By NAHAL TOOSI
Weeks after
Myanmar’s armed forces began raping, killing and displacing minority Rohingya
Muslims, President Donald Trump’s administration promised to hold the Asian
nation accountable for what some researchers say is a genocide.
Almost a year later,
the United States has imposed economic sanctions on just one Myanmar military
leader; Congress has failed to pass legislation penalizing the country; and
efforts to further restrict minimal U.S.-Myanmar military ties have stalled.
Now, ahead of the
expected release of a State Department investigation into the Rohingya crisis,
new documents obtained by POLITICO show how the Trump administration isn’t even
fully enforcing tough Myanmar-related U.S. laws already on the books.
According to
material, the administration, invoking questionable grounds of “national
interest,” has been permitting the children of some past and present Myanmar
military leaders to travel to the U.S. — despite a years-old law prohibiting
such immediate relatives from obtaining U.S. visas.
Meanwhile, the
administration, citing the same law, insists it is taking a hard line on
Myanmar by not granting visas to the military leaders themselves.
Congressional aides
and human rights activists say such selective enforcement of existing U.S. visa
sanctions underscores the mixed signals the U.S. has sent to Myanmar, also
known as Burma, about its views on the atrocities committed against the
Rohingya.
The U.S. would send
a much tougher message to Myanmar’s military leaders if it refused to issue
waivers to the visa ban for their relatives as well as themselves, observers
say.
“It’s natural that
sanctions are going to hit home the most when your family is affected,” said
Simon Billenness, executive director of the International Campaign for the
Rohingya. “Even those army commanders who are guilty of horrific human rights
abuses, they still care about their family.”
In response to
several questions, a State Department spokesman noted that U.S. rules restrict
what the department can say about individual applicants, but added: “In the
cases of waivers for children, we consider them on a case-by-case basis
consistent with our overall policy objectives for Burma.”
Those objectives,
the spokesman said, include supporting Myanmar’s recent efforts to transition
from military rule to a democratic civilian government.
Some 700,000
Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since the Myanmar military began its crackdown
last Aug. 25. Since January, the U.S. has issued at least five travel waivers
for the children of past and present Myanmar military leaders so that they can
obtain U.S. visas, according to “sensitive but unclassified” congressional
notifications shared with POLITICO.
In accordance with
the 2008 law barring such individuals from U.S. entry, the State Department has
had to make the case for the waivers on grounds that it is in America’s
“national interest” to grant the visas.
But the grounds that
are invoked often seem to stretch that definition.
One waiver went to
the son of a Myanmar brigadier general on U.S. national interest grounds
because he “has potential to become an influential leader in the field of
biodiversity scientific research and management.” Another was granted to the
daughter of a retired brigadier general because “furthering Burma’s capacity in
her field of study, organizational development, is in the U.S. national
interest.”
The daughter of a
navy rear admiral received a waiver so she could keep attending New York
University. The State Department argued that the student’s desire to return to
Myanmar and set up “entrepreneurial programs with maximum social impact” was in
America’s national interest.
One case arguably
had more merit than others: The son of a retired Myanmar general received a
waiver because of his record of supporting press freedom; the man had spent
years imprisoned when Myanmar was fully under military control.
But another case
raised questions about whether the U.S. is giving favorable treatment to some
of the very people it should be pressuring to stop mistreating the Rohingya.
The case involved
the daughter of a top military official serving in Myanmar’s embassy in
Washington. The State Department argued that she should be permitted to visit
her father because “it will foster a positive relationship with Burma’s
Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”
A congressional aide
said that, aside from the cases shown in the documents obtained by POLITICO,
there were at least two other instances of children of Myanmar military leaders
granted U.S. entry.
U.S. lawmakers can
complain about the visa waivers but can’t block them. Among those watching are
the ranking Democrats on the Senate and House foreign affairs committees, Sen.
Robert Menendez of New Jersey and New York’s Rep. Eliot Engel of New York.
A Menendez aide said
several Senate offices had raised concerns with the Trump administration over
its use of its visa waiver authority for Myanmar and “whether such waivers are
appropriate given the lack of accountability over human rights abuses and
political oppression.”
