Category: Americas

Junta troops and members of an affiliated militia killed four civilians in central Myanmar shortly after they and 19 other people were rounded up in a sweep as troops hunted for insurgents battling to end military rule, residents told Radio Free Asia on Tuesday. The villagers were detained and taken away for questioning in the Sagaing region’s Pale township as they headed to nearby farms on Friday.  The group of men and women, mostly residents of Ywar Thit village, were taken to In Ma Htee village about 3 km (2 miles) away and tortured, said one Pale resident, who declined to be identified for fear of reprisals. Witnesses reported that four of the detainees were killed.  The villager identified one of the dead as Tun Naing from In Ma Htee, who was in his thirties. “He had been on the run for a long time because he did not want to join the Pyu Saw Htee,” the villager said, referring to a pro-junta militia made up of supporters of the military, Buddhist nationalists, and army veterans that is frequently accused of terrorizing villages.  “But now, he’s been arrested and killed. Those who were freed also had injuries from the beatings and are now being treated.” Nineteen people were released on Monday, he added. He identified the other dead men as Thint Zaw Oo, 25, Tun Naing Linn, 24, and Kyaw Khaing, who was in his fifties. The bodies had not been returned to their families, he said. RFA phoned the Sagaing region’s junta spokesperson, Nyunt Win Aung, for more information on why villagers were arrested but he did not return the call by the time of publication. The military has faced unprecedented opposition in Myanmar’s central heartlands, which are dominated by members of the majority Burman community, since seizing power from an elected government in early 2021. While ethnic minority groups have battled for autonomy in border hills for decades, central areas like Sagaing had been peaceful until the coup triggered outrage and an insurgency waged by pro-democracy activists in league with the ethnic minority rebels.  Junta troops have cracked down harshly on communities in response to the uprising, aiming to root out supporters of the activists’ People’s Defense Forces. According to a tally compiled by the independent media outlet Burma News International and its Myanmar Peace Monitor, junta forces have killed 1,446 civilians in the past two years in massacres, which the group defines as five or more people killed at the same time. Thousands of people were killed when the security forces crushed mass protests against the 2021 coup and thousands have been killed in fighting across the country since then. The Sagaing region has faced more attacks by the military than any other region or state, the monitoring group said in a statement on Monday. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.   

Junta administrators destroyed 200 homes in a neighborhood in Myanmar’s Yangon Division on charges of trespassing, residents told Radio Free Asia, the latest in a series of evictions to clear squatter communities in urban centers. The homes in Mingaladon township’s Pale neighborhood were bulldozed on Thursday by municipal officers and troops, they said.  Officials sent residents letters in late April telling them they had to leave  by an early May deadline.  Myanmar’s military has cleared tens of thousands of homes across the country, accusing people of squatting. The neighborhoods are usually in the suburbs of Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city, crammed with makeshift dwellings made from tarpaulin, scraps of wood and corrugated iron.  A resident who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons told RFA that only 18 households left willingly. The rest were destroyed. “They brought a bulldozer to completely flatten them,” he said. In the eviction notice, signed by the junta chairman of Mingaladon township’s Planning and Administration Board, residents were told  “all squatter buildings” in the area had to be dismantled and removed by May 10. People who have lost their homes have had to find rented accommodation, neighbors said. RFA telephoned Yangon region’s junta spokesperson, Htay Aung, for information about the incident  but he did not answer the phone. On April 26, junta forces and municipal officials ordered district authorities to remove 600 houses in Yangon’s Mayangone township, residents said. According to data compiled by RFA, nearly 20,000 houses in Mayangon, Dagon Myothit (Seikkan), Dagon Myothit, Dawbon and Mingaladon townships, have been removed in the more than three years since the military seized power from a democratically elected government in a February 2021 coup. In addition to Yangon, the second city of Mandalay and some other centers have seen  forced evictions. On Dec. 2, 2022, the United Nations called the removal of residential homes by force without providing replacements for those evicted a war crime. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.  

