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Month: June 2022

China’s Xi Jinping says Hong Kong ‘risen from the ashes’ amid crackdown on dissent

Editor010 mins

Chinese leader Xi Jinping arrived in Hong Kong on Thursday ahead of the 25th anniversary of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rule, saying the city had “risen from the ashes” under a draconian national security law that left former opposition lawmakers under house arrest and journalists shut out of official events. “Hong Kong has withstood challenge after challenge and won many a battle in recent years,” Xi told a crowd who turned out to greet him waving national flags and cheering, at the start of what observers said will be a heavily stage-managed trip subject to citywide security measures. “Hong Kong has lived through turbulent times and risen again from the ashes to renewed vigor,” said Xi, who arrived by special train with first lady Peng Liyuan on Thursday. As he spoke, former pro-democracy lawmaker Avery Ng tweeted that he had been placed under house arrest, likely for the duration of Xi’s visit, a form of treatment usually meted out by state security police to mainland Chinese dissidents during important political events. “I am now in prison,” Ng wrote, adding “#ifyouknowyouknow” and a salty Cantonese epithet referring to somebody’s mother. Ng took to social media to livestream about the anniversary instead, telling followers: “This is the first time this has happened … I’m sitting here at home with nothing to do … I can’t go out.” Organizers of the city’s once-traditional July 1 protest march said it wouldn’t be going ahead, citing conversations with the national security police, who are spearheading a citywide crackdown on peaceful political opposition and public criticism of the authorities. “Today, some volunteers and friends from the League of Social Democrats were spoken to by the national security police,” LSD chairwoman Chan Po-ying said in a statement earlier this week. “We have assessed the situation, and there will be no demonstration on July 1,” Chan wrote on June 28. “We hope you can forgive us. We are in a difficult situation.” Police guard a closed road outside the West Kowloon station in Hong Kong on June 30, 2022, after Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives in Hong Kong to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China taking place on July 1. Credit: AFP Roadblocks  and station closures Xi’s visit has also prompted a huge deployment of police at roadblocks near the 25th anniversary ceremony venue. People and vehicles heading to the area around the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre will be stopped and checked, while footbridges and flyovers along the route of Xi’s motorcade will be closed, police told journalists. The MTR subway station serving the venue was closed on Thursday, and will reopen after the ceremony on Friday, while a no-fly zone has been set up over the whole the city’s iconic Victoria Harbour, including for drones. Xi’s itinerary includes visits to the Hong Kong Science Park, dinner with outgoing chief executive Carrie Lam and top officials, and meeting carefully selected “people from all walks of life” in Wanchai. The Chinese leader, Hong Kong’s top officials and Xi’s entourage will remain in a bubble throughout, to minimize the risk of COVID-19 transmission. Xi, Peng and their entourage wore masks on arriving at the West Kowloon high-speed rail terminus. Exiled former pro-democracy lawmaker Ted Hui said the reality of life in Hong Kong is very far from Xi’s claims, and that Beijing’s promise to allow Hong Kongers to run the city under “one country, two systems,” had come to nothing. “Xi Jinping called ‘one country, two systems’ a good system … but the people of Hong Kong feel very differently,” Hui told RFA. “The human rights and freedoms guaranteed in the Basic Law have completely disappeared.” “Hong Kong is part of one country, and one system now,” Hui said, adding that many have yet to recover from the trauma of the crackdown on the 2019 protest movement, during which police violence sparked an international outcry. “He says Hong Kong has been reborn from the ashes, but I only see anger in Hong Kong; anger and hatred for the [CCP] regime,” he said. Just like the mainland now Hui said Xi’s visit is the first by a high-ranking Chinese leader during which protests and demonstrations have been banned. “The relationship between the people and the government has been lost,” Hui said, adding that bans on protests were a symptom of the CCP’s cowardice in the face of criticism. “This never used to happen in Hong Kong, only mainland China, but now it’s happening today in Hong Kong,” he said. “Does the lack of [public] dissent mean success, or the end of freedom? It’s a huge step backwards.” Hui said those who greeted Xi were hired for the role in the manner of movie extras, and had nothing to do with regular Hong Kongers. The Hong Kong Journalists’ Association (HKJA) said only a selected number of media outlets were invited to apply for accreditation to cover the anniversary celebrations. “Similar handover official events in the past were open to media registration without requiring invitations,” the group said in a statement on its website, saying it was “deeply concerned” by the move. “At least 10 well-known local online and overseas media outlets, news agencies as well as photo wires were not invited nor allowed to sign up for the events, making them unable to report from the handover’s official events,” the HKJA said in a June 16 statement. The government replied on June 29, saying the decision was “a balance as far as possible between the needs of media work and security requirements,” government broadcaster RTHK reported. The government declined to comment on accreditations for individuals or organizations. Meanwhile, London mayor Sadiq Khan said the crackdown on Hong Kong had been “devastating,” pledging to do everything in his power to help Hong Kongers fleeing the crackdown to start new lives in the British capital. The Greater London Authority said it had set up the Migrant Londoners Hub to provide Hong Kongers arriving…

