European Union member states on Tuesday adopted a new round of sanctions against 19 senior military and political and judicial officials responsible for the crackdown in Burma following the February 2021 coup d’état.
In the fifth round of restrictions against the Burmese regime responsible for the coup, the EU includes the new Minister of Investment and External Economic Relations, Kan Zaw, for being part of the regime that seized power during a military coup and overthrew legitimately elected leaders and for his active role in supporting military efforts to attract foreign investment.
Sanctions also extend to members of the judiciary such as Burma’s Chief Justice Htun Htun Oo for the prosecution of democratically elected leaders and to various officials of the Prisons Department to whom the EU attributes violence, beatings, torture and other inhumane treatment of prisoners in Burma.
In the military section, the EU puts in its ‘black list’ the commander-in-chief of the Air Force, Htun Aung, as well as different officials of the Army, Tatmadaw, for being behind serious violations of Human Rights, crimes and atrocities, including assassinations, land and air attacks against civilians.
The EU has also sanctioned the State Administrative Council, the governing body created after the coup led by General Min Aung Hlaing to exercise state functions and which the EU sees as responsible for policies and activities that undermine democracy.
With this round of punitive measures, the EU brings to a total of 84 natural persons and 11 entities those designated on its blacklist, who are subject to an asset freeze and a travel ban, preventing them from entering or transiting EU territory. In addition, EU individuals and entities are prohibited from making funds available to those sanctioned.
The new sanctions come two years after the legislative elections in which the National League for Democracy of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi won, a result that was never recognized by the military, which ended up staging an uprising to prevent the constitution of the new Parliament.
Since then, the Tatmadaw has violently persecuted demonstrators and activists who advocate the restoration of democracy and the end of military rule, with at least 2,400 people killed since the coup.