Vietnamese drivers entering big cities during peak traffic periods will have to pay “congestion fees” if one lawmaker gets his way.  Nguyen Phuong Thuy, a representative from the capital Hanoi, argued during a discussion Tuesday in the National Assembly that the fee would boost the state budget, increase funds for land transport infrastructure – and reduce traffic jams. He was one of 23 National Assembly deputies who discussed a draft Law on Roads, including the possibility of charging fees on personal cars that enter city centers at certain times, according to a state media. The proposal comes as Vietnam grapples with growing traffic congestion, inadequate transportation infrastructure and increasing air pollution from exhaust fumes despite the government’s commitment to net-zero emissions by 2050. Officials in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s largest city with a population of 9 million, calculated that in 2022, the city lost about 138 trillion dong, or US$5.4 billion, due to traffic jams for missed work time, wasted fuel while sitting in traffic and labor force costs. Public transportation is lacking. In 2022, Hanoi had about 5.8 million motorbikes and 600,000 automobiles, though only 140 bus lines, meeting an estimated 31% of total demand, according to a report by the Hanoi Times. Five centrally governed cities in Vietnam – Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Haiphong, Danang and Can Tho – have the authority to impose driving charges not previously defined by law, according to a report by Viet Nam News.  It wasn’t immediately clear what the fees might be under the new proposal. Three conditions must be met for the scheme to work, Thuy said, according to an online report by VN Express. First, the collection should be digitized. Second, public transportation should meet at least 30% of transportation demand. And third, infrastructure, parking lots, and public transit systems must connect personal vehicles with public ones. “Cars owned by people both inside and outside the city have increased, while old, dilapidated infrastructure has failed to meet transport demand,” he said.  Mixed views But some people are skeptical the plan would be effective. Hanoi resident Nguyen Khac Toan said he didn’t believe a fee on inbound-city cars would reduce traffic jams. “The fee collection measure seems right, but it is only situational and patchy,” he told Radio Free Asia. “It would not help because those who need to drive a car into the city would pay to do so.” Traffic gridlock occurs near the National Convention Center during the 13th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam in Hanoi, Jan. 26, 2021. (Nhac Nguyen/AFP) Former National Assembly Deputy Luu Binh Nhuong wrote on Facebook that poor traffic management is the main cause of traffic jams in Hanoi — not inbound personal vehicles.  Therefore, any fees imposed on these drivers would not be not fair and would be a violation of free movement and free business under the country’s Constitution and Competition Law, he said. Nguyen Quang A, another Hanoi resident, said a willingness by city officials to address limited parking spaces and high parking  fees would help ease the situation. Drivers have to pay several hundred thousand dong an hour to park, and lots are difficult to find, he said.  “For city dwellers, there should be parking lots built for them, but in case they park on the streets, a fee should be collected for using public space,” he said. “Those who own cars have to follow. That is the easiest way to solve traffic jams and to collect money for the city budget.” Past proposals This isn’t the first time that Vietnam’s major cities have considered fees on personal vehicles entering the city center – but none have been implemented. The Vietnamese government issued a decree in April 2022 to enhance order, transport security and reduce traffic jams, and several cities were told to conduct a fee collection pilot program for inbound vehicles. In 2017, Hanoi’s People’s Council issued a resolution on enhancing traffic order and combating traffic congestion. It called for limiting or stopping motorbike traffic in certain areas of the five centrally governed cities after 2030, as well as collecting tolls from vehicles in highly congested and polluted areas of major cities. The People’s Committee of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s southern economic hub, included a traffic jam fee in its general city planning project until 2040, a plan that would look further to 2060. Fees would be collected during specific times of the day, including peak travel.  Translated by Gia Minh for RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster. 

Nearly 50 villages in western Myanmar are facing shortages of water, residents told RFA on Tuesday, after the hot season brought record high temperatures across the region. Ponds and small lakes across Rakhine State are drying up, leaving residents with limited water for drinking and cooking. The United Nations has warned that tens of thousands of people displaced by conflict face the risk of disease as a result of the lack of water. Villages across Ponnagyun township have faced severe drought since April, as the hot season reached its most intense period, said one resident, who declined to be identified in fear of reprisals. “There are two or three ponds in the village. But this year, the daytime temperature rose so high that the ponds went dry,” he said. “Some people don’t even bathe regularly and sometimes even lack drinking water. There are some aid groups donating water but it’s not enough because most of the villages need it.” Ponnagyun faces a water shortage every year but this year has been the worst, he said, adding that some residents were suffering from diarrhea from drinking dirty  water. Nearly a quarter of the households in Ah Htet Myat Hle village’s camp for internally displaced people are facing a water shortage, a camp administrator said. Water-borne illnesses killed three people in the camp in April, with similar symptoms killing nearly 80 in other  camps across the state in the same month, aid workers have said. Camp official Aung Myint told RFA that hundreds of people were facing various  symptoms from drinking unclean water. “We are already having a lot of trouble in the camp. Hundreds of people are suffering from diarrhea. My child is also suffering from it, too,” he said. “Three people from the camp have died from disease. It is caused mainly due to unclean drinking water, rising heat and the toilets.” Mass displacement and disruption in Rakhine State from fighting between junta forces and ethnic minority insurgents from the Arakan Army, has forced thousands of people from their homes and deprived them of their livelihoods. Those forced into camps, mostly members of the persecuted Rohingya minority, lack access to doctors and sanitation.  RFA tried to contact Rakhine State’s junta spokesperson, Hla Thein, but he did not respond. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.