According to this article (subscription required) in today’s Wall Street Journal, recently released Burmese human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi may reconsider her position that the international community should continue to impose sanctions on Burma and its current military regime.

Current sanctions imposed by the United States, in addition to an arms embargo, include blocking the assets of the junta and its political allies, a ban on imports from Burma, a prohibition on new investment in Burma, and rules prohibiting the provision of financial services to Burma, including wire transfers to Burma. Some have argued that some of these sanctions, particularly the import and investment bans, have had little impact on the military junta running the country and that the major impact of these sanctions is on ordinary citizens of Burma. Others have argued that if the sanctions were lifted most of the revenue would go into the junta’s pockets and little would trickle down to ordinary Burmese citizens.

Suu Kyi’s statement in interviews after her release did not come down clearly on one side of this debate or the other

In her first interviews and meetings with diplomats since her release on Saturday, Ms. Suu Kyi said she was willing to consider some revision of sanctions, though she stopped short of committing herself to either side. “If people really want sanctions to be lifted, I will consider this,” she told reporters on Sunday. “This is the time Burma needs help.”

Progressively stricter sanctions imposed on Burma by the United States and Western Governments have been in response to the treatment of Suu Kyi by the junta. Until this weekend she had been under house arrest continuously for the past seven years (and had been under house arrest for 15 out of the past 21 years.) If Suu Kyi revises her support for sanctions, this could well prompt the United States to modify its sanctions on Burma, although the arms embargo under section 126.1 of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations and the blocking of the assets of the Burmese junta and its supporters would almost certainly remain in place.

Permalink


Copyright © 2010 Clif Burns. All Rights Reserved.
(No republication, syndication or use permitted without my consent.)