Myanmar Border Guard Police are seen in Tin May village, in which Myanmar government and military claim the existence of Muslim terrorists in Rakhine State, Myanmar. Myanmar's military has been accused of committing genocide in the heartland of the country's oppressed Muslim ethnic Rohingya minority. | Ester Htusan/AP Photo U.S. slaps sanctions on Myanmar for ‘atrocities’

The United States on Friday slapped sanctions on four Myanmar security officials and two of the country’s military units for human rights abuses, including ethnic cleansing against the country's minority Muslim Rohingya population.

The announcement from the Treasury Department comes almost exactly a year after a deadly Myanmar military crackdown forced some 700,000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is currently deliberating on whether to declare what happened to the Rohingya a genocide. The announcement also follows months of administration debate over how much to punish Myanmar, also known as Burma, where the U.S. has tried to nurture democratic reforms.


The sanctions were levied in part under the Global Magnitsky Act, which gives U.S. officials broad authority to target people for human rights abuses. U.S. officials noted the case of the Rohingya, but they also pointed out that Myanmar’s military leaders have waged violence against other minority groups, including those in Kachin and Shan states.

“Burmese security forces have engaged in violent campaigns against ethnic minority communities across Burma, including ethnic cleansing, massacres, sexual assault, extrajudicial killings, and other serious human rights abuses,” said Sigal Mandelker, undersecretary of Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence.

“There must be justice for the victims and those who work to uncover these atrocities, with those responsible held to account for these abhorrent crimes,” she added.

The sanctions target Myanmar military commanders Aung Kyaw Zaw, Khin Maung Soe and Khin Hlaing, as well as Border Guard Police commander Thura San Lwin. The military units sanctioned are the 33rd Light Infantry Division and the 99th Light Infantry Division.

As a result of the sanctions, any assets the individuals or entities have within American jurisdiction have been blocked. Americans also are generally prohibited from engaging in financial transactions with those being punished.

Myanmar has a young civilian-led government. But the civilians, headed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate and democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, still have no control over the country’s military, which ruled Myanmar for decades.

Rohingya Muslims have been persecuted for decades in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, and they were effectively stripped of their citizenship in 1982. The group has faced waves of violence over the years, but the crackdown that began last Aug. 25 was the worst in recent history.

In the months afterward, the U.S. imposed economic sanctions on one Myanmar military leader. Since then, there has been a struggle within the U.S. bureaucracy on what else can be done, with some in the Treasury Department arguing that other military officials who could be sanctioned had few assets in the U.S. or elsewhere that would be affected.

Earlier this week, POLITICO reported that the State Department’s own investigation into the atrocities committed against the Rohingya had found “premeditation and coordination” on the part of the Myanmar military, which insists it was simply responding to a Rohingya insurgent attack. Pompeo is mulling whether to call what happened a genocide, or to stick to the ethnic cleansing label that the U.S. has already placed on the case.

The Global Magnitsky Act, which became law in 2016, builds upon an earlier law that imposed sanctions on officials in Russia alleged to have committed human rights abuses.

The measures are named after Sergei Magnitsky, a financial expert investigating corruption in Russia who died in a Moscow jail after being tortured and denied medical aid.

President Donald Trump issued an executive order in December 2017 building on the Global Magnitsky Act and other measures that laid the basis for extensive use of human rights as a reason to impose sanctions. The Treasury Department said Friday that "to date, 84 individuals and entities have been sanctioned" under that executive order.