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China’s plan to turn Xinjiang into industrial hub is threat to Uyghurs, report says

Editor013 mins

China’s efforts to turn its far-western Xinjiang into a manufacturing powerhouse could force more Uyghurs to work against their will and make it harder to track whether the country’s exports are made with forced labor, according to a new report from a Washington, DC-based research group.   The Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS), which studies global conflict and transnational security issues, said China is establishing industrial parks, providing more financial assistance from state-owned enterprises, and connecting manufacturers within its borders as part of a long-term objective to bolster supply chains. “The Chinese government is undertaking a concerted drive to industrialize the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), which has led an increasing number of corporations to establish manufacturing operations there,” the report says. “This centrally-controlled industrial policy is a key tool in the government’s efforts to forcibly assimilate Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples through the institution of a coerced labor regime.” The 25-page report, titled “Shifting Gears: The Rise of Industrial Transfer into the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region,” analyzes publicly available data and case studies to detail the political nature of China’s industrial transfer in the Xinjiang, the patterns through which it takes place, and the scale at which abuses in the region are embedded within Chinese and global supply chains. “Forced labor is a major component of these human rights abuses,” the report says. “It occurs not only within extrajudicial detention centers and through the placement of detainees in factories but also through the threat of detention to pressure Uyghurs into jobs across XUAR and throughout China. “Both state-owned and private corporations are significant perpetrators of human rights abuses, implementing coercive working conditions, indoctrination and mass surveillance.” The main mechanism for the central government’s industrialization drive in the XUAR is a program to pair Xinjiang counties and municipalities with wealthier provinces and municipalities on the east coast. The effort began 25 years ago and was expanded in 2010, the report says. Government bureaus in the coastal provinces design and implement programs in their respective partner localities in the XUAR and help train Uyghur workers to build loyalty and obedience to the Chinese Communist Party, the report says. “The central government wants economically dynamic east coast cities to reproduce their successful export-led growth model in the region by attracting manufacturers through low labor costs and subsidized land, electricity and freight fees,” the report says. For example, the Yining Textile Industry Zone, containing two industrial parks — the Yining County Home Textiles and Garment Industrial Park and the Yining County Weaving Industrial Park, in Ghulja (in Chinese, Yining) prefecture — was constructed under the pairing program of Nantong, Jiangsu province, a major textile production hub in eastern China. The Yining zone is linked with the Jiangsu Nantong International Home Textile Industrial Park, the largest home textile distribution center in the world. As of March, about 20 Nantong-based textile companies had set up operations in the Yining Textile Industry Zone, the report says.   At least 1,000 people work in the Yining industrial park, including those sent via organized labor transfers from the surrounding county, according to the report. Several ethnic Kazakhs have testified that they were forced to work in a factory in the park after being released from a detention camp. A guard tower and barbed wire fences are seen around a facility at the Kunshan Industrial Park in Artush in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region, Dec. 3, 2018. Credit: Associated Press ‘Modern industrial workers’ The industrial transfer policies have increasingly focused on four prefectures in the southern half of the XUAR with concentrated Uyghur populations and relative economic isolation that the Chinese government sees as problematic to its assimilation goals, says the report. “The government sees the mass detention campaign and the establishment of a police state as prerequisites that allow Chinese manufacturing companies to feel secure enough to move into XUAR,” it says. “In turn, these manufacturers move Uyghurs from their farms and villages to factories and industrial parks where they can be monitored, indoctrinated and transformed into ‘modern’ industrial workers.” Since 2017, Chinese authorities have ramped up their repression of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities throughout the XUAR, detaining up to 1.8 million members of these groups in internment camps. The maltreatment also includes severe human rights abuses, torture and forced labor as well as the eradication of linguistic, cultural and religious traditions. Credible reports by rights groups and the media documenting the widespread abuse and repression in the XUAR have led the United States and some parliaments in Western countries to declare that the Chinese government’s action amount to a genocide and crimes against humanity. The Center for Advanced Defense Studies analyzed Chinese corporate data of tens of thousands of companies based in the XUAR, publicly available trade data, and government and media reporting to show how manufacturers there are linked to local governments and companies in eastern China. The group said that subsidiaries and partner companies in China make it hard to track whether goods originated from Xinjiang and were produced by forced labor. The U.S. enacted the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in December 2021 to strengthen an existing ban on the importation of goods made wholly or in part with forced labor into the country and to end the use of forced labor in the XUAR. The act, which took effect on June 21, creates what is referred to as a “rebuttable presumption” that assumes goods made in Xinjiang are produced with forced labor and thus banned under the U.S. 1930 Tariff Act. The law requires U.S. companies that import goods from the region to prove that they have not been manufactured at any stage with Uyghur forced labor. But the report said the structure of Chinese industrial policy, where goods are shipped and reshipped within its borders, will make enforcing forced labor laws difficult. “[A]s long as the flow of goods produced in the region to exporters elsewhere in China is left unaddressed, tainted goods will continue to enter global supply chains,” the…

