BANGKOK (AP) – The escalation of violence in Myanmar as authorities crack down on protests against the February 1 coup increases pressure to push for more sanctions against the junta, even when countries they struggle to better influence military leaders who are attracted to world condemnation.
The challenge is made doubly difficult by the fear of hurting ordinary citizens who were already suffering an economic downturn exacerbated by the pandemic, but who are at risk of being arrested and injured due to outrage over military takeover. However, activists and experts say there are ways to increase pressure on the regime, especially by cutting funding sources and access to repression tools.
On Friday, the UN special envoy urged the Security Council to act to quell the violence of the junta, which this week killed about 50 protesters and injured about 20 more people. More gunfire was reported over the weekend and a coalition of unions called a strike on Monday.
“There is an urgency for collective action,” Christine Schraner Burgener said at the meeting. “How much can we allow the Myanmar army to get out of it?”
However, coordinated action by the United Nations is difficult, as the permanent members of the Security Council, China and Russia, would veto it safely. Myanmar’s neighbors, its main trading partners and sources of investment, are also reluctant to resort to sanctions.
Some partial actions have already been taken. The United States, Britain and Canada have tightened various restrictions on the Myanmar army, its family members and other board leaders. The United States has blocked an attempt by the military to access more than $ 1 billion in Myanmar central bank funds held in the U.S., the State Department confirmed Friday.
But most of the military’s economic interests remain “largely unquestionable,” Thomas Andrews, the UN special rapporteur on the rights situation in Myanmar, said in a report released last week. Some governments have stopped aid and the World Bank said it has suspended funding and was reviewing its programs.
It is unclear whether the sanctions imposed so far, while symbolically important, will have much influence. Schraner Burgener told UN correspondents that the military set aside the warning of possible “huge strong measures” against the coup with the response that “We are used to sanctions and we have survived those sanctions. in the past”.
Andrews and other human rights experts and activists are calling for a ban on dealings with many Myanmar-associated companies associated with the military and an embargo on weapons and technology, products and services that authorities can use for surveillance and violence.
The Justice for Myanmar activist group released a list of dozens of foreign companies that they say have supplied these potential tools of repression to the government, which is now fully under military control.
He cited budget documents for the Interior Ministry and the Ministry of Transport and Communications showing forensic data purchases, tracking, password recovery, drones and other equipment from the United States, Israel, the EU, Japan and other countries . These 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 deals with military-dominated conglomerates, including Myanmar Economic Corp., Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd. and Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise, could also be a strong effort, with minimal impact on small private and private companies.
One idea he gets is to prevent the Board from accessing vital oil and gas revenues that are paid for and kept in banks outside the country, said Chris Sidoti, a former member of the International Independent Data Research Mission of the United Nations in Myanmar, at 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 country’s oil, gas and mining industries, with $ 1.4 billion, account for more than a third of exports and a large share of tax revenue.
“The money supply must be cut. This is the most urgent priority and the most direct step that can be taken,” said Sidoti, one of the founding members of a newly created international group called the Special Advisory Council. for Myanmar.
Unfortunately, these measures can involve 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 following decades were lifted after the country began its transition to democracy in 2011. Some of these restrictions were reinstated after the brutal army operations in 2017 against the Rohingya Muslim minority in Rakhine state, northwestern Myanmar.
Australia said on Monday it had suspended defensive co-operation with Myanmar and was redirecting humanitarian aid due to the coup and the arrest of an Australian citizen. Sean Turnell, an adviser to leader Aung San Suu Kyi, arrested by the board, was arrested a few days after the coup.
The European Union has said it is reviewing its policies and is willing to take restrictive measures against those directly responsible for the coup. Japan, similarly, has said it is studying 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 settlement.
But ASEAN admitted Myanmar as a member in 1997, long before the army, known as the Tatmadaw, began reforms that would help elect a quasi-civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi. Most ASEAN governments have authoritarian leaders or one-party government. Traditionally, they are committed to consensus and non-interference in the internal affairs of others.
While not hungry for sanctions, some ASEAN governments have vehemently condemned the coup and the resulting arrests and killings.
Marzuki Darusman, an Indonesian lawyer and former chairman of the fact-finding mission joined by Sidoti, said he believes brutal and spiraling violence against protesters has shaken ASEAN’s stance that the crisis is purely an internal matter.
“ASEAN considers it essential to play a role in resolving the crisis in Myanmar,” Darusman said.
Thailand, with a 2,400-kilometer (1,500-mile) border with Myanmar and more than 2 million migrant workers from Myanmar, does not want them to flee further into its territory, especially at a time when it is still battling the pandemic.
Kavi Chongkittavorn, a senior member of the Institute for Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University, also believes that ASEAN wants to return to a civilian government in Myanmar and it would be better to take a “carrot” approach.
But the biggest hope, he said, is with protesters.
On Saturday, some protesters expressed contempt for Myanmar Beer, a local brand made by a company linked to the army whose Japanese partner Kirin Holdings was retiring at the feet of the people, considered a serious insult in some parts of Asia.
“The people of Myanmar are very brave. This is the No. 1 pressure on the country, “Chongkittavorn said at a seminar held by the East-West Center in Hawaii.” It is very clear that the Board also knows what they need to do to move forward, otherwise the sanctions will be much more severe “.