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Lao villagers say they got little warning of dam water release

Editor3 years ago011 mins

Heavy rains in northern Laos forced a hydroelectric dam on the Nam Ou River to release water unexpectedly, panicking downstream residents who said a late warning gave them little time to respond, sources in the country told RFA. The Nam Ou has a cascade of seven dams that have been operating since October 2021. They are part of Laos’ controversial economic strategy of becoming the “Battery of Southeast Asia” by aggressively damming the Mekong River and its tributaries and selling the generated power to neighboring countries. The Nam Ou 4 Dam, owned by the Power Construction Corporation of China, began releasing water on Monday after its reservoir rapidly rose. A district-level office in Phongsaly province issued a warning to its citizens earlier in the day. “The Khoua District of Phongsaly province would like to inform party members, government employees, chiefs of villages and all residents, that heavy rain is causing the Nam Ou River water levels to rise, and the amount of water in the Nam Ou 4 Dam reservoir is rising fast. Therefore, for safety reasons, all residents along the Nam Ou River and Nam Bak River should be extra cautious,” it said. A villager in the district told RFA’s Lao Service that the warning was too late. “The district issued the warning on May 23, and the dam released water the same day. We had no time to prepare for the worst, and we were worried about the possible loss of lives and property,” said the villager, who like all anonymous sources in this report declined to be named for safety reasons. Other villagers in the same district told RFA they were still concerned on Wednesday, two days after the dam began releasing water. “The Chinese company is discharging more water from the Nam Ou 4 Dam,” a resident of Phonxay Neua village, who declined to be named, told RFA. “Right now, the river is not yet at a dangerous level, but we are worried that our homes, land and other properties will be flooded, or will cause landslides.” “The district authorities haven’t informed us about how much water the dam is discharging and how high the water will rise,” the Phonxay Neua villager said. The sudden rise of the Nam Ou is uncharacteristic for this time of year, a resident of Sob Kai village told RFA. “Usually the Nam Ou and Nam Bak rivers in Khoua district rise in August or September, so this year is unusual,” the Sob Kai resident said, on condition of anonymity. “When the dam’s reservoir is full, it’ll release water. Each time, the authorities and the dam developer warn us, but many residents who live in remote areas might not be aware of the warning,” the Sob Kai resident said. Provincial authorities told RFA that their duty was simply to warn citizens and that they had effectively done that. “Our job is to receive the information about the discharge from the Chinese company and then inform our constituents. Measuring the water levels is the responsibility of the company, but we do check and monitor Nam Ou River water levels daily and report them to the province,” an official of the province’s Natural Resources and Environment Department told RFA. Thailand’s Water Department on Wednesday said heavy rains would increase the Nam Ou 4’s discharge from 500 cubic meters per second to 2,400 cubic meters per second from May 23 to May 31. More than half of the Thai-Lao border is demarcated by the Mekong River, which the Nam Ou flows into. “The water will flow down at 6,600 cubic meters [about 233,000 cubic feet] per second to the Mekong River through the Xayaburi Dam in Lao P.D.R. raising water levels downstream between one meter and 1.5 meters today, May 25, 2022, and tomorrow, May 26, 2022,” the statement said. Sustainable Development Thailand has called on the Mekong River Commission (MRC), an intergovernmental organization that works with the governments of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam to jointly manage the Mekong, to be more forthcoming with information prior to making decisions that affect people living along the banks of the river. “The Thai deputy prime minister, [Prawit Wongsuwon] met with the new CEO of the MRC [Anoulak Kittikhoun] and stressed that information sharing is important so that it can be used to warn residents along the river,” Surasri Kittimonthon, secretary-general of the Thai Office of National Water Resources, told RFA Wednesday. “The deputy PM called for sustainable development along the river such that information about the impact should be clear and tangible,” Surasri Kittimonthon said. Any kind of effort to warn people in advance will fail without China’s cooperation, however, an official of the Lao Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment told RFA. “When Chinese dams release more water, they don’t inform us. We have to measure the water levels (of the Mekong River) every day ourselves, then we report them to MRC,” the official said. A representative of the Thailand-based Love Chiang Khong Group, an environmental NGO, told RFA that the notifications from Laos and Thailand were less than useful. “The notification of the water released from the dams is not helpful at all. It won’t solve any of the problems or impacts on the people and the environment in the Lower Mekong River region,” he said. “The right way to solve these problems is for the governments and people to work together to properly manage the Mekong River water. The local people know best about their river, about fish, where they live and how they reproduce,” he said. In a report about Monday’s meeting published on its website, the MRC said China agreed in 2020 to share hydrological data from two of its Mekong River dams not only during the wet season but also in the dry season to help countries downstream plan for any “unusual” rise or fall. The report noted, however, that the agreement never clearly defined “unusual.” Laos has staked its future on power generation, hoping to export electricity…

