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US slaps fresh sanctions on Myanmar

Military-run Myanmar was under renewed pressure yesterday after the US announced a new round of sanctions following the junta's bloody crackdown on dissent.

US President George W. Bush's new penalties targeted the country's military leaders late on Friday and also urged China and India, Myanmar's neighbors and main allies, to step up pressure on the military government.

"The people of Burma are showing great courage in the face of immense repression," Bush said in the Diplomatic Room of the White House. "They are appealing for our help. We must not turn a deaf ear to their cries."

It is the second time in four weeks that the US has increased sanctions on the junta following the military regime's clampdown on protests.

State media in Yangon has yet to speak about the latest US action, while detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition party, the National League for Democracy, also declined to comment on the move.

However, a diplomat based in Yangon voiced scional pressure since it violently put down peaceful protests, led by Buddhist monks, in Yangon on Sept. 26, killing at least 13 people and detaining some 3,000 people.

In the wake of the violence, the US ordered a freeze on the assets of 14 top officials, including Myanmar's junta leader General Than Shwe.

On Friday, Washington further tightened sanctions by adding 11 more junta leaders -- including 10 government ministers -- to the existing list of 14 officials whose US assets had been frozen.

Anti-junta rallies began in August following a massive hike in fuel prices and snowballed into the biggest challenge to the iron-fisted regime in nearly two decades.

The crackdown sparked global outrage against the junta, with the US and the EU tightening sanctions, while the UN also urged the regime to open talks with Aung San Suu Kyi.

The US has imposed sanctions due to Myanmar's rights abuses, including the detention of 62-year-old Nobel peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent most of the past 18 years under house arrest in Yangon.

Aung San Suu Kyi has publicly discouraged foreign investment in Myanmar in a bid to pile pressure on the military, which has ruled the Southeast Asian country since 1962.

But the impact of the sanctions has been weakened by the eagerness of China, India and Thailand to tap Myanmar's rich natural wealth.
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