US to impose more sanctions against Myanmar

BY OUR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT

26 September, 2007

The United States is imposing additional sanctions against Myanmar’s military rulers.

The move comes in the wake of a growing series of anti-government protests in Myanmar, formerly called Burma, and the country’s military junta issuing a covert threat to suppress Myanmar’s biggest pro-democracy demonstrations in nearly two decades.

The United States is imposing sanctions against key members of the military junta and those who provide them financial aid.

According to news agency Associated Press, around 100,000 protesters, led by a good number of barefoot monks, took out a march on September 24, 2007, in the most powerful show of strength as yet by pro-democracy activists.

After the demonstration held in Yangon, the country’s largest city, the government issued the Buddhist clergy a veiled threat of reprisals, which showed that the military junta is under increasing pressure either to crack down on the protests or compromise with a revived democracy movement.

The monks have taken their traditional role as the conscience of society, forcing the military into possible action.

Stephen Hadley, US President George W Bush’s national security adviser, said, “It is very interesting what is happening in Myanmar, with the Buddhist monks having joined this effort. Our hope is to marry that internal pressure with the external pressure coming from the United States and the United Nations and really all countries that are committed to freedom to try to force the regime into a change.”

The United States already restricts imports and exports and financial transactions with Myanmar, in addition to an arms embargo on the country.

The military authorities in Yangon did not, however, stop the protests on September 24, 2007 though the demonstrations were larger than the pro-democracy uprising of 1988, when the military fired on peaceful crowds, killing thousands of activists.

The military government is reported to be handling the monks delicately, not wanting to invite the wrath of ordinary citizens in the devout, predominantly Buddhist nation.

However, the country’s Religious Affairs Minister appeared on state television and accused the monks of being manipulated by the regime’s “domestic and foreign enemies.”

Later, at a meeting with senior monks at Yangon’s Kaba Aye Pagoda, he said the protesting monks represented only 2% of Myanmar’s population.

The current protests began on August 19, 2007, after the government sharply raised fuel prices in Myanmar, which is one of the poorest countries in Asia. But the issue of fuel prices was only an immediate provocation, having sprouted from the citizens’ deep-rooted, long-standing dissatisfaction with the repressive military government that has ruled the country in one form or another since 1962.