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Teenage boy dies during junta shelling of Chin state village

Editor03 mins

A 14-year-old boy was killed by heavy artillery shelling on Wednesday at Madap village, Mindat township in Myanmar’s southern Chin state. Yaw Man, a member of the Mindat (Township) People’s Administration, told RFA a shell fired by the Mindat-based ‘Ka La Ya’ infantry Battalion 274, exploded near a house in Madap village, killing the boy on the spot. “The military council’s Infantry Battalion 274 is 16 miles away from Madap village,” Yaw Man told RFA. “Both the army and Madap village are on the top of the mountains. The army and the village are closer [as the crow flies] between the tops of the mountains. The artillery shell landed in front of the victim’s house in Madap village. It exploded and struck the 14-year-old boy’s heart. He died on the spot.” The 14-year-old boy, killed when a shell exploded near his house on Wednesday. CREDIT: Mindat (Township) People’s Administration The dead boy was the brother of an 11-year-old boy who was hit by heavy artillery fired by junta troops on May 23. The younger boy’s right leg was completely severed. The boys’ mother was also critically injured in the May blast. Calls to the military council spokesman by RFA to ask about civilian casualties went unanswered. Also on Wednesday an artillery shell fired by the military battalion based in Mindat township landed in Kyar In Nu village near Madap village, destroying a house and some livestock, according to residents. Mindat township was the site of the earliest armed resistance to the coup council and the junta has hit back, targeting villages believed to have housed or aided the rebels. Last year on June 16, three people were killed when a heavy artillery shell fired by junta forces exploded in Mui Twi village, Mindat township.

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Vietnam faces global calls to release anti-coal activist

Editor07 mins

International groups are increasing pressure on the Vietnamese government to release anti-coal campaigner Nguy Thi Khanh, the director of civil society organization the Green Innovation and Development Centre (GreenID). On Tuesday U.S.-based NGO Oil Change International (OCI) voiced its support for the campaign, demanding her immediate release. “Our message to the government of Vietnam is that you cannot jail leading activists and claim to be a climate leader. You will never silence influential voices who speak out against the dirty fossil fuel business. The more you imprison people, the more you empower others,” the group said in a news release. The OCI also called on the Vietnamese government to release three other environmental activists, Mai Phan Loi, Dang Dinh Bach, and Bach Hung Duong. All four are serving prison sentences on tax evasion charges. Nguy Thi Khanh, 46, was sentenced to 24 months in prison by the Hanoi People’s Court on June 17. The other three were sentenced to between two and a half and five years in prison. OCI’s Asia program director, Susanne Wong urged G7 leaders, who met in Germany this week, to use their influence to “protect the rapidly shrinking civil society space in Vietnam” and “ensure that just transition packages with the Vietnamese government include provisions to protect civil society engagement in climate discussions and to guard against the use of administrative laws to silence activists.” Four days before OCI’s announcement, the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Activists, an alliance of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT), issued a statement calling on the international community to speak out about the cases along with those of other human rights activists. It also expressed concern over the Vietnamese government’s frequent use of tax evasion charges as a weapon to silence activists. The coalition urged individuals and organizations around the world to write to the Vietnamese government, calling on it to end its crackdown on human rights and environmental activists, release those serving prison sentences and ensure all activists are able to operate without fear of reprisal. Andrea Giorgetta, director of FIDH’s Asia Office, said it was important to give environmentalists the freedom to speak out. “Environmental activists such as Khanh play a vital role in ensuring that environmental rights and principles are part of the Vietnamese government’s policies, which have historically followed a top-down approach without any genuine public consultation and input,” he said. “The jailing of Khanh and the other environmental activists represents a worrying escalation by Hanoi in the repression of civil society. Khanh, Bach, and Loi were not hardcore government critics – their organizations in fact sought to engage the Vietnamese government with regard to the implementation of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement. Their imprisonment shows that in Vietnam nobody is safe from government persecution.” Giorgetta said it appeared that the Vietnamese government was adopting subtler tactics to escape international criticism. “Perhaps Hanoi believes that the use of tax laws as opposed to the enforcement of draconian national security legislation will not trigger international condemnation. But the harsh prison sentences imposed on Khanh, Bach, and Loi for tax evasion show that Hanoi considers environmental activists to be as dangerous as dissidents, and that they must all be silenced.” Five months after Vietnam sentenced Mai Phan Loi, Dang Dinh Bach, and Bach Hung Duong to prison and nearly two weeks after the trial of Nguy Thi Khanh, the campaign for their release has snowballed. There are now three governments, the United States, Britain, and Canada, as well as various NGOs including the Climate Action Network (CAN), voicing their opposition to the activists’ conviction and calling for their immediate and unconditional release. The United Nations Human Rights Office and the UN Environmental Programme also issued a statement on April 22 expressing deep concern about the imprisonment of human rights and environmental protection activists for alleged “tax evasion” in Vietnam. The U.S. President’s climate envoy John Kerry and his European Union counterpart Frans Timmermans issued a joint call on June 26 demanding the release of Khanh and other environmental activists imprisoned in Vietnam. On June 23 Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry rejected international criticism of the case against Khanh, insisting that her prison sentence was legal.

