US President Barack Obama on Wednesday said he was ready to lift economic sanctions on Myanmar after meeting the leader of the Asian nation, Aung San Suu Kyi at the White House.
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Sitting beside Suu Kyi in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Obama said the US will “soon” lift restrictions on military-owned companies and officials and associates of the former ruling junta.
Suu Kyi is president in all but name after leading her National League for Democracy party to victory previous year in the country’s first openly contested elections.
The move prompted the U.S.to cut off economic aid and military assistance to Myanmar and downgrade diplomatic relations.
“The United States is now prepared to lift sanctions that we have imposed on Burma for quite some time”, Obama said Wednesday. “It sends a bad message to say you’re not going to reward a government unless they do something, and then reward them anyway”, John Sifton, the deputy Washington director of Human Rights Watch, told the Times.
A senior administration official said afterward that some sanctions would remain on Myanmar, including a longstanding arms ban “in order to ensure that the military remains a partner in the democratic transition”.
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The US president’s deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes has said the Obama administration is considering steps that can be taken to encourage US investment in Myanmar. Washington also began easing sanctions after the military junta began ceding power to civilian rule.
“We have a constitution that is not very democratic, because it gives the military a special place in politics”, she said. Instead, she serves as the country’s de facto leader by holding the positions of foreign minister and state counsellor.
Human rights groups favor keeping sanctions due to military abuses in ethnic minority regions.
Of particular concern is the country’s infamous jade industry, dominated by former junta members, their associates, and the military holding company Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited. She said the transport and energy sectors were suffering from decades of neglect, and support was needed to build the education and health systems and the skills of its people.
For years, American businesses have been shut out of Myanmar, but the USA began easing sanctions in 2011 and is preparing to lift the last obstacles to reward further government reforms.
As recently as last month, the National League for Democracy rejected a proposal in Myanmar’s lower house calling for the USA to lift sanctions.
But it could also weaken United States leverage and perhaps let the military off the hook.
But as she began her first trip to the USA as Myanmar’s leader yesterday, Ms Suu Kyi would be held accountable for what her government has accomplished, and what it has not, since she took office six months ago. In 1989 military rule the name was changed.
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“We would like to invite all of you to come to see our country, to see why you should invest there, and see how you can invest there in such a way that you will benefit from it as much as we can”. Relations have changed from a measure-to-measure approach (in which specific reforms were met with concessions from the US) to a multi-pronged strategy through which conditionality becomes more hard.
