The United States, Britain and Canada on Monday imposed sanctions on seven individuals and two entities connected to Myanmar, the US Treasury Department announced, in the latest measures against people connected to the military that seized power in a coup one year ago.
The Treasury said the sanctions were timed to mark the anniversary of the February 1 coup, in which Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) party were detained after they won a November 2020 general election. The military complained of election fraud, but monitors said the vote reflected the will of the country's people.
"We are coordinating these actions with the United Kingdom and Canada to demonstrate the international community’s strong support for the people of Burma and to further promote accountability for the coup and the violence perpetrated by the regime," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement, using Myanmar's former name.
The Treasury said those added to Washington's list of sanctioned individuals and entities on Monday included the junta's attorney general, Thida Oo, whose office it said had crafted politically motivated charges against Suu Kyi.
Suu Kyi is on trial in more than a dozen cases and has so far been sentenced to a combined six years in detention. She denies all charges.
She will face a further trial on charges of influencing the country's election commission during the 2020 polls that saw her party defeat a military-aligned rival, a source with knowledge of the case said. The case will be wrapped up within six months, the source added.
The Treasury also listed the Myanmar Supreme Court's chief justice and the chairman of the Anti-Corruption Commission, who it said were also involved in the prosecution of Suu Kyi and NLD leaders.
The action freezes any US assets of those blacklisted and generally bars Americans from dealing with them.
It also added a Myanmar army directorate responsible for buying arms from overseas; an alleged arms dealer, Tay Za, and his two adult sons; and a company that operates a port in Yangon in a deal with a military company and its chief executive, the Treasury said.
Britain and Canada were each imposing sanctions on two Myanmar government officials, the department said.
Almost 1,500 civilians have been killed and over 11,000 arrested in its ongoing crackdown, according to a local monitor, with rights groups accusing junta troops of torture and extrajudicial killings.