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Nine killed in junta raids on Myanmar villages near China-backed copper mine

Editor09 mins

At least nine civilians are dead, and dozens are missing after a month of military raids on villages near a China-backed copper mine in Myanmar’s Sagaing region that prodemocracy paramilitaries had threatened to destroy because it could provide income for the junta, residents said Wednesday. Sources in Sagaing’s embattled Salingyi township told RFA Burmese that at least seven residents of Done Taw, Moe Gyoe Pyin (North), Ton, and Hpaung Ka Tar villages were killed, and three others reported missing following junta troops raids from June 15-25. Two men from Salingyi’s Ywar Thar village were taken hostage by the military on May 25 and later killed, they said. Speaking on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal, a resident of Moe Gyoe Pyin (North) told RFA that Tin Soe, 46, and Wa Gyi, 47, were killed when the military shelled his village early on the morning of June 21, before setting fire to homes there later that day. “They came in so fast; some people were not able to escape, and some were trapped,” the resident said. “As they were killing people and burning houses, no one dared to stay. We just had to flee.” The resident said that “around 20 people were taken hostage” during the raid and that the bodies of the two victims were discovered after the troops left the following day. Other sources from the area told RFA that the body of 30-year-old Sai Myat Soe from Sar Htone village was found mutilated on June 26 near Hpaung Ka Tar village. Junta troops attacked the Salingyi villages of Nat Kyun and Htan Taw Gyi as recently as Tuesday, residents said, forcing inhabitants to evacuate and seek shelter. A woman who had to flee her home during Tuesday’s raid said she was separated from her family members during the ordeal and doesn’t know what became of them. “I went back to the village today hoping things had calmed down, but just as we arrived at the village, soldiers came in from the other side through the forest, while others approached from the river. We had to leave right away,” she said. “My whole family is on the run and I’m worried whether I’ll ever see them again or if I’ll be able to go back to my house. I can’t stop worrying because [the soldiers] were burning the villages.” Sources claimed that the raids were conducted by military units based in a compound run by China’s Wanbao Mining Ltd., which operates the Letpadaung Copper Mine – a joint venture between the Chinese government and the junta that has been suspended for the 16 months since the military seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021 coup. Other villages targeted in the raids included Lin Sa Kyet and Wadan, they said. The raids follow an April 21 warning issued by 16 local People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary groups that the Letpadaung copper project would be attacked because it could provide income for the junta. Attempts by RFA to contact junta Deputy Minister of Information Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun went unanswered Wednesday. He has previously rejected reports of military raids, as well as allegations of civilian deaths and acts of arson by junta troops. Caught in the crossfire Members of the local anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary group have said they are reluctant to intercept the raids for fear of causing civilian casualties while the military holds hostages. However, the group has attacked military units stationed within the copper project compound and recently destroyed a power line connected to the site. Wanbao has strongly condemned attacks in the region, saying in a statement that its presence has nothing to do with the ongoing civil unrest in Myanmar and demanding that armed groups in the area refrain from targeting its employees. A member of the anti-junta Salingyi Revolution Army (SRA) said that Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG), to which local PDF forces have sworn loyalty, has never ordered attacks on Wanbao or its employees. “We haven’t attacked Wanbao, only the military units housed in the compound,” said the SRA fighter, who also declined to be named. “Of course, some of [Wanbao’s] equipment might get destroyed in the chaos, but our NUG government has not instructed us to attack Wanbao and we would never do it on our own. The local defense groups are following the guidelines and instructions of the NUG.” In an interview on May 29, Zaw Min Tun told RFA that all governments have a responsibility to protect foreign investment on both legal grounds and for reasons of security. He said at the time that the military’s use of force to clear the territory was aimed at protecting the Chinese project. Thet Oo, a member of the prodemocracy Salingyi Multi-Village Strike Steering Committee, told RFA that the junta has deployed “two military columns for clearance operations in the Letpadaung area,” indicated that it “is clearly concerned with defending the Chinese project.” But he said that his and other PDF units in the area do not want the mine to resume operations because profits from the project will be used by the junta to fund its repression of Myanmar’s people. According to local sources, military raids have forced around 20,000 residents of 25 villages near the project site to flee their homes and take shelter in the jungle. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

