Days after US President Joe Biden took office, Myanmar generals led by Commander in Chief Min Aung Hlaing seized power on 1 February, 2021, after complaining of fraud in a November 2020 general election won by democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi's party. Election monitoring groups found no evidence of mass fraud.
In response to the coup, the United States and Western allies sanctioned the junta and its business interests, but have been unable to convince the generals to restore civilian rule after they received military and diplomatic support from Russia and China.Mr Blinken's recognition of genocide and crimes against humanity refers mainly to events in 2017, before last year's coup.
Myanmar has rejected the charge of genocide and urged the court's judges to drop the case. The junta says The Gambia is acting as a proxy for others and had no legal standing to file a case. As well as imposing more economic sanctions on the junta, the United States should press for a UN Security Council resolution that would refer all the military's alleged crimes to the International Criminal Court, Mr Sifton said. If Russia and China veto a resolution, as is likely, Washington should lead action in the UN General Assembly, he said.
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