In a statement,
Engel said, “It’s unacceptable that the administration continues to waive
certain sanctions on Burma while refusing to ratchet up the pressure on the
Burmese military.”
Human rights
activists say there are some justifiable reasons to grant relatives of
Myanmar’s military leaders U.S. visas, including the need for special medical
treatment.
They warned,
however, that the Trump administration’s unwillingness to use every tool it has
to respond to the Rohingya crisis would lead Myanmar’s military to believe that
it will ultimately get away with what the U.S. itself calls an “ethnic
cleansing.”
It doesn’t help that
America has done so little else to punish Myanmar, they said.
“Given what’s
happened over the last year to the Rohingya, re-imposing the strongest targeted
sanctions to squeeze the military officials would be the smartest approach,”
said Sarah Margon, Washington director for Human Rights Watch.
Billenness’ organization
has asked Trump to re-impose other sanctions on Myanmar that President Barack
Obama lifted via executive authority. Obama removed those sanctions as part of
a rapprochement with Myanmar as the Buddhist-majority country moved toward
democracy.
There’s no sign
Trump plans to reverse Obama’s actions. But it is possible that when the State
Department releases the results of its Rohingya investigation later this month,
it will announce new sanctions on a handful of Myanmar security officials.
Those sanctions have been in bureaucratic limbo because Treasury Department
officials are not on board.
In Congress, Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has blocked bipartisan attempts to impose
sanctions or otherwise penalize the Myanmar military. McConnell is a major
supporter of Myanmar’s de facto civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, and he
worries that new sanctions will undermine her long-running efforts to bring the
country to full democracy. Myanmar’s civilian rulers still do not control the
military.
Aung San Suu Kyi, a
Nobel Peace Prize laureate who spent years under house arrest for standing up
to Myanmar’s generals, was long viewed as an icon of hope for the oppressed
people of her country. But after her release, she has failed to stand up for
the Rohingya, whose cause is politically unpopular in the country, thus badly
damaging her global reputation.
The State Department
visa waiver information obtained by POLITICO was all approved by the head of
the division that handles East Asian and Pacific Affairs. That bureau has often
argued against imposing sanctions on Myanmar, saying that economic engagement
is more effective in changing a country’s behavior. It has often clashed with
U.S. officials focused on human rights.
The Trump
administration has used various types of sanctions extensively. But it has been
inconsistent in how it has treated different countries.
For instance, while
only certain categories of Myanmar citizens are restricted from getting U.S.
visas, the Trump administration has imposed far more draconian travel bans
affecting nearly everyone from a handful of majority-Muslim countries,
including Iran and Syria.
And while to date
only one Myanmar military official has been sanctioned over the crisis
involving hundreds of thousands of Rohingya, the administration recently
sanctioned two members of the Turkish Cabinet over the continued detention of
an American Christian pastor.
Trump aides have
faced criticism for being slow to react to the Rohingya crisis in its first few
weeks.
In one case,
documents show that the U.S. granted a Myanmar general permission to attend a
Hawaii gathering of air force leaders in late September. Although his waiver
was granted days before Aug. 25, the State Department would not say whether it
canceled his visa as the crisis quickly grew. It did, however, say the general
did not attend the event.
In the congressional
notifications, the State Department notes that none of the people it is
granting entry, nor their military official relatives, are known to have been
implicated in human rights abuses.
But given the
Myanmar military’s lack of transparency and limits on U.S. access to Myanmar’s
Rakhine state, where the recent atrocities occurred, it’s unclear how the State
Department can assess who is culpable or not.
The Rohingya have
been persecuted for decades in Myanmar. They have little support in the
country, where many residents buy government claims that they are illegal
migrants, even though they have lived in Myanmar for generations.
The military has
called its actions last year a clearance operation targeting Rohingya
insurgents who had attacked its security forces. But recent investigations
indicate the military had planned the crackdown well in advance. PDF: https://lnkd.in/d76iy-b
The Muslim minority
is so despised that Myanmar’s leaders refuse to even use the term Rohingya and
warn other countries not to do so. In the congressional notifications, the
State Department doesn’t use the word, sticking to euphemisms such as “the
situation in Rakhine state.”