Name: Myanmar faces new sanctions over military coup | DW News
Uploaded: 2021-02-23T18:38:18.000Z
Duration: 4 min
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Myanmar's military regime is facing growing pressure both at home and abroad three weeks after it seized power.

The European Union has warned that it's considering sanctions and the U.

Protests continued to swell in Myanmar despite the authorities threat to use force against the crowds.

At least three protesters have been killed even though the regime insists that police are using minimal force.

And let's bring in journalist Dave Gruenbaum for more on this story.

So the military warning that protesters could suffer loss of life if they continue to go out in the streets.

That seems to only have encouraged protests more, hasn't it?

It brought out tremendous numbers of protesters yesterday.

It was the biggest number of demonstrators we had seen so far.

There are some estimates that across the country there may have been a total of a million people demonstrating and I would not be surprised at all.

That number was accurate at the same time, though a lot of these demonstrators they take that threat very seriously.

Some of the protesters yesterday and today they've got on their arms, their blood type and the contact information for their next of kin.

Because they know this is a military that in the past has gunned down protesters on the streets.

So now the question is, where is the military's line this time where they would potentially use deadly force again?

Let's talk about the sanctions here, Dave.

We know that the US has penalized two more generals.

The you right now is considering sanctions as well.

Is that going to force the military generals to change their attitude?

That's not going to get the generals thio give up on the coon.

They they knew these were eventually come when they went for with the coup on February 1st.

They made those calculations before February 1st.

What the West needs to do is to get some Asian countries on board with pressure to pressure the generals to reverse course.

Asian countries that would have influence on the military generals such as China and some Southeast Asian countries.

These countries, while they said don't gunned down protesters release Aung Sung Suu Ki None of them have shown any stomach to say Hey, reverse the coup that hasn't happened.

And until that happens, international sanctions are gonna have a huge impact on the general's calculations.

The European Union says it will not cancel special trade privileges that allowed Myanmar tariff free access to the EU's market.

Well, this is an important thing because thes trade preferences that Myanmar gets now it allows industries such as textiles in Myanmar to get excuse me, tire free access to the EU's 450 million consumers.

I mean, it creates tens of thousands of jobs.

I've met some of the people who fill them and a lot of them.

They come from these remote villages in the countryside and they come to the cities to work in these plants and they send most of their page pay back home to their families.

You take away that tariff free access to the EU and those jobs are gone, and this is a lesson learned from sanctions of the past when the West had really harsh widespread economic sanctions on Myanmar during its 50 years of military rule.

And the people who paid the price during that.

They still found ways to make millions of dollars, but it was the common people who didn't have jobs and were living in poverty in part because of that.

So that's why now you see the West aiming for targeted sanctions at the generals and military line businesses as opposed to a widespread sanctions like they had in the past.

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Myanmar faces new sanctions over military coup | DW News

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