Free Aung San Suu Kyi!

After years of bad governance and oppression, Burma is one of the poorest countries in the world today. The military regime constantly commits crimes against humanity and numerous violation of human rights have been reported by the United Nations, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, among others. The democratically elected opposition, spiritually led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, is controlled by the military regime through violence and the use force.

Time for economic sanctions!

The efforts to bring the military regime to the negotiation table through the policy of engagement have not been successful. While economic sanctions must always be used with care in order not to hurt the civilian population, several circumstances now speak in favour of imposing sanctions:The democratically elected government in exile is now appealing for sanctions.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) is now also appealing for sanctions – for the first time ever against a member of the organization. One crucial factor supporting ILO:s decision is the military regime’s evident use of forced as well as slave labour.

A trade embargo will not hurt the civilian population as severely as in for example Iraq, since a large proportion of the population are self-supporting farmers.

Revenues from exports are often disproportionably used by the military regime to strengthen the existing mismanagement of the country (i.e. revenues are not redistributed to the population).

Since the military regime is controlling most of companies involved in foreign trade, the revenues are normally directly shunted to the instruments of oppression.