President Joe Biden talks about the situation in Myanmar in the South Court Auditorium of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, DC, on February 10, 2021.
Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images
President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday that he will impose sanctions on Myanmar’s military leaders who led the coup that ousted and detained its elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, President Win Myint and others.
Biden also said the “Myanmar military must relinquish the power they took” and release their prisoners.
“We will identify a first round of targets this week and also impose strong export controls,” Biden said in announcing two new sanctions-related executive orders.
The president said he would ban Burmese generals from accessing $ 1 billion in Myanmar funds to the United States.
Biden also said: “We are freezing US assets that benefit the Burmese government, while maintaining our support for health care, civil society groups and other areas that directly benefit the people of Burma.”
And he urged the military not to use violence against protesters exercising their democratic rights to oppose the coup.
Last week, Biden had condemned the military acquisition of the civilian-led government, calling it “a direct assault on the country’s transition to democracy and the rule of law.”
State Department spokesman Ned Price later said when asked about the sanctions, “we believe we can certainly impose substantial costs on those responsible for them.”
“We can impose costs … even stronger” than previous sanctions against Myanmar, Price said.
When a reporter asked him why Biden’s announcement did not include an international response to the coup, Price suggested that this reaction is imminent.
“As you hear more information from our partners, it will become very clear that what we implement collectively will impose high and profound costs on those responsible for this blow,” Price said.
Nobel Prize-winning National League for Democracy (NLD) Suu Kyi had won Myanmar’s elections in a staggering manner last November.
But the generals behind the coup have claimed the election was fraudulent.
Myanmar citizens, including monks and nurses, took to the streets in protest of the coup, covered in the red color of the NLD party.
In response, the military banned rallies and gatherings of more than five people, along with motorized processions, and imposed a curfew from eight to four in the morning for Yangon and Mandalay, the first and second cities. largest in the country.
The military also banned citizens from using the social media platforms Facebook, Twitter and Instagram “until further notice.”
The U.S. formally eased previous sanctions against Myanmar in 2012 to allow U.S. dollars to enter the country, withholding certain investments from Myanmar’s armed forces and its Ministry of Defense.
But a clause in the measure included the ability to tighten sanctions on “those who weaken the reform process and commit human rights abuses.”
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said last week: “We have certainly seen with great alarm what has happened in Burma, but right now I do not see a US military role.
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