Myanmar slams U.S. over renewed sanctions

Myanmar slams U.S. over renewed sanctions

Agence France-Presse, Agence France Presse, Yangon

Myanmar's military-run regime on Friday strongly criticized the United States for renewing sanctions and said it was too focused on the fate of detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

U.S. President George W. Bush signed a law on Wednesday extending a range of sanctions for 12 months after continued criticisms over Suu Kyi's continued detention and the slow pace of democratic reforms.

In a scathing response, the junta in Myanmar condemned U.S. policies as "self-defeating" and said they could derail Myanmar's moves toward becoming a democracy, a process that critics have condemned as a sham.

"Instead of focusing on a single individual, we encourage Washington to consider the entire population of Myanmar," the regime said in a statement, referring to the Nobel peace prize winner.

Suu Kyi is currently more than a year into her third period of house arrest. Her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won elections in 1990 by a landslide but has never been allowed to rule.

"Sanctions merely delay or even derail Myanmar's proper evolution to a democracy," said the regime statement.

"But the U.S. still seems to believe that sanctions and invasions are the solutions to all the problems the world is facing today."

The junta said the U.S. would benefit from trade, democracy, ending the drugs trade and an economically stable Myanmar but it claimed that the U.S. was hampering any move toward a democracy.

Myanmar's military rulers began a national convention in May, the first of what it says are seven steps to democracy, but it has been boycotted by the NLD because it said its views about reform were being ignored.

"If our countries are to move forward it is clearly a time for Washington to constructively join us in building a modern, a prosperous and enduring democracy in Myanmar," said the statement from the regime that has ruled Myanmar since 1962.

The sanctions were enshrined in a 2003 law signed by Bush to pressure the Yangon junta to improve its human rights record, promote democracy and clamp down on drug trafficking.

The law includes banning U.S. investments in and imports from Myanmar, financial services and certain property dealings. It also imposes an arms embargo and suspends all bilateral aid.