BURMA: U.S. Congress Acts Switfly on Sanctions, More May Follow

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Katrin Dauenhauer

WASHINGTON, Jun 13 2003 (IPS) - The U.S. Congress is moving quickly to punish the military regime in Burma for its current crackdown against Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party.

The U.S. Congress is moving quickly to punish the military regime in Burma for its current crackdown against Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party.

The International Relations Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives Thursday unanimously approved legislation to expand existing U.S. trade and economic sanctions against Burma’s military junta led by Gen Than Shwe.

The vote, which sets up a floor vote for next week, follows approval by a near-unanimous, 97-1 margin of almost identical legislation in the Senate Wednesday.

”Supporters of a free Burma know that America must lead in defending democracy in that country. They believe that serving the cause of freedom is America’s challenge and obligation. We should not abandon the people of Burma during the greatest moment of their need. It’s time for the tyrants to fear in Burma,” said Republican Sen Mitch McConnell, who introduced the bill in the Senate on Wednesday.

Representative Tom Lantos, a Democrat who co-sponsored the House version, added: ”The Rangoon regime has sunk to new lows and secured its place among the world’s rogues gallery of chronic human rights abusers, which includes North Korea and Iran,” he said Thursday.

The measures included in both the Senate and House versions would expand a 1996 ban on new investments by U.S. companies in Burma. They ban all imports of Burmese goods to the U.S., freeze the U.S. assets of both the government and its top leaders, and require the U.S. representative on the boards of the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to oppose proposed loans to the country.

”This bill represents the strongest action that any actor in the international community is taking so far against Than Shwe’s regime during this time of political crisis,” said Aung Din, director of policy of the Washington-based Free Burma Coalition. ”The committee and the U.S. senators are right to push other countries to follow suit and to pursue additional pressure for regime change in Burma.”

Congressional action followed an attack May 30 against Suu Kyi and her supporters as they were making their way to address a rally several hundred kilometres north of Rangoon.

The trip was one in a series made around the country by the pro-democracy leader over the past several months to rally support in the face of an apparent breakdown in a U.N.-mediated 19-month dialogue between her and the regime, known as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC).

The government blamed the violence, in which at least four people were killed and scores more injured, on the NLD. But independent observers, including U.S. diplomats who visited the attack site last week, and eyewitnesses said her caravan was essentially ambushed by ”thugs”, as the State Department described the attackers.

Suu Kyi was rumoured to have been hurt in the attack, but this was denied by the U.N. envoy on Burma, Razali Ismail, who was permitted to visit her briefly earlier this week.

Suu Kyi and her top lieutenants were arrested and flown back to Rangoon Friday night, where they have been held at an undisclosed location. Razali said government officials assured him that she would be freed within the next two weeks.

Security forces arrested or surrounded the homes of other senior NLD leaders after the attack and closed university campuses and colleges that have been strongholds of anti-military sentiment.

They also closed NLD offices around the country in what has been seen as the worst crackdown against the opposition since 1990, when the military arrested hundreds of NLD activists after elections in which the party won over 80 percent of the vote.

Apart from measures by the U.S. Congress, the administration of President George W Bush has also been moving to tighten sanctions against Burma.

Writing in ‘The Wall Street Journal’ Thursday, Secretary of State Colin Powell noted that Washington, which already has a ban on the issuance of visas for the United States for top government officials and their families, has expanded the visa ban to include officials in the pro-government Union Solidarity Development Association and the managers of state-run enterprises.

”It is time to reassess our policy toward a military dictatorship that has repeatedly attacked democracy and jailed its heroes,” noted Powell. ”The time has come to turn up the pressure on the SPDC.”

The junta’s recent actions reflected its character, Powell wrote. "Our response must be equally clear if the thugs who now rule Burma are to understand that their failure to restore democracy will only bring more and more pressure against them and their supporters."

With the United States taking the lead in putting pressure on the Burmese government, Sen John McCain also argued for a boycott by Powell of meetings next week of the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Burma is a member, if the crisis there is not on top of the agenda.

He was referring in particular to U.S. participation in the ASEAN Regional Forum, a forum for discussing security issues, and ASEAN’s meetings with different governments, including the United States and the European Union. These meetings take place around the annual meetings of ASEAN foreign ministers, set this year for Jun.16-20.

But sanctions against Burma’s regime are only a first step, said Aung Din. "The U.S. is pressuring Asian countries to act on Burma, and is raising the issue with members of the U.N. Security Council to see an end to Than Shwe’s tyranny," he added.

The proposed ban on goods made or produced in Burma would remain in place until the president certifies to the Congress that the regime has made ” substantial and measurable progress” in ending human rights abuses and moving toward a democratic government in dialogue with Suu Kyi and the NLD.