...The report comes on the heels of the State Department’s announcement last month of travel bans against four Myanmar generals, including the armed forces’ commander in chief, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, for their role in what has been called genocide of the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority.

As the two-year anniversary of the coordinated attacks against the Rohingya approaches, with more than 800,000 people displaced and no end to the persecution or accountability for its perpetrators in sight, it is clear that the international community’s response has been inadequate and ineffective...

The investigators’ recommendations are clear: Governments should impose targeted financial sanctions on senior military officials and on all military-affiliated businesses, in addition to enacting a comprehensive arms embargo. Private businesses should not do business with the military-linked businesses or businesses owned or controlled by military figures.

This does not mean that governments and businesses should cut all ties with Myanmar, which would likely harm the whole economy, as critics of sanctions often argue. By providing a detailed list of military companies and their affiliates, the investigative team allows sanctions to be targeted, thus reducing their broader impact. Moreover, it is clear that sanctioning the military companies, often opaquely governed and inefficient behemoths, would in the long term, open space in the economy for the burgeoning private sector to compete in areas currently dominated by the military...