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Taiwan activist Lee Ming-Cheh says world pressure on his Chinese jailers helped him

Editor011 mins

Taiwanese NGO worker Lee Ming-Cheh was released from Chishan Prison in the central Chinese province of Hunan on April 15 after serving nearly five years for “attempting to subvert state power.”  Lee, a course director at Taiwan’s Wenshan Community College, was a lifelong activist for Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, which Beijing vilifies as a separatist group that rejects China’s claim over the democratic island. Among the accusations he faced at Hunan’s Yueyang Intermediate People’s Court was that he set up social media chat groups to “vilify China.”  Lee has been invited to Washington, D.C. to testify before the U.S. Congress and other institutions about human rights conditions in Chinese prisons, the role of international pressure in helping him get slightly better treatment while in jail, and Beijing’s expansion of repressive tactics to Taiwan and around the world. He was unable to enter the U.S., however, because the Chinese-made COVID vaccines that he received while he was in prison are not recognized and approved by the World Health Organization and therefore do not meet Centers for Disease Control regulation for entry. He spoke to Hsia Hsiao-hwa and Paul Tuan of RFA Mandarin about his prison experience, which he describes as “field research” into China’s human rights situation. Lee stressed to RFA that constant activism on his behalf by his wife, American and Taiwanese supporters and U.S. and European Union government entities helped him during his incarceration. On his trial: “Since Xi Jinping took office, mine was the only ‘subversion of state power’ case that was tried in public. There is an upside of an open trial. The prosecutor must lay out the evidence clearly. They cannot smear me as a spy, nor can they claim that I went to China for prostitution. None of the incriminating evidence that China has presented in court was about what I actually did in China. The public trial turned out to be a display of evidence that China has violated freedom of speech globally. China provided self-incriminating evidence. “In political cases, there would be a rehearsal before the trial. The attorneys and the prosecutors rehearsed the entire process of a trial. Even the defense lawyer (who was the then-Hunan delegate to the NPC) that the Chinese government has hired for Peng Yuhua, the co-defendant of the case, questioned how the national security agency can list social media app chat groups as formal organizations and fabricated stories about these groups having solid structures and specific job assignments.“ On isolation under observation: “The prison guards would not let you have any contact with the outside world. There was no formal arrest. There was no lawyer representation. You were not allowed access to any books, magazines, televisions. You were just under full arrest. Twenty-four hours a day, you were being watched by a two-person team, even when you went to the bathroom or took a shower. It caused tremendous psychological stress. Many political prisoners in China suffer from mental health issues because they were severely restricted in terms of their residence locations and conditions of their living quarters. I am very fortunate. Under pressure from the international society, (the situation) only lasted for two months. The damage inflicted on one’s mind and body fits what the United Nations considers as psychological torture.” On prison food and water that left him with polyps in his gall bladder when he was released: “The doctor said what I ate and drank over the past few years had been too dirty. In Chishan Prison, we drank water from the Dongting Lake. There was a lot of sediment in the boiled water. Even the prison guards would not drink it. Many prisoners who served longer terms have suffered from diseases such as urethral stones and kidney stones because of the poor living conditions.” On a letter-writing campaign for Lee led by NGOs in Taiwan: “In China’s domestic propaganda, these people (activists) were cooperating with the US imperialism power and mobilizing color-scheme revolutions to destroy peace in China. If the police officers did not know me, they might have really believed that I was a vicious villain who would become violent when interacting with someone. Yet if you write letters to prisons, the police would know that many people care about this prisoner and that they should not treat him with excessive force. A saying in China goes like this, ‘there is no unconditional love’; ‘there is no unconditional hatred.’ The fact that so many strangers are writing to this person who they do not know would make the prison guard and the warden think again: This person may not be as vicious as they’d thought he would be.” Taiwanese activist Lee Ming-cheh (center) appearing in Yueyang Intermediate People’s Court, in central China’s Hunan Province, Nov. 28, 2017. Credit: Yueyang Intermediate People’s Court On regular visits from his wife, Lee Ching-yu, until the COVID-19 pandemic halted them:  “Many families of Chinese political prisoners were deprived of the visitation rights to meet with their loved ones. My wife’s visits helped me physically and mentally. I am able to disclose the obsolete practices in the Chinese prisons. The visitations also allowed me to be more than just an inmate but someone who advocates for human rights and conducts field research on human rights.” On China’s creeping extension of repressive policies and censorship to self-ruled Taiwan and beyond: “China is acting to extend its jurisdiction beyond its borders to Taiwan, over which China has never ruled. China also used comments collected on the Internet as its evidence to find me guilty of ‘subversion of state power’. China clamps down on freedom of speech and on the use of Internet. It extends its jurisdiction to anyone in the world who uses Chinese social media apps.” On China’s crackdown against human rights lawyers, NGO activists and other rights defenders: “Ever since Xi Jinping took office, many were found guilty of ‘subverting state power’ and sent to prison. Specifically, if you look at these NGO activists, none of…

