US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who spent over a quarter century promoting human rights and democracy in Myanmar, is now the principal senator holding up fresh legislation pressuring the country to improve its treatment of the Rohingya, the Phnom Penh Post reports. An act calling for targeted sanctions and travel restrictions on Myanmar military generals sponsored by Senator John McCain and Senator Benjamin Cardin was passed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in February. Legislation with similar penalty language was also passed overwhelmingly in the US House of Representatives in May. Both bills are being obstructed by the majority leader. The tensions underscore how branches of the US government are struggling to find a coherent response to the alleged atrocities in the country’s Rakhine state, which have sent 700,000 mostly Rohingya Muslims fleeing to Bangladesh.