{"id":114478,"date":"2021-02-10T15:37:47","date_gmt":"2021-02-10T23:37:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/69.46.6.243\/?p=114478"},"modified":"2021-02-10T15:37:47","modified_gmt":"2021-02-10T23:37:47","slug":"president-biden-on-the-administrations-response-to-the-coup-in-burma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/?p=114478","title":{"rendered":"President Biden on the Administration\u2019s Response to the Coup in Burma"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, DC&#8230;Thank you for being here on short notice.  I\u2019m going to be very brief, but I \u2014 because the Vice President and I are heading over the Pentagon for an extensive briefing and to make some comments, as we did at the State Department.  So I\u2019m going to be going from here to there, and you\u2019ll get me there as well.  I want to say good afternoon, everyone.  I wanted to give you an update on the latest regarding our response to the military coup in Burma.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3EeuMKAKJg8\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>As you know, the assault on Burma\u2019s transition to democracy remains an issue of deep bipartisan concern.  We\u2019ve consulted at length, for example, with Senator McConnell, who\u2019s had a very keen interest in this, and his team.  And we welcomed their helpful insights.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve also been in close contact with our allies and partners around the world, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region, driving vigorous diplomatic outreach to help coordinate an international response to what happened.  <\/p>\n<p>A strong and unified message emerging from the United States has been essential, in our view, to encouraging other countries to join us in pressing for an immediate return to democracy. <\/p>\n<p>Last week, the United States helped bring together the U.N. Security Council, which issued a strong statement in support of Burmese democracy.  And this week, we will use our renewed engagement on the Human Rights Council to strengthen the world\u2019s commitment to human rights in Burma.<\/p>\n<p>Today, I again call on the Burmese military to immediately release the democratic political leaders and activists and \u2014 that they\u2019re now detaining, including Aung San Suu Kyi.  And she is \u2014 and also Win Myint, the President.<\/p>\n<p>The military must relinquish the power it seized and demonstrate respect for the will of the people of Burma as expressed in their November 8th election.<\/p>\n<p>So today, I\u2019m announcing a series \u2014 a series of actions that we\u2019re taking to begin imposing consequences on the leaders of the coup.  The U.S. government is taking steps to prevent the generals from improperly having access to the $1 billion in Burmese government funds held in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>And today, I\u2019ve approved a new executive order \u2014 (coughs) \u2014 excuse me \u2014 a new executive order enabling us to immediately sanction the military leaders who directed the coup, their business interests, as well as close family members.<\/p>\n<p>We will identify a first round of targets this week.  And we\u2019re also going to impose strong export controls.  And we\u2019re freezing U.S. assets that benefit the Burmese government, while maintaining our support for healthcare, civil society groups, and other areas that benefit the people of Burma directly.<\/p>\n<p>And, finally, as protests grow, violence against those asserting their democratic rights is unacceptable, and we\u2019re going to keep calling it out.  The people of Burma are making their voices heard.  And the world is watching.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ll be ready to impose additional measures, and we\u2019ll continue to work with our international partners to urge other nations to join us in these efforts.<\/p>\n<p>So I thank you all.  I wanted to have that statement before I got in the vehicle to go out to the Pentagon.  And I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll see some of you at the Pentagon.  Thanks for coming over on such short notice.  Thank you.<\/p>\n<p>                                      END                1:26 P.M. EST<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, DC&#8230;Thank you for being here on short notice. I\u2019m going to be very brief, but I \u2014 because the Vice President and I are heading over the Pentagon for an extensive briefing and to make some comments, as we did at the State Department. So I\u2019m going to be going from here to there, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":114479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-government","category-news","last_archivepost"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Fullscreen-capture-2102021-33644-PM.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=114478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/114479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=114478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=114478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=114478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}