The U.S. will move to ease financial and investment sanctions on Burma, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced Wednesday, following weekend elections that she said represented an “important step in the country’s transformation” after decades of harsh military rule.
She said the beginning of “targeted easing” of bans on U.S. financial services and investment in the long-closed country was part of a broader effort to help accelerate economic modernization and political reform.
Washington will also open up programs for aid, health, and education in Burma and set in motion plans to have a U.S. ambassador in Naypyidaw, restoring full diplomatic relations after a 20-year gap, she added.
“We are prepared to take steps toward:
- First, seeking agreement for a fully accredited ambassador in Rangoon in the coming days, followed by a formal announcement of our nominee;
- Second, establishing an in-country USAID mission and supporting a normal country program for the United Nations Development Program;
- Third, enabling private organizations in the United States to pursue a broad range of nonprofit activities from democracy building to health and education;
- Fourth, facilitating travel to the United States for select government officials and parliamentarians; and
- Fifth, beginning the process of a targeted easing of our ban on the export of U.S. financial services and investment as part of a broader effort to help accelerate economic modernization and political reform," she said.
'Wrong side
But Clinton said sanctions and prohibitions will stay in place on Burmese individuals and institutions “that remain on the wrong side” of landmark reform efforts being made in the country.
Washington has not determined the exact nature or timeline for easing the financial sanctions, U.S. officials were quoted saying.
Clinton’s announcement came after by-elections in Burma on Sunday in which democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy’s scored a landslide victory.
The U.S. and other foreign governments had said the elections would be a crucial test of the Burmese military-backed government’s commitment to recent reforms.
“The results of the April 1st parliamentary by-elections represent a dramatic demonstration of popular will that brings a new generation of reformers into government,” Clinton said, praising the government for making “further progress” in advancing the “aspirations of the people.”
Clinton praised the reforms that President Thein Sein’s nominally civilian government has taken since last year, including releasing political prisoners and improving dialogue with ethnic minority groups.
“The leadership has shown real understanding and commitment to the future of their country,” Clinton said.
“President Thein Sein and many of his colleagues inside the government helped launch their country on a historic new path.”
But she said further efforts must be made to completely remove sanctions, which were imposed beginning in 1988 in response to human rights abuses by the then-ruling military junta.
Too fast?
Some critics fear the lifting of sanctions may be coming too fast and be too much of a reward for carrying out the by-elections marred by widespread irregularities in voter lists and other breaches of voting rules.
The 43 seats captured by NLD made up only seven percent of the 664 parliamentary seats dominated by the military backed ruling party and the armed forces.
Aung Din, executive director of the Washington-based U.S. Campaign for Burma, said the move to lift the financial and investment sanctions was an “enormous gift” to the Burmese government.
“What they have achieved [in getting] from the United States for giving seven percent of the seats in parliament to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is enormous,” he said.
A U.S. policy of only engagement toward Burma, as opposed to a dual-track policy of both engagement and sanctions, would be “the perfect match for the Burmese regime’s policy of ‘give little and get more,’” he said.
He hoped the U.S. would take its time with the targeted easing of sanctions in order to “secure irreversible development in Burma” and that it would properly consult with human rights organizations inside and outside the country.
Reported by Rachel Vandenbrink.