BANGKOK (AP) – The escalation of violence in Myanmar, as authorities repress their protests against the February 1 coup, increases pressure for more sanctions against the junta, even as countries struggle to influence best military leaders, doomed to global condemnation.
The challenge is doubly compounded by fears of harming ordinary citizens who were already suffering from an economic crisis exacerbated by the pandemic, but who face risks of arrest and injury in order to revolt over the military takeover. However, activists and experts say there are ways to increase pressure on the regime, in particular by cutting funding and access to repression tools.
The UN special envoy on Friday called on the Security Council to act to quell the violence of the junta, which this week killed about 50 protesters and injured several. Several shootings were reported over the weekend, and a coalition of unions called a strike for Monday.
“There is an urgency for collective action,” Christine Schraner Burgener said at the meeting. “How much longer can we allow the Myanmar army to escape?”
Coordinated UN action is difficult, however, as the permanent members of the China-Russia Security Council would certainly veto it. Myanmar’s neighbors, the largest trading partners and sources of investment, are also reluctant to resort to sanctions.
Some fragmentary actions have already been taken. The United States, Britain and Canada have tightened various restrictions on the Myanmar army, their family members and other top junta leaders. The United States has blocked an attempt by the military to access more than $ 1 billion in US-held central bank funds in Myanmar, the State Department confirmed on Friday.
But most of the military’s economic interests remain “largely uncontested,” Thomas Andrews, the UN’s special rapporteur on the situation in rights in Myanmar, said in a report last week. Some governments have stopped aid, and the World Bank has said it has suspended funding and is reviewing its programs.
It is not clear whether the sanctions imposed so far, although symbolically significant, will have much influence. Schraner Burgener told UN correspondents that the military had issued a warning about possible “huge strong measures” against the coup in response to “We are used to sanctions and we have survived these sanctions in the past.”
Andrews and other human rights experts and activists are calling for a ban on relations with the many Myanmar companies associated with the military and an embargo on weapons and technology, products and services that can be used by authorities for surveillance and violence.
The Justice for Myanmar activist group has issued a list of dozens of foreign companies it says have provided such potential tools for repression to the government, which is now entirely under military control.
He cited budget documents for the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Transport and Communications that show the acquisition of forensic data, tracking, password recovery, drones and other equipment in the US, Israel, the EU, Japan and other countries. Such technologies can have benign or even beneficial uses, such as combating 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, could also pack more, with minimal impact on small and private companies and individuals.
An idea that is gaining support is to prevent the junta from accessing vital oil and gas revenues paid and held in banks abroad, Chris Sidoti, a former member of the UN International Independent Intelligence Mission in Myanmar, told a news conference. press on Thursday.
Oil and gas are Myanmar’s largest exports and a crucial source of foreign exchange needed to pay for imports. The country’s $ 1.4 billion oil and gas and mining industries account for more than a third of exports and much of its tax revenue.
“The money supply must be interrupted. This is the most urgent priority and the most direct step that can be taken, “said Sidoti, one of the founding members of a new international group called the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar.
Unfortunately, such measures may require 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 disappeared 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 began its turbulent transition to democracy in 2011. Some of those restrictions were restored after operations. military brutality in 2017 against the Rohingya Muslim minority in Rakhine State in northwestern Myanmar.
Australia said on Monday that it had suspended defense co-operation with Myanmar and was redirecting humanitarian aid due to 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 also said it was considering what to do.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN convened a virtual meeting on March 2 to discuss Myanmar. Its president later issued a statement calling for an end to the violence and talks to try to reach a peaceful agreement.
But ASEAN recognized Myanmar as a member in 1997, long before the army, known as Tatmadaw, initiated reforms that helped elect a quasi-civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi. Most ASEAN governments have authoritarian leaders or a single government. By tradition, they are dedicated to consensus and non-interference in the internal affairs of others.
Although they lack the appetite for sanctions, some ASEAN governments have vehemently condemned the coup and the arrests and killings that followed.
Marzuki Darusman, an Indonesian lawyer and former chairman of the intelligence mission joined by Sidoti, said he believed that spiraling and brutal violence against protesters had shaken ASEAN’s position that the crisis was only an internal matter.
“ASEAN considers it imperative that it play a role in resolving the crisis in Myanmar,” Darusman said.
Thailand, with a 2,400-kilometer-long border with Myanmar and more than 2 million migrant workers from Myanmar, does not want more to flee its territory, especially at a time when it is still battling a pandemic.
Kavi Chongkittavorn, a senior colleague at the Institute for Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University, also believes that ASEAN wants to return to a civilian government in Myanmar and would do best to take a “carrot and stick” approach.
But the biggest hope, he said, is with the protesters.
On Saturday, some protesters expressed contempt for pouring Myanmar Beer, a local brand made by a military company whose Japanese partner Kirin Holdings is withdrawing on people’s feet – considered a serious insult in some parts of Asia.
“The people of Myanmar are very brave. This is the pressure no. 1 on the country, ”Chongkittavorn said at a seminar organized by the East-West Center in Hawaii. “It is very clear that the junta also knows what it has to do to move forward, otherwise the sanctions will be much more severe.”