EU countries demanded sanctions yesterday against senior Myanmar military leaders in response to “serious and systematic” rights abuses against the Rohingya minority in Rakhine State.
A military crackdown on Rohingya communities has driven nearly 700,000 Rohingyas from Myanmar into Bangladesh, where rights groups have collected testimonies about Myanmar troops burning and looting villages, raping women and girls, and killing villagers.
The UN has described the campaign as “ethnic cleansing” that contain “elements of genocide.”
A gathering of foreign ministers in Brussels called on EU foreign minister Federica Mogherini to draw up a list of “proposals for targeted restrictive measures against senior military officers of the Myanmar armed forces responsible for serious and systematic human rights violations without delay.”
No names of specific military officers were mentioned at the meeting, but an EU diplomat told Reuters that the sanctions would target more than one person.
The new EU sanctions come on the tail of US and Canadian sanctions against Major-General Maung Maung Soe, who has been accused of leading the crackdown against the Rohingya.
The EU foreign ministers also called for the extension of an existing embargo on weapons and equipment that can be used for political repression. The embargo dates back to the 1990s.
Once implemented these measures will freeze the EU assets of the targeted Myanmar military officers and ban them from traveling to the EU.
