By Elishya Perera
(CU)_Since the military coup in Myanmar on 1 February, the international community has been struggling to agree on a coordinated response to the crisis.
The country’s neighbours themselves have attempted overlook the matter, with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) being reluctant to interfere with what they say is an internal affair of Myanmar. Meanwhile, the UN Security Council has also been held back particularly by Russia, China, India and Vietnam from imposing tough measures for the same reasons.
The state of affairs in this Southeast Asian nation has already cost the lives of over 500 civilians, while another 2,500 others have been forcibly disappeared by the junta.
However, it is starting to become apparent that this may longer be a mere “internal” matter, with the issue extending beyond Myanmar’s border and becoming a transitional problem that will affect the peace and security of the region all together. Concerns are growing that the crisis could lead to destabilisation of the entire region, as it would particularly drive refugee flows in large numbers.
These factors call for the international community to agree on coherent action that could change the military’s behaviour. One obvious solution for this is the imposition of economic sanctions, although this too has been subject to much debate.
Incidents in the past have proven that general sanctions may be problematic when attempting to change the behaviour of authoritarian regimes, as many leaders invariably find ways around these embargoes, which means that it would be civilians who bear this cost of isolation.
This therefore suggests that a more suitable response would be targeted sanctions against the authoritarian regimes and the financial interests which sustain them. This has proven to be more effective as they impose pressure on the authorities without affecting the broader population.
Previous incidents, which led to the United States and other countries to impose sanctions on the Southeast Asian nation have provided the international community with a greater understanding of the transnational revenue streams of the country’s military junta.
For instance, a report released by the UN Fact-Finding Mission (UNFFM) in 2019 details the diverse enterprises linked to Myanmar’s military which funnel revenue from foreign businesses. On the other hand, researchers have also found several illegal sources of income of the junta, which includes the trade of drugs, wildlife and timber, as well as human trafficking.
The approach of initiating targeted sanctions has already been launched to some extent by the United States and the United Kingdom, which have frozen assets and halt corporate trading with two conglomerates which have links to the junta.
However the countries which refuse to interfere with this “internal matter” of Myanmar are evidently reluctant to follow the same approach. It is for this reason that the international rights group, Human Rights Watch, has urged governments to enforce anti-money laundering and anti-corruption measures, which would enable them to avoid direct intervention within Myanmar, and merely enforce their domestic laws instead.
This would be particularly ideal for Myanmar’s largest trading partners such as China, India and Japan who could impose restrictions on domestic business leaders when conducting transactions with Myanmar’s military and business elites. This would amount to a mere enforcement of domestic laws regarding appropriate business practices, instead of interfering in another state’s affairs, which they are loath to do.
With more and more people being killed or detained or made to disappear with each passing day, international action is becoming more urgent. As Myanmar’s special envoy to the UN said, “history will judge us harshly” if the world fails to put an end to this bloody crackdown launched against these human rights defenders and members of civil society.
