Philippines member of parliament Mario ‘Mayong’ Joyo Aguja said international policies on Burma should be reviewed and practical solutions favoured during a workshop in New Delhi today.

Aguja told participants at the one-day workshop titled Sustainable Solutions for Burma’s Crisis and Regional Cooperation, sanctions should be reviewed to find more effective ways of promoting change in Burma.

“There are different ways of looking at sanctions . . . does it change the behavior of the regime? For now, people are saying it did not [work],” said Aguja, also a member of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus.

Aguja said international and regional governments needed to review and reassess their policies on Burma to see, “in what other ways the sanctions could be used to hit the regime but not affect the people”.

“Sanctions are political instruments that could be use against a regime… but I think it could be a combination of things. Political dialogues on one hand and sanction on the other hand by adjusting on the real politics and conditions of the area,” Aguja said.

Aguja also said he would push for a debate on sanctions against Burma during a presentation to the Danish parliament on April 6.

Delivering a key-note speech at the workshop, Indian member of parliament Nirmala Deshpande agreed sanctions should be reviewed and a new strategy on Burma developed that involved regional countries including China and India.

“It will be the interest of all countries to work for the establishment of democracy in Burma, and especially the neighboring countries and ASEAN countries should work together,” said Deshpande.