myanmar's military regime is facing
growing pressure both at home and abroad
three weeks after it seized power the
european union has warned that it's
considering sanctions and the u.s has
penalized two more generals
protests continue to swell in myanmar
despite the authority's threat to use
force against the crowds
at least three protesters have been
killed even though the regime insists
that police are using
minimal force
and let's bring in journalist dave
grunbaum for more on this story hi dave
good to see you
so the military warning that protesters
could suffer
loss of life if they continue to go out
in the streets that seems to only have
encouraged protests more hasn't it
brought out tremendous numbers of
protesters yesterday i mean you saw the
massive crowds it was
the biggest number of demonstrators we
had seen so far
there are some estimates that across the
country there may have been a total of a
million people demonstrating and i would
not be surprised at all that number
was accurate at the same time though a
lot of these demonstrators they take
that threat
very seriously some of the protesters
yesterday
and today they've got on their arms
their blood type
and the contact information for their
next of kin
because they know this is a military
that in the past has
gunned down protesters on the streets
2007
1988 and other times so now the question
is where's the military's line this time
where they would potentially use
deadly force again let's talk about the
sanctions here dave we know that the u.s
has penalized two more generals the eu
right now is considering sanctions
as well is that going to force the
military generals to change their
attitude
no sanctions from the west that's not
going to get the generals to give up on
the just go back to the bunker they
they knew these were going to eventually
come
when they went forward with the coup on
february 1st they made those
calculations
before february 1st what the west needs
to do is to get some asian countries
on board with pressure to pressure the
generals to reverse course
asian countries that would have
influence on the military general such
as china and some southeast asian
countries
but here's the thing these countries
while they've said don't gun down
protesters
release songsuchi none of them have
shown any stomach
to say hey reverse the coup that hasn't
happened and until that happens
international sanctions aren't going to
have a huge impact on the general's
calculations
what about targeting business interests
the european union says
it will not cancel special trade
privileges that allow myanmar
terror-free access
to the eu's market what do you make of
that
well this is an important thing because
these trade preferences
that myanmar gets now it allows
industries such as textiles and myanmar
to get excuse me tara free access
to the eu's 450 million consumers
i mean it creates tens of thousands of
jobs i've met some of the people who
fill them and a lot of them
they come from these remote villages in
the countryside and they come to the
cities to work in these plants
and they send most of their pay back
home to their families it's a big deal
you take away that tariff-free access to
the eu and those jobs are gone
and this is a lesson learned from
sanctions of the past when the west had
really harsh
widespread economic sanctions on the amr
during its 50 years of military rule
and the people who paid the price during
that
were not the generals they still found
ways to make millions of dollars but it
was the common people
who didn't have jobs and were living in
poverty in part because of that
so that's why now you see the west
aiming for targeted sanctions at the
generals and military-lying businesses
as opposed to widespread sanctions like
they had in the past
journalist dave gruenbaum thank you for
that analysis
sure thing