Sep 15, 2016- Long-standing trade sanctions against Myanmar are to be lifted, US President Barack Obama has said.
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Obama and Suu Kyi said in a joint statement Wednesday that the USA will also give preferential trade status to Myanmar “in light of progress on a number of fronts, including strengthening protections for internationally recognized worker rights”. Suu Kyi’s party swept historic elections last November, and the visit by the 71-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate, deeply respected in Washington, is a crowning occasion in the Obama administration’s support for Myanmar’s shift to democracy, which the administration views as a major foreign policy achievement.
The White House is keen to help the country’s economy and Suu Kyi’s administration – which is managing a hard transition from military-run pariah to full-fledged democracy.
Obama’s decision does not normalize relations between the USA military and Myanmar troops.
Human rights groups, however, say there are powerful reasons for retaining sanctions.
“If we can all come together, help them to develop the potential and to eliminate the poverty that so destroys the unity, I think it would be helping not just one country, but the world at large, by proving that divisions can be overcome, that we can create unity out of diversity, that we can put aside suspicion and misunderstandings, and come to an agreement so that we can all do this together”, she said. The U.S. does not intend to provide weapons, military equipment or other support for the military, the official said.
In 1997, the USA government prohibited new investment in Myanmar by US persons or entities. Military abuses continue in ethnic minority regions. Some 125,000 Rohingya remain in temporary camps in the country’s Western Rakhine State following violence in 2012.
“Lifting restrictions on doing business with Burma’s military and its corporate enterprises, as well as the friends and cronies who been enriched by their decades of rule, is not the right thing to do”, Human Rights Watch director John Sifton said.
Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, criticised what he described as Ms Suu Kyi’s “dismissive” reaction to concerns he raised with her about her country’s record on human trafficking.
The United States suspended Burma’s benefits during President George H.W. Bush’s administration in 1989 over worker rights concerns.
The president discussed various issues with Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and the leaders held a joint news conference in the Oval Office. On that occasion, she was presented with the Congressional Gold Medal, the legislature’s highest civilian honor, which she had been awarded in 2008 while under house arrest.
Now she is de facto leader of the country with the title of state counsellor although a junta-era constitution still enshrines the military’s role in politics and bars her from the presidency.
In a statement on Myanmar, the State Department said that several restrictions would remain in place, including barring visas for military leaders.
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.
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“We want to get [Aung San Suu Kyi] thinking on what we can do that is most effective in promoting the democratic transition and promoting greater economic growth”, U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes told NPR.
