President Bush Announces New Sanctions Against the Military Government of Myanmar

President Bush announced new sanctions against Myanmar's military government on Friday. He spoke from the Diplomatic Reception Room, and was flanked by his wife Laura, who has been an outspoken critic of the Myanmar government's abuse of human rights, and by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who has also addressed this issue.

Bush, referring to Myanmar by its previous name of Burma, said that "Burma's rulers continue to defy the world's just demands to stop their vicious persecution."

The new sanctions include extending sanctions to eleven more members of the Myanmar government and to twelve more individuals and organizations, and tightening export control regulations. These sanctions are in addition to the ones the U.S. imposed last month.

Bush called for the Myanmar government to give humanitarian organizations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, access to political prisoners; to allow pro-democracy movement leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other detained leaders to communicate with each other; and to let United Nations Special Envoy Ibrahim Gambari, who is travelling in the region and apparently has not yet gotten permission to re-enter Myanmar, into the country immediately.

Bush applauded the efforts of the European Union, Australia, Japan, Singapore, the Philippines, and Indonesia. He asked other nations -- significantly, singling out China and India -- "to review their own laws and policies."

Earlier on Friday, in the day's White House press briefing, Press Secretary Dana Perino was asked why the President thought additional sanctions would work now, when they have failed for decades. She replied, "Well, we believe that tightening the noose around the leaders in Burma -- and including those who help them do their evil work through funding their activities or going out to do their bank transactions or buying their luxury goods to pass them on to them -- will have an effect of explaining that not only is the regime, the main leaders of the regime the target of our sanctions, but so will be the people who are working for them." -- an answer that does not seem to directly address the question of why they think sanctions would work now when they haven't before.

Sources

President Bush Discusses Sanctions on Burma, The White House Office of the Press Secretary, October 19, 2007

White House Press Briefing, October 19, 2007

See also

May Monten, Rice Urges United Nations Special Envoy to Return to Myanmar, October 15, 2007

May Monten, The United Nations is Sending Its Adviser Back to the Myanmar Region, October 11, 2007

May Monten, United States Imposes Economic Sanctions Against Myanmar, September 28, 2007