US slaps visa ban on junta leaders, sanction to follow

"We have expanded current visa restrictions to include additional members of the State Peace and Development Council-affiliated Union Solidarity and Development Association," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

Members of the council (SPDC), the name of the government, had already been subject to such restrictions as had some members of the affiliated association.

Tap Here to Add The Daily Star As A Trusted Source

The extension of the sanctions mean that all members of the Union Solidarity and Development Association are now included on the visa blacklist, State Department officials said.

In addition, they said, the new restrictions will extend to all managers of state-run enterprises and their families.

Boucher could not say how many people had been added to the visa blacklist, but said the action had come as part of a review of US policy toward Myanmar that began after a May 30 attack on Aung San Suu Kyi's convoy.

"We have been actively reviewing our Burma (Myanmar) policy in light of the current situation," Boucher said, repeating accusations made by the department on Thursday that the attack on the convoy appeared to have been "premeditated."

He then intensified Washington's earlier criticism by saying that Yangon's explanations for the attack and its subsequent arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi were not believable, and a sign that the government was no longer interested in a dialogue with the opposition.

"The explanations that they have made of the violence and subsequent events lack credibility," Boucher said.

"These actions have to be interpreted as suggesting that they have decided to end efforts at national reconciliation," he said. "That, too, would be a very regrettable turn of events."

Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested over the weekend during a political tour of the region and is being held incommunicado at a military camp outside Myanmar's capital, Yangon.

Her arrest came after clashes between her supporters and a military-backed group. The military reported four deaths in the melee, but sources in the country have said that several dozen people may have died.

Meanwhile, UN envoy Razali Ismail met with the Myanmar junta's number-three Saturday to push for a meeting with democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and seek her release after one week in detention, sources said.

Moreover, more than 100 opposition supporters may have been killed in the unrest that led to the Myanmar democracy leader Aun San Suu Kyi's detention, a report said Saturday.

Government-hired thugs wielding sharpened bamboo stakes and wooden clubs "unmercifully pounded" the opposition members in a May 30 ambush in northern Myanmar, BBC radio reported.

The report said that the latest details emerged after an unnamed American investigation team had visited the site of the attack.