US senators call for sanction

Members of Congress are sharpening their criticism of Myanmar's crackdown that has forced a half-million Rohingyas to flee to Bangladesh. Republicans and Democrats said yesterday they want the Trump administration to consider sanctions against the perpetrators and to re-evaluate US policy towards the Southeast Asian nation.

Twenty-one senators said in a letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that there's a risk of genocide against the Rohingyas, who have fled en masse in the past month, reports The Associated Press.

The senators said that response has been "extraordinarily disproportionate."

A copy of the letter was obtained by The Associated Press. It urges the Trump administration to hold perpetrators of atrocities in Myanmar's Rakhine State accountable under international law and US law that allows the president to impose sanctions on individuals responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture and other gross violations of human rights in any foreign country.

"Unless immediately addressed, this crisis will have profound long-term consequences for Burma, the region, and the world," the letter says, using the alternative name for Myanmar. Long-standing sectarian tensions between the Rohingya and majority Buddhists have bubbled to the surface as the country has opened up after decades of oppressive military rule.

Signatories of the letter include Ben Cardin, top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and John McCain, Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who recently nixed plans to expand military ties with Myanmar.

Also yesterday, US Ambassador in Dhaka Marcia Bernicat said the US has initiated talks with Bangladesh and Myanmar for resolving the crisis over Rohingyas who fled their homeland amid persecution, reports UNB.

Sending the Rohingyas back to their homeland is a long process and it is not possible to resolve the problem in a month, she told reporters after visiting a registered Rohingya camp in Kutupalong at around 12:30pm.

She said the US fully supports Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's five-point demand to end the crisis.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina placed a five-point proposal at the United Nations for a permanent solution to the crisis.

Bernicat said they will urge the Myanmar government to implement the Annan Commission's report.

She said the United States, through the US Agency for International Development (USAID), is providing an additional $6 million to the UN World Food Program (WFP) to assist the Rohingya refugees who fled to Bangladesh amid persecution in Myanmar. This funding is in addition to the $1 million provided to WFP earlier this year.

Bernicat also visited the offices and service centres of international agencies like IOM (International Organization for Migration), Unicef and UNHCR.

'SUSPEND ARMS SUPPLY TO MYANMAR'

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley yesterday called on countries to suspend providing weapons to Myanmar over violence against Rohingyas until the country's military puts sufficient accountability measures in place, reports Reuters.

"We cannot be afraid to call the actions of the Burmese authorities what they appear to be - a brutal, sustained campaign to cleanse the country of an ethnic minority," Haley told the UN Security Council. "It should shame senior Burmese leaders who have sacrificed so much for an open democratic Burma."

'AS MUCH PRESSURE AS POSSIBLE'

US senators are also calling for Myanmar to allow access to international humanitarian groups and for the US to provide more aid as Bangladesh struggles to cope with the massive and sudden influx of stricken people.

"We need to put as much pressure as possible on the Burmese government. They're responsible for what's happening, and they know that," Cardin told reporters Wednesday. He said the US needs to send a clear message that it could revert to its former policy of sanctions against Myanmar. Those restrictions were lifted as it shifted toward democracy.

At a House foreign affairs hearing Wednesday, lawmakers strongly criticised not just the conduct of Myanmar's military but its civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a former political prisoner who took power last year after an election victory. She said last week the Rohingya refugees would be allowed to return from Bangladesh if they passed a "verification" process.

Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman said that amounted to a Catch-22. He said discriminatory Myanmar law makes it impossible for Rohingyas to prove their nationality. He said it was "outrageous" that Rohingyas who had lived in Myanmar for generations are denied citizenship. He also said the US needed to re-evaluate its policy of having lifted sanctions.

Republican Rep Ted Yoho called for $63 million in planned US aid to Myanmar for fiscal 2018 to be suspended because of the crackdown in Rakhine. The administration has already announced $32 million in assistance, bringing US funds committed for the crisis to $95 million.