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Gas graft: smugglers defraud Laos of taxes on 700 million liters a year

Editor010 mins

Citizens in Laos are calling for accountability after learning that gasoline smugglers and enablers in the government are defrauding the country out of taxes on 700 million liters (about 185 million US liquid gallons) of gasoline per year, sources told RFA. Prime Minister Phankham Viphavanh revealed the extent of gas smuggling in an address to the National Assembly last week. Laos is mired in perhaps its worst gasoline shortage in its history, exacerbated by rising prices, a lack of foreign currency and a rapid depreciation of Laos’ currency, the kip. “According to our internal report, around 1.2 billion liters of gasoline is imported to our country [each year]. However, when we check with the exporters of both Thailand and Vietnam, they are sending us around 1.9 billion liters of gasoline,” Phankham Viphavanh said. “Where are those 700 million liters?” he asked, accusing state officials and companies of corruption. Members of the government who allow smugglers to get out of paying taxes should be punished, said Laotian sources, all of whom requested anonymity for safety reasons. “This is an act of corruption. Those who want money will do whatever they can to get it and this will lead to a leak in government revenue,” a citizen of the capital Vientiane told RFA Lao. “If the government can prevent this kind of problem, it will be better for the country. If they can find out the government officials and whoever else is involved, they should all be fined and fired,” the source said. Another source told RFA that the country’s lax law enforcement allows corruption to flourish. “There is no strong punishment for corrupt government officials in Laos. They just transfer them to other offices somewhere else. I am not sure if there will ever be a strong punishment for them,” the second source said. “They are too flexible over this matter in Laos. If the government is serious about curbing corruption, they can do it and it will be good for our country. We have laws, but at this moment the laws can do nothing.” A Lao analyst told RFA that Laos needs to set up an investigative committee to go after corrupt officials and expose them to the public. “There is no accountable investigation and punishment from the relevant authorities,” the analyst said. “It is common to hear leaked information that the government found some people involved with revenue collection, but there is no punishment. “This is why nobody is afraid of the law and the corrupt officials will just get more money.” A proposal to immediately punish corrupt officials instead of reeducating them is under consideration at the National Assembly after it was introduced last week by Assemblywoman Valy Vetsaphong, who is also the deputy president of the Lao National Chamber of Industry and Commerce. A Lao official who declined to be named said that the gasoline smuggling issue is under investigation. “They are finding ways to solve this problem. The gasoline shortage still continues and it is a big headache for the government,” the official said. “We have already negotiated with our Thai trade partners to bring in more gasoline, but it will take time to return to normal.” According to a May 2022 report from Ministry of Industry and Commerce, Laos imports around 100 million to 120 million liters of fuel a month on average. Thus, it costs around $600 million to $700 million to import enough fuel for one year. However, prices are actually double in Laos due to the increasing price of oil on the world market. Closed for price gouging Gas stations in Laos that allegedly attempted to capitalize on the gasoline shortage by increasing prices have been closed for cheating their customers, sources told RFA. “The authorities inspected all the gas stations in this province and found that three of them had been overcharging,” an official of the Industry and Trade Department of the northern province of Luang Namtha told RFA. “They were selling gas at about 2,000-3,000 kip [$0.13-0.20] higher than the government price per liter. Our province has rules that control gas prices so we suspended those three gas stations,” he said. There are however many gas stations that can only get fuel by buying it from abroad, and to do that, they need dollars or Thai baht. Due to a shortage of foreign currency, businesses cannot get as much as they need at the official rate from banks, so they must pay more for foreign currency from other sources. This, in turn, forces them to raise gas prices. “We understand that the pumps get foreign currency from other sources and at higher rates but we have rules to abide by too,” the official said. “The owners of the three pumps will be fined 5 million kip [$333].” A gas station owner in the town of Luang Namtha linked higher gas prices with higher exchange rates. “We can’t get foreign currency from the banks, so we get foreign currencies … from private money exchange outlets at much higher rates. We can’t sell gas at the prices set by the government, we’ll lose a lot of money,” he said. The gas shortage has forced small gas stations to close in Vientiane, leaving only the big companies in business, a motorist in the city told RFA. “Only the large ones like Petroleum of Thailand and the Lao state fuel enterprise are able to be open,” the motorist said. Authorities of the Industry and Trade Department of Champassak Province in southern Laos also inspected all gas stations in the province between June 21 and 28 and found seven gas stations were selling gasoline at higher prices. According to the newspaper of Champassak Province, the authorities put locks on each gas pump, booked and fined the owners and sent them for reeducation. According to the GlobalPetrolPrices.com website, the average price of gas in Laos was 28,070 kip per liter, or $7.13 per gallon as of June 27. Translated by Phouvong. Written in English by…

