Counterproductive Effects of Sanctions - The Myanmar Case Study

This paper attempts to analyse the trend of certain Western countries and the United Nations (UN) to impose or recommend imposition of sanctions on other countries, using Myanmar as a case study. Presently, certain bans have already been imposed or recommended to be imposed by Israel, United States and the UN on officials of Myanmar in the aftermath of the Rohingya Crisis. But this paper is not about Rohingyas and human rights violations. As such, the paper neither concurs nor dispels the allegations made against the Myanmar Government. It argues for the need to ensure that the democratic discourse in Myanmar does not get subsumed by the Rohingya rhetoric and that sanctions in effect subvert the larger democratic process that is currently underway there. Sanctions are counter-productive to the overall scheme of development and democratisation of Myanmar and therefore ethnic minorities themselves. Finally it looks at the way ahead and India’s role in supporting Myanmar.