A announcement by the European Union that it is considering suspending trade privileges for Burma has alarmed garment firms, which say hundreds of thousands of jobs are at risk.
Frontier Myanmar reports that the move has also puzzled human rights activists and campaign groups, few of whom have lobbied for broad economic sanctions.
Burma Campaign UK director Mark Farmaner told Frontier “It is ridiculous that the EU has rejected sanctions against military owned companies, rejected banning all training of the military, won’t support a UN arms embargo, and won’t even support referring the situation to the International Criminal Court, but is considering imposing a kind of sanction which will mainly affect ordinary people.”