BANGKOK (AP) — The escalation of violence in Myanmar as
authorities crack down on protests against the Feb. 1 coup is raising pressure
for more sanctions against the junta, even as countries struggle over how to
best sway military leaders inured to global condemnation.
The challenge is made doubly difficult by fears of harming
ordinary citizens who were already suffering from an economic slump worsened by
the pandemic but are braving risks of arrest and injury to voice outrage over
the military takeover. Still, activists and experts say there are ways to ramp
up pressure on the regime, especially by cutting off sources of funding and
access to the tools of repression.
The UN special envoy on Friday urged the Security Council to
act to quell junta violence that this week killed about 50 demonstrators and
injured scores more. More shootings were reported over the weekend, and a
coalition of labor unions called a strike for Monday.
“There is an urgency for collective action,” Christine
Schraner Burgener told the meeting. “How much more can we allow the Myanmar
military to get away with?”
Coordinated UN action is difficult, however, since permanent
Security Council members China and Russia would almost certainly veto it.
Myanmar’s neighbors, its biggest trading partners and sources of investment,
are likewise reluctant to resort to sanctions.
Some piecemeal actions have already been taken. The US,
Britain and Canada have tightened various restrictions on Myanmar’s army, their
family members and other top leaders of the junta. The US blocked an attempt by
the military to access more than $1 billion in Myanmar central bank funds being
held in the US, the State Department confirmed Friday.
But most economic interests of the military remain “largely
unchallenged,” Thomas Andrews, the UN special rapporteur on the rights
situation in Myanmar, said in a report issued last week. Some governments have
halted aid and the World Bank said it suspended funding and was reviewing its
programs.
Its unclear whether the sanctions imposed so far, although
symbolically important, will have much clout. Schraner Burgener told UN
correspondents that the army shrugged off a warning of possible “huge strong
measures” against the coup with the reply that, “‘We are used to sanctions and
we survived those sanctions in the past.’”
Andrews and other experts and human rights activists are
calling for a ban on dealings with the many Myanmar companies associated with
the military and an embargo on arms and technology, products and services that
can be used by the authorities for surveillance and violence.
The activist group Justice for Myanmar issued a list of
dozens of foreign companies that it says have supplied such potential tools of
repression to the government, which is now entirely under military control.
It cited budget documents for the Ministry of Home Affairs
and Ministry of Transport and Communications that show purchases of forensic
data, tracking, password recovery, drones and other equipment from the US,
Israel, EU, Japan and other countries. Such technologies can have benign or
even beneficial uses, such as fighting human trafficking. But they also are
being used to track down protesters, both online and offline.
Restricting dealings with military-dominated conglomerates
including Myanmar Economic Corp., Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd. and Myanmar
Oil and Gas Enterprise might also pack more punch, with a minimal impact on
small, private companies and individuals.
One idea gaining support is to prevent the junta from
accessing vital oil and gas revenues paid into and held in banks outside the
country, Chris Sidoti, a former member of the UN Independent International
Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, said in a news conference on Thursday.
Oil and gas are Myanmar’s biggest 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 a large share of tax revenue.
“The money supply has to be cut off. That’s the most urgent
priority and the most direct step that can be taken,” said Sidoti, one of the
founding members of a newly established 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 began its troubled transition toward
democracy in 2011. Some of those restrictions were restored after the army’s
brutal operations in 2017 against the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar’s
northwest Rakhine state.
Australia said Monday it suspended defense cooperation with
Myanmar and was redirecting humanitarian aid because of the coup and the
detention of an Australian citizen. Sean Turnell, an advisor 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
stands ready to adopt restrictive measures against those directly responsible
for the coup. Japan, likewise, has 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. Its chairman later
issued a statement calling for an end to 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, initiated reforms that helped elect a
quasi-civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi. Most ASEAN governments have
authoritarian leaders or one-party rule. By tradition, they are committed to
consensus and non interference in each others’ internal affairs.
While they lack an appetite for sanctions, some ASEAN
governments have vehemently condemned the coup and the ensuing arrests and
killings.
Marzuki Darusman, an Indonesian lawyer and former chair of
the Fact-Finding Mission that Sidoti joined, said he believes the spiraling,
brutal violence against protesters has shaken ASEAN’s stance that the crisis is
purely 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 (1,500-mile)-long border
with Myanmar and more than 2 million Myanmar migrant workers, does not want
more to flee into its territory, especially at a time when it is still battling
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 a civilian government in Myanmar and would be
best off adopting a “carrot and stick” approach.
But the greatest hope, he said, is with the protesters.
On Saturday, some protesters expressed their disdain by
pouring Myanmar Beer, a local brand made by a military-linked company whose
Japanese partner Kirin Holdings is withdrawing from, on people’s feet —
considered a grave insult in some parts of Asia.
“The Myanmar people are very brave. This is the No. 1
pressure on the country,” Chongkittavorn said in a seminar held by the
East-West Center in Hawaii. “It’s very clear the junta also knows what they
need to do to move ahead, otherwise sanctions will be much more severe.”