US Senator Mitch McConnell has called on the UN Security Council to debate the situation in Burma and impose sanctions against Rangoon.

In a statement released in Washington on Tuesday, he said he would push for renewed sanctions against Burma in the next few weeks and take the UN to task for its weak and tepid response to Rangoon’s refusal to implement UNrelated resolutions.

The US Congress imposed economic sanctions against Burma last year following a May 30 incident in which the opposition leader Aung Sann Suu Kyi was attacked and later detained by the junta regime.

“Unfortunately, the UN’s misguided ‘wait and see’ approach serves to further exacerbate a regional crisis that is a direct result of these undesirable Burmese exports and that neighbouring countries – out of political expediency – refuse to face. Thailand, China, India and other regional neighbours can only bury their heads in the sand for so long.

“As three Burmese were recently sentenced to death for merely talking to the International Labour Organisation, one would think that the secretarygeneral would have publicly and forcefully condemned these sentences as a means to defend both the Burmese victims and the integrity of his own agency,” McConnell said.

“It is not too late for such an expression.”

Source: The Nation