
Burma."
Congressional action followed an attack
on May 30 against Suu Kyi and her supporters as they
were making their way to address a rally several hundred
kilometers north of Yangon, the capital.
The
trip was one in a series made around the country by the
pro-democracy leader over the past several months to
rally support in the face of an apparent breakdown in a
United Nations-mediated 19-month dialogue between her
and the regime, known as the State Peace and Development
Council (SPDC).
The government blamed the
violence, in which at least four people were killed and
scores more injured, on the NLD. But independent
observers, including US diplomats who visited the attack
site last week, and witnesses said her caravan was in
essence ambushed by "thugs", as the State Department
described the attackers.
Suu Kyi was rumored to
have been hurt in the attack, but this was denied by the
UN envoy on Myanmar, Razali Ismail, who was permitted to
visit her briefly this week.
Suu Kyi and her top
lieutenants were arrested and flown back to Yangon on
the night of June 6, where they have been held at an
undisclosed location. Razali said government officials
assured him that she would be freed within the next two
weeks.
Security forces arrested or surrounded
the homes of other senior NLD leaders after the attack
and closed university campuses and colleges that have
been strongholds of anti-military sentiment.
They also closed NLD offices around the country
in what has been seen as the worst crackdown against the
opposition since 1990, when the military arrested
hundreds of NLD activists after elections in which the
party won over 80 percent of the vote.
Apart
from measures by the US Congress, the administration of
President George W Bush has also been moving to tighten
sanctions against Myanmar.
Writing in the Wall
Street Journal on Thursday, Secretary of State Colin
Powell noted that Washington, which already has a ban on
the issuance of US visas for top Myanmese government
officials and their families, has expanded the visa ban
to include officials in the pro-government Union
Solidarity Development Association and the managers of
state-run enterprises.
"It is time to reassess
our policy toward a military dictatorship that has
repeatedly attacked democracy and jailed its heroes,"
noted Powell. "The time has come to turn up the pressure
on the SPDC."
The junta's recent actions
reflected its character, Powell wrote. "Our response
must be equally clear if the thugs who now rule Burma
are to understand that their failure to restore
democracy will only bring more and more pressure against
them and their supporters."
With the United
States taking the lead in putting pressure on the
Myanmese government, Senator John McCain also argued for
a boycott by Powell of meetings next week of the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which
Myanmar is a member, if the crisis there is not on top
of the agenda.
He was referring in particular to
US participation in the ASEAN Regional Forum, a forum
for discussing security issues, and ASEAN's meetings
with different governments, including the United States
and the European Union. These meetings take place around
the annual meetings of ASEAN foreign ministers, set this
year for Monday through Friday next week.
But
sanctions against Myanmar's regime are only a first
step, said Aung Din. "The US is pressuring Asian
countries to act on Burma, and is raising the issue with
members of the UN Security Council to see an end to Than
Shwe's tyranny," he said.
The proposed ban on
goods made or produced in Myanmar would remain in place
until the president certifies to Congress that the
regime has made "substantial and measurable progress" in
ending human-rights abuses and moving toward a
democratic government in dialogue with Suu Kyi and the
NLD.
(Inter Press Service)
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