Category: Americas

Local reporters from two media outlets in Myanmar went into hiding after the country’s ruling military junta threatened to sue the news agencies for reporting that regime troops killed three civilians and wounded 19 others near a Buddhist pagoda in Mon state last week. BBC Burmese and The Irrawaddy online news journal reported that military soldiers allegedly fired random shots into crowds at the Kyaiktiyo Pagoda in Mon state, one of the most famous Buddhist sites in Myanmar, on Oct. 12.  The regime blamed the attack on an anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) allied with the Karen National Liberation Army’s (KNLA) Brigade 1, the civilian National Unity Government (NUG) and its parliamentary wing. It said three were killed and 19 injured in the incident. Irrawaddy and BBC reporters went into hiding after the junta issued a statement on  state-controlled Myanmar Radio and Television (MRTV) at 8 p.m. on Oct. 14, threatening to take action against their news outlets for “incorrectly” reporting on the incident.  “It is reported that The Irrawaddy and BBC Burmese news agencies, the blatant liars and the pessimist’s stooges, are going to be sued under the Electronic Communications Law, News Media Law, and the state defamation law for their accusation that the security forces randomly fired shots into crowds of pilgrims, a shameless act of violating media ethics,” the junta said in the broadcast. A relative of a BBC Burmese reporter told RFA that all local BBC journalists, including the head of the news agency, are in hiding because of the junta’s threat.   “He [the reporter] won’t be able to stay here anymore since the junta started threatening to sue them all,” said the relative, who declined to be named for safety reasons. “He is afraid of being arrested, so he had to run away and hide.” The reporter’s family members also went into hiding out of fear that the junta would hold them accountable, she said. Three civilians were killed and more than 10 others were wounded when fighting broke out at a junta inspection station at the foothill of the Kyaiktiyo Pagoda on the morning of Oct. 12, local social workers and aid groups said.  Members of an unidentifiable armed group dressed in civilian clothes attacked the facility, which is part of the Myanmar military’s 44th Light Infantry Division in the Kin Mun Chaung village, they said.   “At this moment, they are all in the hospital, three dead bodies included,” said one aid worker who declined to be named for safety reasons. “We cannot go near them. I heard 13 were wounded.” More than 100 bullets and five artillery shells were fired during the battle which lasted over an hour, a local told RFA. He also said that there were casualties on both sides. After the fighting, pro-military channels on the Telegram instant messaging service accused the PDF and KNLA of being responsible for the attack.  RFA has not been able to independently identify or confirm which forces were involved in the incident and was unable to reach for comment the leaders of the Karen National Union (KNU), the KNLA’s political wing, in Kyaikto township. Devotees pray before a huge rock covered with layers of gold at the Kyaiktiyo Pagoda on Mt. Kyaiktiyo, a popular Buddhist pilgrimage site and tourist attraction in southeastern Myanmar’s Mon state, in a file photo. Credit: AFP ‘Threats have worsened’ In a public letter to senior officials of BBC Burmese, the junta’s Ministry of Information said their Oct. 12 report on the shootings intentionally attempted to defame the military by alleging that security forces shot civilians.  A senior official at BBC World News headquarters in London said the head office was “aware of the Burmese authorities’ concerns, and we have been in contact with them to discuss this.” The Irrawaddy reported on Monday that an Oct. 14 statement from the KNU said the deaths were caused by random fire from junta forces responding to a PDF attack, citing testimony from a resident of the village where the fighting occurred.  Ye Ni, an editor at The Irrawaddy, said his news outlet’s coverage of the shooting was based on three sources.   He said that freedom of the press has been under attack since the February 2021 coup in which the military seized power from the democratically elected government. “Threats by the junta against the news media have worsened, and [we’re] already at the brink of total collapse with their brutal persecution of reporters and unlawful abolishment of news agencies since the coup,” he said.  Ye Ni also questioned why the junta threatened to sue only The Irrawaddy and BBC Burmese when several news agencies also issued similar reports on the shooting.  Kyee Myint, a high court lawyer and legal expert who lives in Myanmar, said the rule of law had disappeared under the junta. “The junta itself are the rebels who broke the law to seize power,” he said. “These rebels kill, sue and do anything else to stay in power. It’s no surprise. Since they are on the wrong side, they try to find fault with those who stand with the righteous people against injustice.” Myint Kyaw, former secretary of the Myanmar Press Council, told RFA that it is getting more difficult for journalists in Myanmar to do their jobs. “In this difficult time of collecting news, to sue a news agency only because what it covers is considered untruthful is the junta’s direct threat against the media,” he said. He also said that because The Irrawaddy is no longer based inside Myanmar, the junta’s threat would not have a serious impact on the news organizations.  “As for BBC Burmese, this is the junta’s act to pressure the BBC to self-censor and adjust its editorial policy in favor of [the junta], Myint Kyaw said.  The junta has abolished 15 news agencies, four book publishers and two printing presses in the more than 20 months following the coup. Translated by Myo Min Aung for RFA Burmese. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