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Cambodian court warns Kem Sokha, on trial for ‘treason,’ not to get political

Editor08 mins

A court in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh warned opposition leader Kem Sokha not to engage in any further political activities after the prosecution played a recorded conversation he held with supporters ahead of recent local elections, the latest wrinkle in his trial that started more than two years ago on unsubstantiated charges of treason. The deputy court prosecutor demanded Kem Sokha’s arrest after alleging that he had met with allies in the northwestern province of Siem Reap prior to the June 5 vote for commune council seats and discussed politics. Kem Sokha was released from pre-trial detention to house arrest in September 2018 and granted bail in November 2019 by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, the terms of which allowed him to travel within Cambodia but restricted him from taking part in any political activities. An undercover investigator recorded one of the conversations, which was used as evidence in Wednesday’s proceedings. Kem Sokha was allowed to return home when the court session ended at 2 p.m. His lawyer, Pheng Heng, told RFA’s Khmer Service that Kem Sokha would be more careful about interactions in order to avoid new charges as the trial unfolds. “He didn’t make any political speech,” said Pheng Heng. He said that Kem Sokha has participated in public gatherings, like weddings, Buddhist ceremonies and a feast, none of which were political. “The deputy prosecutor thought it was political activity, but the defense thinks otherwise,” Phen Heng said. Kem Sokha is not part of any political party recognized by the Ministry of Interior. The Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) — which he co-founded with Sam Rainsy, who is living in self-exile in France — was dissolved by Cambodia’s Supreme Court in November 2017, two months after he was arrested over an alleged plot backed by the United States to overthrow the government of Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia for more than 35 years. Kem Sokha therefore could not have been engaging in politics, his lawyer argued. Wednesday’s hearing was the 46th session of the trial that started prior to the coronavirus pandemic. While the trial was delayed by the court’s closure during the height of the pandemic, critics believe that since then the authorities have been stalling in an attempt to keep Kem Sokha out of the public sphere to curb his political influence. During the 46th session, the court did not address the underlying charges against Kem Sokha, but focused instead on his recent activities. The case against Kem Sokha is clearly politically motivated, Yi Sok San, a senior monitor for the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association (Adhoc), told RFA. “I urge the government to differentiate between politics and law,” he said, adding that it was not fair to raise the new allegation against Kem Sokha without informing the defense. CPP spokesperson Chhim Phall Vorun told RFA that the government’s case is not politically motivated. Experts condemn mass trial U.N. human rights experts on Wednesday requested a review of a June 14 mass trial where 43 defendants with connections to the CNRP were convicted on charges of plotting and incitement, receiving sentences of up to eight years. U.N. officials Vitit Muntarbhorn, who monitors human rights concerns in Cambodia, Clement Nyaletsossi Voule, who tracks freedom of peaceful assembly issues, and Diego Garcia-Sayan, who promotes the independence of judges and lawyers, signed the statement. “The outcome of this first instance trial reinforces a troubling pattern of political trials peppered with judicial flaws,” the experts said in a statement. “We urge the government to urgently review and remedy the process to ensure the defendants’ access to justice.” Among the convicted activists is Cambodian American lawyer Theary Seng, who was recently moved from a prison in Phnom Penh to a more remote location, which the experts said makes family or consular visits more difficult. “On these grounds, the government is urged to review these convictions — and all pending similar cases — and to ensure future judicial proceedings adhere to international obligations,” the experts said. “This is critical to ensure the trend of shrinking civic and democratic space in Cambodia, aggravated by these trials, is reversed. A hindered access to justice not only infringes the rights of the victims, but has an overall chilling effect on society, discourages participation in assemblies and associations, and contributes to the dangerous trend of closing of civic space,” they said. Cambodia’s mission to the U.N. rejected the assessment of the trial as “misleading news.” The mission asserted that the trial was not politically motivated and said calling it as such was “unfounded and prejudicial.” It said that the experts’ narrative “one-sided and biased.” Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

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Second trip to Myanmar minus key stakeholders underway for ASEAN Envoy

