New Delhi - United States’ President Barrack Obama on Friday formally extended sanctions against Burma for another year, saying the actions and policies of Burma’s ruling junta has not changed and continues to be hostile towards the US and it’s foreign policy.
“I have determined that it is necessary to continue the national emergency with respect to Burma and maintain in force the sanctions against Burma to respond to this threat,” Obama said in his official message to the Congress.
He said, the actions and policies of the Burmese regime, including its engaging in large-scale repression of democratic opposition have led the former US administrations to declare a national emergency.
“These actions and policies are hostile to U.S. interests and pose a continuing unusual and extraordinary threat to national security and foreign policy of the United States,” he added.
Obama’s declaration, which had been earlier been previewed by US officials, despite an official review of US policy on Burma. Hillary Clinton, earlier this year, has said that the US policy on Burma in the past had not been able to change the behaviour of the military junta and so the US is reviewing it.
Clinton said, the US would like to find the best way ‘to sway’ the Burmese regime stating that both sanctions as well as engagement policy applied by neighboring countries have failed to bring desirable results.
The US first introduced economic sanctions in 1997 and renewed it in 2003. And in 2007 the US tightened its sanctions in response to the Burmese junta’s brutal crackdown on Buddhist monks, who led protest demonstrations in September 2007.
In April the European Union announced extension of its sanctions against Burma for another year. But they expressed willingness to relax and talk if the junta showed signs of implementing democratic changes.
Obama’s announcement was immediately applauded by a campaign group working for democratic changes in Burma.
Jeremy Woodrum, director of the US campaign for Burma (USCB), in a written statement on Friday welcomed the announcement saying, “We welcome President Obama's decision to extend sanctions on Burma."
But there has been a wide range of debate among Burma observers over the effectiveness of the sanctions on Burma, with arguments stating the sanctions hit harder on the impoverished ordinary people then the ruling regime.
Derek Tonkin, a former British Ambassador to Thailand, who had long standing interest on Burma, in an interview with Mizzima earlier said, sanctions hurt the ordinary peoples’ business but failed to bring any form of behavioral changes in the ruling regime.
Aung Naing Oo, a Burmese analyst based in Thailand, said “Sanctions have missed the target” and failed to bring its primary objectives of forcing the regime to change its behaviour.
But on the other hand, economic experts like Sean Turnell from Australia’s Macquarie University argue that Burma’s economy has been made worse by the junta’s policies and sanctions are merely an expression against the junta’s ill policies.
Turnell said Burma’s population has been brought to severe poverty by the decades’ long failed economic policies and their fear to implement reforms in economic policy.
Turnell, in an earlier interview with Mizzima, said “the junta’s bizarre policies are the root cause of economic devastation,” but sanctions are largely made ineffective because of the regional countries’ ‘engagement policy’, which also failed to bring change in the Southeast Asian country.
