The Biden administration continues to raise its voice. The United States unveiled, Thursday, March 4, a new set of sanctions against the Burmese army to punish it for the coup d’état it led on February 1. Washington has blacklisted the Department of Defense and the Department of Internal Affairs, as well as the main conglomerate linked to the junta.
The Biden administration also instituted export controls making it more difficult for US manufacturers to obtain licenses to ship certain products; a measure intended to prevent them from being used by the army. The US Department of Commerce said in a statement it was considering other additional sanctions. On February 22, the United States and the European Union had already taken a first round of measures targeting the regime.
HIM-HER-IT. Washington’s move comes in response to the increasingly bloody crackdown by Burmese security forces to stem daily protests across the country. On Wednesday March 3, 38 people were killed, according to the UN. Security forces fired live ammunition in several towns. French President Emmanuel Macron has called for an immediate end to the crackdown.
The UN Security Council is due to review the situation in Burma on Friday, diplomats said. Richard Weir, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, believes that the Burmese security forces now appear determined to end the protest movement by engaging in “gratuitous violence” and “brutality”.
For its part, the Burmese military junta denounces a fraud during the legislative elections last November won by the party of Aung San Suu Kyi. It established a state of emergency for one year.
(With Reuters)
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