Myanmar “feels sad” over a US decision to sanction a military general, a government spokesman said.
Washington linked the commander last week to abuses against the Rohingya Muslim minority. of Myanmar,
“This targeted sanction is based on unreliable accusations without evidence, as we have repeatedly said, so we feel sad for that,” Zaw Htay, spokesman for Myanmar’s civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, told Reuters by phone on Tuesday.
The Trump administration announced on December 21 that it was sanctioning Major General Maung Maung Soe.
Maung Maung Soe was in charge of a crackdown on the Rohingya minority in the western state of Rakhine.
The United States, as well as the United Nations, has called the crackdown “ethnic cleansing”. About 655,000 Rohingya have fled Rakhine state and sought shelter over the border in Bangladesh.
The United States said American officials had “examined credible evidence of Maung Maung Soe’s activities, including allegations against Burmese security forces of extrajudicial killings, sexual violence, and arbitrary arrest as well as the widespread burning of villages”.
The military and the civilian government of Suu Kyi have denied allegations of widespread abuse in Rakhine.