The United States on Wednesday announced sanctions against two children of the head of the Burmese military junta that overthrew the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi, and against six companies it controls.
Aung Pyae Sone and Khin Thiri Thet Mon are the son and daughter of the commander-in-chief of the Burmese military forces, General Min Aung Hlaing, already under sanctions for his responsibility in the coup, said the US Department of the Treasury in a statement.
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Aung Pyae Sone and Khin Thiri Thet Mon control several companies
"which directly benefited from their father's position and his nefarious influence,"
the ministry said.
The press release specifies in particular that Aung Pyae Sone won in 2013 a 30-year lease contract for a restaurant and a gallery without having a competitor, and that until 2018, its rents amounted to only 1% of the rental market in the same area.
Khin Thiri Thet, for his part, runs the production house Seventh Sense, under an exclusive contract with an actor who appears in commercials for Mytel, the telephone operator created by General Min Aung Hlaing.
The sanctions involve the freezing of their possible assets in the United States and the prohibition of access to the American financial system.
"The leaders of the coup and the adult members of their families should not be able to continue to profit from the regime as it uses violence and tightens its grip on democracy,"
said the secretary of US State Antony Blinken in a separate press release.
The United States
"condemns"
the
"horrific attacks"
by security forces on the protest movement in Burma that have left at least 53 dead, and the arrest and detention of more than 1,700
"politicians, doctors, advocates and advocates. human rights, journalists, union leaders and people exercising their rights, ”
he added.
The junta leader and his deputy had already been subject to sanctions since the end of 2019 for their role in the bloody repression of Rohingya Muslims.
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