Thousands of homes burned by soldiers in Myanmar’s Sagaing region

Editor3 years ago08 mins

Nearly 6,300 homes have been burned down in 19 townships in northwestern Myanmar’s war-torn Sagaing region during the past two months, forcing residents into tents and other makeshift shelters as the rainy season begins, according to data compiled by RFA. Most of Sagaing’s 34 townships and more than 5,900 villages have been affected by fighting between military forces and members of the anti-junta People’s Defense Forces (PDF). While the military denies it is responsible for the widespread arson, villagers who spoke to RFA said the fires were part of the junta’s strategy to crush opposition forces. Some of the fiercest armed resistance to junta rule has occurred in Sagaing since the military seized power from the country’s elected government in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup. As fighting between the military and the PDFs has intensified there in recent months, junta forces have conducted an arson campaign targeting rural villages, killing civilians and burning hundreds of homes, leaving thousands displaced. Among the 6,281 homes destroyed between April 1 and May 24, Kalemyo township had the highest number with 1,609 houses. Khin Oo township had the second-highest with 874 houses, followed by Mingin township with 609 houses. Homes have also been destroyed in Pale, Chaung-U, Myinmu, Wetlet and Kanbalu townships. A resident of Ngadin Gyi village in Khin Oo township, who declined to be named for safety reasons, told RFA that he could not rebuild his house so long as military forces are still conducting clearance operations in the area. “It’s unthinkable to build a house under this regime,” he said. “There’s also a financial problem [because] a house costs 2.5 million-5 million kyats ($1,325-$2,650). And no one can guarantee that this will not happen again.” Soldiers reportedly burned down more than 200 houses in Ngadin Gyi village on April 3, forcing residents to live in makeshift tents. A resident of Tayawgyin village in Yinmabin township, whose community was torched on May 15 and May 24, said the arson was an act of cruelty committed by the ruling junta. “Tayawgyin village has suffered fires twice,” said the villager who declined to be named. “They set fire to 25 houses the first time. Another 15 homes were set on fire yesterday. We cannot understand why they did that. It is just plain cruelty to the people.” Other villagers said their homes were set ablaze as they fled in fear of the soldiers. A resident in Tin Maw village in Kanbalu township, who also did not want to be named for security reasons, said he and his fellow villagers have been living in tents in the woods after Burmese soldiers burned their homes on May 17. “The houses and the barn where we had over 500 baskets of paddy were all gone,” he said. “Now I have to pitch a makeshift tent in the forest. We need timber to rebuild the [houses], and timber is scarce in this area. Only when the situation calms down will we be able to rebuild.” ‘This shouldn’t have happened’ Junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun rejected the arson allegations and blamed the fires on the PDFs. “We did not enter the villages,” he said. “Our main focus was their camps near the villages and places where they produced weapons. As is customary for PDFs, they attacked some villages when they heard that militia units had been formed. When they retreated, they set the villages on fire and blamed us, saying the army set fire to them.” Locals and civil defense groups said otherwise. Bo Moe Yan, a member of Taungdwin PDF in Minkin township, said residents just watched the military destroy buildings. “The actions of the military are so inhumane,” he said. “When they could not fight the PDFs, they would burn any house they came across. Almost all the houses and shops along Kalaywa and Yagyi Roads are now gone. This shouldn’t have happened. We just had to watch in agony.” Sagaing villagers who have lost their homes are now suffering from poor health and need food and shelter to get through the rainy season, locals said. The rainy season in Myanmar typically runs from mid-May through October. U Pe of the Black Peacock PDF in Pale township said the need for tents there is great, though the armed resistance groups are helping villagers as much as they can. “We need about 60,000 kyats ($32) to get bamboo and poles to build a tent,” he said. “We collect donations for those who cannot rebuild their houses yet. A palm leaf now costs about 150 kyats because most of the houses were destroyed by fire, and demand for them has gone up. It is hard to get them now because it is planting season.” After thousands of homes were destroyed in the fires, their group was able to donate only 23 tents, he added. More than 800,000 civilians across the country of about 55 million people have been displaced by hostilities since the coup, with Sagaing region having the highest number at more than 240,000. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane for RFA’s Burmese Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

