By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
JAKARTA, Feb. 18 -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said
Wednesday that economic sanctions imposed by the United States and
other Western governments had failed to pressure the repressive
Burmese government, signaling a potentially major shift in U.S. policy.
Clinton, at a news conference here, did not deny that easing
sanctions was one of the ideas under consideration by the Obama
administration as part of a major review. "We are looking at possible
ideas that can be presented," she told reporters and said that she
had discussed the issue with Indonesia officials here.
"Clearly the path we have taken in imposing sanctions hasn't
influenced the Burmese junta," she said, adding that the route taken
by Burma's neighbors of "reaching out and trying to engage them has
not influenced them either."
Burma, also known as Myanmar, is regarded as one of the world's most
oppressive nations. The National League for Democracy, the party of
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, won a landslide
electoral victory in 1990, which the military leadership refused to
accept. She has been held in confinement repeatedly since then.
Any move by the Obama administration to scale back sanctions on Burma
could face strong opposition in Congress, where lawmakers have
imposed a series of increasingly tougher restrictions on the
Southeast Asian nation. The Bush administration also invested
significant diplomatic capital into moving Burma for the first time
onto the agenda of the United Nations Security Council, although
proposed resolutions criticizing the junta's behavior have been
vetoed by Russia and China.
Vice President Biden last year was the key mover in the Senate of the
Block Burmese JADE act, which renewed restrictions on the import of
Burmese gems and tightened sanctions on mining projects there. The
act also imposed new financial sanctions and travel restrictions on
the junta's leaders and their associates and created a post for a
high-level envoy and policy coordinator for Burma.
But some humanitarian organizations have begun to question the
sanctions policies. In an influential report issued in October, the
Brussels-based International Crisis Group argued that humanitarian
aid should begin to flow into the country and bans on Burmese
garments, agriculture and fishery products and restrictions on
tourism should be lifted.
"It is a mistake in the Myanmar context to use aid as a bargaining
chip, to be given only in return for political change," the report
said. "Twenty years of aid restrictions -- which see Myanmar
receiving twenty times less assistance per capita than other
least-developed countries -- have weakened, not strengthened, the
forces for change."
While Clinton has been careful not to tip her hand on the direction
of the policy review, she has used strikingly mild language about the
Burmese government, describing "the unfortunate path" taken by Burma,
leaving it "impervious to influence from anyone."
