BANGKOK (AP) – The escalation of violence in Myanmar as authorities crack down on Feb. 1 coup protests, increases pressure for more sanctions against the junta, even as countries struggle over how best to influence military leaders who are used to worldwide condemnation.
The challenge is made doubly difficult by fears of harming ordinary citizens who already suffered from an economic slump aggravated by the pandemic, but are braving the risks of arrest and injury to voice their outrage at the military takeover. Still, activists and experts say there are ways to increase the pressure on the regime, especially by cutting off funding sources and access to repressive tools.
The UN special envoy on Friday urged the Security Council to take action to stop the junta violence that killed about 50 protesters and injured dozens more this week. More shootings were reported over the weekend and a coalition of unions called a strike on Monday.
“There is an urgency for collective action,” said Christine Schraner Burgener at the meeting. “How much more can we allow the Myanmar military to get away?”
However, coordinated UN action is difficult, as permanent members of the Security Council China and Russia would almost certainly veto it. Myanmar’s neighbors, its largest trading partners and investment sources, are also reluctant to apply sanctions.
Some step-by-step actions have already been taken. The US, Britain, and Canada have tightened various restrictions on Myanmar’s military, their relatives, and other top junta leaders. The US has blocked an attempt by the military to access more than $ 1 billion in Myanmar central bank funds held in the US, the State Department confirmed Friday.
But most of the military’s economic interests remain “largely unchallenged,” Thomas Andrews, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Law Situation in Myanmar, said in a report published last week. Some governments have cut aid, and the World Bank said it suspended funding and was reviewing its programs.
It is unclear whether the sanctions imposed so far, while symbolically important, will have much of an impact. Schraner Burgener told UN correspondents that the military was shaking off a warning of possible “tremendously strong measures” against the coup, saying, “‘We are used to sanctions and we have survived those sanctions in the past.’ ”
Andrews and other experts and human rights activists are calling for a ban on dealing with the many Myanmar-related companies associated with the military and an embargo on weapons and technology, products and services that could be used by authorities for surveillance and violence.
The activist group Justice for Myanmar has published a list of dozens of foreign companies that it says have provided such possible repressive instruments to the government, which is now fully under military control.
It quoted budget documents for the Department of the Interior and the Department of Transportation and Communications that demonstrate the purchase of forensics, tracking, password recovery, drones, and other equipment from the US, Israel, EU, Japan, and other countries. Such technologies can have benign or even useful applications, such as the fight against human trafficking. But they are also used to track protesters, both online and offline.
Restricting transactions with military-dominated conglomerates, including Myanmar Economic Corp., Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd. and Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise, can also deliver more power, with minimal impact on small, private businesses and individuals.
One idea to get support is to prevent the junta from accessing essential oil and gas revenues paid to and held with banks outside the country, said Chris Sidoti, a former member of the UN’s independent international fact-finding mission. Myanmar, in a press conference on Thursday.
Oil and gas are Myanmar’s largest exports and a crucial source of foreign exchange needed to pay for imports. The $ 1.4 billion oil and gas and mining industries account for more than a third of exports and a large portion of tax revenues.
“The money supply must be cut. That is the most urgent priority and the most immediate step that can be taken, ”said Sidoti, one of the founders of a newly formed international group called the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar.
Unfortunately, such measures can take commitment and time, and “time is not on the side of the people of Myanmar at a time when these atrocities are being committed,” he said.
Myanmar’s economy languished in isolation after a coup in 1962. Many of the sanctions imposed by Western governments in the decades that followed were lifted after the country embarked on its difficult transition to democracy in 2011. Some of those restrictions were restored after the military’s brutal 2017 operations against the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar’s northwestern Rakhine state.
Australia said Monday it suspended defense cooperation with Myanmar and shifted humanitarian aid over the coup and the detention of an Australian citizen. Sean Turnell, an adviser to leader Aung San Suu Kyi who is being held by the junta, was detained a few days after the coup.
The European Union has said it is reviewing its policies and is ready to take restrictive measures against those directly responsible for the coup. Japan has also said it is considering what to do.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, convened a virtual meeting on March 2 to discuss Myanmar. The chairman later issued a statement calling for an end to the violence and for talks to try to reach a peaceful settlement.
But ASEAN admitted Myanmar as a member in 1997, long before the military, known as the Tatmadaw, implemented reforms that aided the election of a quasi-civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi. Most ASEAN governments have authoritarian leaders or a one-party system. Traditionally they are committed to consensus and not interfering in each other’s internal affairs.
Although they have no desire for sanctions, some ASEAN governments have firmly condemned the coup d’état and subsequent arrests and murders.
Marzuki Darusman, an Indonesian lawyer and former chair of the fact-finding mission that Sidoti has joined, said he believes the spiraling, brutal violence against protesters has shaken ASEAN’s position that the crisis is purely an internal issue.
“ASEAN believes it is imperative that it play a role in resolving the crisis in Myanmar,” said Darusman.
Thailand, with a 2,400-kilometer border with Myanmar and more than 2 million migrant workers from Myanmar, is no longer looking to flee to its territory, especially at a time when it is still fighting the pandemic.
Kavi Chongkittavorn, a senior fellow at Chulalongkorn University’s Institute of Security and International Studies, also believes ASEAN wants to see a return to civilian government in Myanmar and is best off taking a “carrot and stick” approach .
But the greatest hope, he said, is with the protesters.
On Saturday, some protesters expressed disdain by pouring Myanmar Beer, a local brand made by a military-related company from which Japanese partner Kirin Holdings is withdrawing, on people’s feet – which is seen as a serious insult in some parts of Asia. considered.
“The people in Myanmar are very brave. This is the greatest pressure on the land, ”Chongkittavorn said at a seminar held by the East-West Center in Hawaii. “It is very clear that the junta also knows what to do to move forward, otherwise the sanctions will be much tougher.”