A Cambodian senator’s daughter gambled U.S. $8 million on the purchase of shares in an American medical technology company through a Singaporean broker – a transaction conveniently completed before the adoption of a double taxation treaty between Cambodia and Singapore – regulatory filings reviewed by RFA show. Had the investment worked out as planned, Lau Sok Huy expected returns in the realm of $50-60 million, and could have avoided up to $12 million in Cambodian taxes. But the investment flopped. Seven years after she became the second-largest shareholder in Tomi Environmental Solutions Inc, Sok Huy is down some $6.3 million and furious, according to the company’s founder and a fellow shareholder familiar with the deal who spoke with RFA. The investment – equivalent to more than 3,000 years of the average Cambodian salary – is one Sok Huy will likely have to write off as a loss. Tomi’s share price has dipped so low that it currently risks losing its listing on the Nasdaq Capital Market. But the structure and sequencing of the deal sheds a light on how well-to-do Cambodians stand to benefit from the double taxation agreement. Such agreements are viewed by advocates as a boon to trade and investment between nations, but they can also offer a way for wealthy investors to avoid taxes. Regulatory disclosures filed during Sok Huy’s acquisition of the Tomi shares strongly suggest the deal – in which she loaned the money to her broker who had purchased the shares, and then took the shares as repayment for the loan – was tailored to benefit from the double taxation agreement. The loan behind the deal was signed in January 2016, but was amended in May of the same year, just three days after the tax treaty was signed. Sok Huy’s politically connected background raises questions about whether it was appropriate for her to benefit from the agreement. Her father, Lau Ming Kan, is a longtime senator for the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, which has governed the country in one form or another for three decades. One of the final steps in any treaty becoming law in Cambodia – including the double-taxation agreement with Singapore – is ratification by the Senate where he sits. Sok Huy’s parents are also no strangers to investing in Singapore, a regional financial hub viewed by some as a tax haven. Her mother Choeung Sopheap, a confidante of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, holds $36.5 million in shares in a Singapore-based company that owns a Cambodian corporation with an exclusive license to import liquid natural gas to Cambodia. Those assets are among the more than $230 million in assets that RFA has identified as being held in Singapore by politically connected Cambodians. The DTA Double-taxation agreements, often referred to by the acronym DTAs, are designed to ensure that companies or individuals do not get taxed on the same profits twice when doing business overseas. When two countries sign a DTA, the hope is that it will promote trade and investment between both nations. This particular treaty appears to have paid off. By the end of last year, Singapore was Cambodia’s second-largest source of foreign investment, having barely figured in the rankings half a decade earlier. A business consultant with more than a decade’s experience in Phnom Penh told RFA they viewed the agreement as a net positive for Cambodia. “A DTA can help eliminate double taxation, and for investors coming into Cambodia, that’s fairly important. So, in that sense, they’re fairly useful, and also very widespread and standard around the world,” the consultant said, requesting anonymity due to the potential professional repercussions for speaking publicly on a sensitive topic. “Can the wealthy take advantage of them to reduce their tax bill as well? Absolutely,” the consultant added. “But they already have other means of doing so. So, of all the ‘sins’ here [in Cambodia], I wouldn’t see that as being a meaningful one.” That’s not an analysis everyone would agree with. In late 2016, the World Bank published a blog by two of its senior employees – Jim Brumby and Michael Keen – that asked whether tax treaties like DTAs are a “boost or bane for development” in lower-income countries, such as Cambodia. They were not convinced. “Developing countries have used them with the intention of boosting economic development. The evidence for that is weak,” Brumby and Keen wrote. “The problem is that tax treaties – and the international system of taxation more generally – are highly complex and have unleashed unforeseen consequences.” “Multinational companies, with much at stake, can use treaties to route income through third countries to exploit favorable tax treaties. Tax authorities, particularly in developing countries, are finding it hard to counter such ‘treaty shopping,’” Brumby and Keen added. Despite having assets and businesses in multiple countries, Sok Huy does not fit the traditional definition of a multinational company. But her family often behaves like one, as do many other powerful clans in Cambodia – negotiating sweetheart deals with the government that are unavailable to smaller businesses with less political clout and cash in the bank. If the Lau family’s lawyers and accountants have clocked on to the Singapore loophole, it seems likely the financial professionals advising Phnom Penh’s other leading families will have too. So how does it work? People pass by the Nasdaq Market Site in Times Square in New York City, U.S., Feb. 7, 2018. Credit: Reuters/Brendan McDermid The deal Between May and July 2015, Singaporean broker Boh Soon Lim snapped up $8 million of Tomi shares, then accounting for roughly 11% of the company, according to regulatory filings lodged with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the U.S. stock market regulator. He bought the shares in the name of Arise Asset Management Pte Ltd, a Singapore-registered company in which he is majority owner. In the SEC filings he described the money for the purchase as coming from Arise Asset Management’s working capital. The term refers to the total cash available to the firm…