US sanctions policy on Myanmar has failed: business chief

Thurs July 26, 5:41 AM

by P. Parameswaran

WASHINGTON, July 26, 2007 (AFP) - US sanction on military-ruled
Myanmar has failed and the next American administration may change
tactics to bring about reforms in the Southeast Asian state, according
to the head of a top US business lobby group in the region.

"We can't escape the conclusion that our policies have simply not
moved Myanmar in the right direction nor do they have any reasonable
prospect of doing so," said Matthew Daley, president of the
US-Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Business Council.

"The simple truth is that no country, not even the UK, supports
current American policy in its entirety," he said at a forum organized
by the Washington-based, conservative Heritage Foundation.

Daley said US policy did not have the backing even within ASEAN, of
which Myanmar is a member together with Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia,
Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

"I don't think that the government in Hanoi, the government in
Vientiane, the government in Phnom Penh are going to take or permit
ASEAN to take drastic action against Burma (Myanmar)," he said.

"This is an unpleasant reality, it's inescapable and I think
increasingly recognized and acknowledged by the Burmese community in
exile," he said.

"I think people probably see a change in approach in the future
administration" -- irrespective of whether it is led by a Republican
or Democratic president, he said.

The comments by Daley, the former Southeast Asia head in the US State
Department, came just two days after the US Congress overwhelmingly
passed resolutions maintaining a ban on imports from Myanmar as part
of sanctions for repressing democratic opposition and for human rights
abuses.

Two months earlier President George W. Bush renewed sanctions that
prohibited new investments and exports of financial services and deny
visas to top junta officials.

Eric John, Daley's successor in the State Department, defended the
sanctions policy at the forum when asked whether Washington's move
last month to hold its first high level direct dialogue in many years
with the Myanmar junta leaders in Beijing stemmed from policy failure.

"I won't say that our sanctions policy has failed in Burma ... it's
still a policy that the administration still strongly supports," he
said, citing near unanimity in the administration and strong
bipartisan support in Congress for sanctions.

He chided some countries for undercutting US sanctions by pursuing a
"combination of engagement in isolation" policy with Myanmar by
involving very extensively economically with the gas-rich state.

"We are not going to settle the debate with the international
community of engagement versus isolation. What we try to settle is at
least going in with the same basic message to the (junta) about the
very basic steps it should take if it wishes to engage with the
international community," John said.

Myanmar's military rulers continue to hold under arrest democracy icon
Aung San Suu Kyi -- a Nobel Peace prize laureate whose National League
for Democracy (NLD) political party won 1990 elections but was never
allowed to take office.

She has spent most of the past 17 years under house arrest.

Daley also highlighted what he called the seldom discussed "cost" of
US sanctions policy, including "strategic gains" made by Myanmar ally
China.

He said there was a growing debate in the United States about what
Washington's policy on Myanmar should be, which at one time would have
been a very "risky" affair because of "painful" consequences for
descending from the conventional view.