Chiang Mai (Mizzima) - Recently, Burmese political parties gave the EU delegation a letter, signed by 10 political parties, calling for an end to sanctions against Burma.

And the EU ambassadors and deputy ambassadors held talks with the leader of the National League for Democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi, and five political party leaders in the Italian Embassy in Rangoon on March 15 about the possibility of lifting of sanctions.

Political party leaders who attended the meeting said that Suu Kyi did not make any comments about the sanctions during the meeting.

The European Union (EU) will decide in April whether to modify or lift sanctions against Burma or not, according to the political parties.

Mizzima conducted an interview with National League for Democracy’s central executive committee member Win Tin about the sanctions against Burma.

Do you think the sanctions against Burma should be lifted or not?

I think the sanctions should be extended. I support Aung San Suu Kyi’s idea that is to review the sanctions only if it harms to the people. I don’t want people to be harmed. It is not just a matter of the junta and the opposition. We need to think about the welfare of the people.

Some said that targeted sanctions should still be imposed. What do you think?

The targeted sanctions should be focused on the generals and their cronies. The targeted sanctions should be imposed. Otherwise, they will be scared of nothing and continue to do anti democratic actions. We have two things, the blanket sanctions and the targeted sanctions, to be considered. I support Aung San Suu Kyi’s idea that if the blanket sanctions can harm the people, we want it to be overhauled. I agree. But, I strongly support the imposition of the targeted sanctions against the junta.

On the other hand, some people are worried that if the targeted sanctions against the Burmese junta were extended, the junta may feel that they were besieged and they will be worse.

Do you think that the targeted sanctions can also harm the people?

As for me, I think that the sanctions against the junta are essential. The targeted restrictions should be focused on them (the top generals), and it cannot harm the people. The targeted sanctions will harm the top generals including Senior General Than Shwe, government leader Shwe Mann and their cronies such as Tay Za. But on the other hand, if the blanket sanctions or non-targeted sanctions can harm the people, we need to review it. This is also Aung San Suu Kyi’s idea.

The sanctions have been imposed against Burma because of the Burmese junta's violation of human rights. What is a clear example of their serious violations of human rights?

In the country, the junta’s serious violations of human rights killed many people. That’s why some countries imposed the sanctions against Burma. If the junta really wants the countries to lift the sanctions against Burma, they must try to stop the violations of human rights. Moreover, they need to allow us the freedom of expression including press freedom. To answer your question, Burma has more than 2,000 political prisoners and that is a serious violation of human rights.

A few days ago, the EU ambassadors and deputy ambassadors held talks with Aung San Suu Kyi and political party leaders about the sanctions. What did Aung San Suu Kyi say about the affair?

As I mentioned above, if the sanctions harm the people, she wants them to be reviewed. She has the same idea like us.

Do you have any plan to carry out a survey to examine whether the sanctions harm the people or not?

We are always listening to people’s voices. So, people from across the country informed us of their feelings and attitudes communicating this to our party via letters.  So, if the sanctions harm the people, we will be informed.

And we have some experts including professors and PhD holders.  We often invited them to take advice from them.

So, we can know whether the sanctions can harm the people or not. So, without considerable evidence and without people’s demands, we cannot accept the idea to urge the countries to lift the sanctions. Aung San Suu Kyi also said the same thing.

We heard that the NLD conducted Division and State level meetings in the party headquarters. In the meetings, did you discuss the sanctions?

Yes, the members form the States and Divisions said they saw the sanctions as a political weapon. But, they cannot know whether the sanctions can harm people or not because the junta put them on the blacklist, so they cannot have the right to examine the people’s opinions freely. But the things they can see are the junta’s serious violations of human rights. The human rights violations occurred in the rural areas, too.

Other things they can see are lack of democracy and the authorities’ serious threats to the activists and the people. And there are many political prisoners. So, they support the idea not to lift the sanctions.

We heard that some political parties urge western countries to lift the sanctions against Burma. What is your attitude on that?

Our idea is different from those political parties. Aung San Suu Kyi and ourselves talked about our attitude about the affair to the NDF leaders when we met. We want the countries to extend the targeted sanctions, but they could not agree. In fact, the NDF leaders are just following the ideas of some countries only after the NDF was formed. In the past, some of the NDF leaders also accepted that the sanctions needed to be imposed and it was a political weapon. So, in our meeting with them, they could not complain against us. They told that they could understand our idea, too.

If the economic sanctions are lifted, foreign investment will increase. If so, can that benefit the people?

We accept it. We see the sanctions as just a political weapon because of the junta’s serious violations of human rights. In fact, our country is an underdeveloped poor country, so we need huge foreign investment. We can understand. If we want to enjoy the benefits from the foreign investment, they (the foreign investments) need to be useful investments. We don’t know whether those foreign investments conflict with the sanctions. Some investments may need to violate the sanctions. On the other hand, some foreign investments may not violate the sanctions. So, we need to consider what kind of investments can benefit the people.

We heard that some countries, which help with trying to establish democracy in Burma, were considering lifting the sanctions against Burma as they want to invest in Burma. What is your attitude on that?

Those countries really helped Burma’s pro-democracy movement a lot, so I think that they will not oppose our ideas.