Washington, DC - Canada and our European Union partners took action this week to continue the promotion of accountability for the atrocities in Burma. We strongly support these actions.

The Department of State is working closely with our allies and partners to promote accountability for those responsible for the ethnic cleansing in Rakhine State, and for serious human rights abuses against members of other minority groups, including in Kachin and Shan States. To that end, we have taken a number of steps, including: ceasing issuance of visas to current and former senior leaders of the Burmese military; assessing that there is credible information implicating all military units and officers involved in operations in northern Rakhine State, as well as their full chain of command, in the commission of gross violations of human rights, such that those units and individuals are ineligible to receive U.S. assistance; and supporting the mandate of the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Burma. In December of 2017, the President sanctioned former Western Command Major General Maung Maung Soe for his role in the events related to the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya, and publicly discussed the possibility of further targeted sanctions, among other actions, against those responsible for human rights abuses.

The United States has been and will continue to be engaged in a whole-of-government response to the humanitarian and human rights aspects of the crisis in Rakhine State.