Editor010 mins

Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Special Envoy to Myanmar Prak Sokhonn kicked off his second trip to Myanmar Wednesday to mediate the country’s political crisis despite being denied access to key stakeholders, prompting observers to question the value of his visit. On Tuesday, junta deputy minister of information, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, told the media that the envoy will be permitted to meet with regime chairman, Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, during his five-day visit, as well as other members of the military regime, ethnic armed groups and individuals from “some political parties.” The junta has said that Prak Sokhonn will hold a meeting on Friday with the 10 ethnic armed groups that recently met for peace talks with Min Aung Hlaing — seven of which have signed a Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) with the government since 2015, and three that have not. The talks were boycotted by Myanmar’s major ethnic armies for a perceived lack of inclusivity. On Wednesday, Karen Peace Council (KNLA-PC) spokesman, Col. Saw Kyaw Nyunt, whose group is among those will meet with Prak Sokhonn later this week, suggested that the envoy must meet with more than just those who have been approved by the junta if he hopes to resolve the country’s political stalemate. “I’d urge him to meet, as a special envoy, with all those involved in the political crisis in Myanmar,” he said. “We’ll also [push to] find out what ASEAN could do to bring about a political dialogue inclusive of all stakeholders. And then, as a next step, what ASEAN could do to bring about nationwide peace talks. We have all these in mind.” Prior to the trip, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen — whose nation holds the rotating chair of ASEAN — and Prak Sokhonn had requested permission for the envoy to meet with the head of the deposed National League for Democracy (NLD) Aung San Suu Kyi and the party’s president, Win Myint, but were refused by the junta. The pair are among several NLD officials who were arrested in the immediate aftermath of the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup and face multiple charges widely viewed as politically motivated. During an emergency meeting on the situation in Myanmar in April 2021, Min Aung Hlaing had agreed to a so-called Five-Point Consensus to end violence in the country, which included meeting with all stakeholders to resolve the political crisis but has failed to keep that promise. Observers say that peace cannot be achieved without including the NLD leadership and other powerbrokers in the process – concerns that were echoed by Col. Saw Kyaw Nyunt in his interview with RFA. Multiple attempts by RFA to contact Zaw Min Tun for comment on Prak Sokhonn’s visit went unanswered Wednesday. Earlier this week, the junta spokesman said that “those facing trials” will not be allowed to meet with the ASEAN envoy, adding that the military regime is “working with certain groups” to end the conflict in Myanmar, which has claimed the lives of 2,039 civilians since the coup, according to Bangkok-based NGO Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. “The main point of the agreement is that we are discussing with practical organizations to reduce the tensions of the armed conflict,” Zaw Min Tun said at the time, referring to the 10 ethnic armed groups that met with Min Aung Hlaing for peace talks. “Basic agreements have been reached in the negotiations. More discussions will be held later. We have paved the way [for Prak Sokhonn] to meet with the right people, except those who are still being prosecuted and those who are still facing legal action.” The military has said it plans to allow the envoy meet with “some NLD members” during his visit but has not specified who they are. When asked who will hold talks with Prak Sokhonn, NLD central working committee member Kyaw Htwe said he could not comment on the matter. ‘Not optimistic’ Kyaw Zaw, a spokesman for the office of Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) president, Duwa Lashi La, told RFA he is “not optimistic” about the outcome of Prak Sokhonn’s trip if the envoy fails to meet with the country’s key stakeholders. “It’s impossible for the ASEAN special representative’s efforts to be successful if he is only holding discussions with the junta and is refused a chance to meet with important stakeholders during his visit,” he said. “I don’t expect there will be any benefit for the people of Myanmar.” Kyaw Zaw reiterated calls for Prak Sokhonn to meet with “all those involved in the conflict” during his visit, “not just with those who are chosen by the military.” Myanmar-based political analyst Sai Kyi Zin Soe also dismissed the likelihood of a solution to the country’s political crisis being reached if the opposition is denied a seat at the negotiating table. “The kind of result that people want will not come if things go on like this. It’s a one-sided approach to find a political solution [only] through dialogue with pro-military groups and those who are close to the military,” he said. “The desires and the perspectives of the people on the other side of the issue are being ignored. That’s why I don’t think the solution that people hope for will come out of the visit.” According to a statement issued by Cambodia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday, Prak Sokhonn will discuss the implementation of the Five-Point Consensus, the provision of humanitarian assistance, and ways to facilitate a political dialogue after holding talks with all stakeholders. The ASEAN special envoy visited Myanmar for the first time in March but was criticized for failing to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi and Win Myint, and for failing to make significant progress in his mission to Myanmar. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

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Zondo : Commission that changed South African Politics

Zondo : Commission that changed South African Politics

Editor013 mins

“The Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture, Corruption, and Fraud in the Public Sector including Organs of State” is better known as the “Zondo Commission” or “State Capture Commission”. It is a public inquiry established in January 2018 by former South African President Jacob Zuma to investigate allegations of state capture, corruption, and fraud in the public sector in South Africa.

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Investigative Journalism Reportika © March 2022 by Ij-Reportika is licensed under CC BY 4.0