U.S. extends Myanmar sanctions over rights abuses

WASHINGTON — The United States intensified its sanctions against Myanmar on Friday, blacklisting four commanders and two units of security forces for their alleged role in violent campaigns against Rohingya Muslims and other ethnic minorities.

Myanmar security forces have engaged in ethnic cleansing, massacres, sexual assault, extrajudicial killings and other human rights abuses, said Sigal Mandelker, Treasury Department undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.

“Treasury is sanctioning units and leaders overseeing this horrific behavior as part of a broader U.S. government strategy to hold accountable those responsible for such wide-scale human suffering,” she said.

The Trump administration earlier imposed sanctions on the chief of Myanmar’s western military command, but it has faced pressure from human rights groups and lawmakers to impose more sanctions on those involved in a crackdown that began in August 2017 in western Rakhine State, where a brutal military operation in response to attacks on security forces sent 700,000 Rohingya fleeing to neighboring Bangladesh.

The Rohingya have long faced severe discrimination in the majority Buddhist nation and were the target of violence in 2012 that killed hundreds and drove more than 140,000 people — predominantly Rohingya — from their homes to camps for the internally displaced.

The government refuses to recognize the Rohingya as a legitimate native ethnic minority, and most Rohingya are denied citizenship and other rights. Myanmar, however, has staunchly denied that its security forces have targeted civilians in so-called clearance operations on Myanmar’s west coast.

In a statement, Myanmar’s embassy in Washington said: “Security forces have been instructed to adhere strictly to the code of conduct in carrying out security operations, to exercise all due restraint, and to take full measures to avoid collateral damage and the harming of innocent civilians.”