Allies expand Burma sanctions

Ottawa the UK and the EU Tuesday  announced sanctions against 3 individuals and 4 entities for supplying weapons and military equipment to the Myanmar military.

The sanctions announced respond to the ongoing and increasing aerial attacks by the Myanmar military regime. Over the last six months, military airstrikes killed almost 400 civilians, including more than 60 children, and injured more than 750 people.

Scam Centers

Among the listed are

 Chit Linn Myaing Group (CLM) and its founder and former chairman Colonel Saw Chit Thu. CLM is a group of companies that is involved with and profits financially from activities in scam compounds in the area of Myawaddy township on the Thai-Myanmar border, including the city of Shwe Kokko. The latter is a hub for transnational crime, including online fraud, drug and human trafficking, and is experiencing massive human rights violations, including forced labour and torture. Furthermore, CLM is closely associated with the Tatmadaw (Myanmar Armed Forces), with whom it collaborates, for example by informing the Tatmadaw about opponents of the government and by forcefully recruiting soldiers.

The actions address the growing threat of scam operations in Myanmar, which entail serious human rights violations and are increasingly threatening the peace, security and stability in the country and the region.

The U.N. special envoy for Myanmar has warned that the Southeast Asian nation is in crisis, with conflict escalating , criminal networks “out of control” and human suffering at unprecedented levels, according to the Associated Press.

Julie Bishop told the U.N. General Assembly’s human rights committee on Tuesday in her first report since being appointed by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last April that “Myanmar actors must move beyond the current zero-sum mentality.”