UNHCR chief: World must not forget Rohingya refugees amid Ukraine crisis

Editor3 years ago2 years ago06 mins

Despite the Ukraine war, the world mustn’t forget about the plight of Rohingya and other refugees as well as the burden of their host countries, the head of the U.N.’s refugee agency pleaded Wednesday as he ended a five-day trip to Bangladesh. The conflict stemming from the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its humanitarian fallout is straining resources everywhere, including in supporting the sprawling refugee camps in southeastern Bangladesh along the frontier with Myanmar, said Filippo Grandi, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “I am here to remind the international community that there is not just Ukraine. Bangladesh has been bearing the responsibilities for five years and this support cannot decline,” he told a press conference in Dhaka. “I will not accept it. I will put maximum pressure on all donor partners.” “It is very important that the world knows this should not be forgotten …. The risk is there of marginalization of some of the crises because so many resources are absorbed, especially by the Ukraine emergency,” he added. The camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district house about 1 million Rohingya refugees, including 740,000 who fled atrocities during a military offensive in Myanmar’s Rakhine state in 2017. But only 13 percent of the U.S. $881 million needed by humanitarian agencies this year to support the Rohingya refugees in the South Asian nation has been funded as of May. “I am a bit worried… first of all, there are a bit more needs because there is also Bhashan Char, and now in Ukraine, in Afghanistan and a lot of other competing crises, we struggle a bit, but I am here also for that reason,” Grandi said. Bhashan Char is a remote island in the Bay of Bengal where the Bangladesh government has relocated some 26,000 Rohingya refugees since December 2020, ostensibly to ease the burden on the crowded mainland camps in Cox’s Bazar. During his stay in Bangladesh, Grandi visited refugee camps in both Cox’s Bazar and on Bhashan Char. Grandi said the war in Ukraine had added an additional financial burden on the United Nations, which was affecting the Rohingya camps as well. “The Ukraine emergency is posing a problem here as well. We buy liquid gas for … [these] camps. That price has gone up a lot and this is a direct impact of the crisis,” he said. When asked, Grandi acknowledged that funding for the Rohingya refugees would be more difficult than before. “I think the government knows that, we know that, and the donors know that.” The solution to the Rohingya crisis lies in Myanmar, the UNHCR chief said. “The Rohingya refugees I met reiterated their desire to return home when conditions allow. The world must work to address the root causes of their flight and to translate those dreams into reality,” Grandi said. Filippo Grandi (center), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, walks inside the Kutupalong refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar district in Bangladesh, May 22, 2022. Credit: UNHCR. Grandi talked with Rohingya about their situation during his visit to refugee camps earlier this week, said Kin Maung, the founder of the Rohingya Youth Association in Cox’s Bazar. “We hope, following the visit of UNHCR boss, the process of repatriation will get more focus,” he told BenarNews. “We want to return to our homeland with dignity.”

Hong Kong unlikely to see Tiananmen vigil, as Taiwan plans major June 4 event instead

Editor3 years ago013 mins

Hong Kong’s once-annual candlelight vigil for Tiananmen massacre victims is likely to be suppressed for a third year running, amid ongoing political crackdown under the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and plans are afoot to move the event to democratic Taiwan. The vigil has been banned — ostensibly for public health reasons — for the past two years and the leaders of its organizing group, the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, arrested for colluding with foreign powers under a national security law imposed by Beijing from July 1, 2020. The Ming Pao newspaper reported that the Leisure and Cultural Service Department (LCSD), which administers the Victoria Park soccer pitches where the rally used to take place, has suspended any bookings on June 4, the 33rd anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre, although bookings are available on other days in the same month. An LDSD official who answered the phone on Tuesday said that “non-designated bookings” had been suspended at its sports facilities, and that nobody had tried to hire the soccer pitches between June 1 and 5 this year. However, the department’s official website carried a notice dated May 12, announcing that two of the park’s six soccer pitches will be “closed for maintenance” throughout May and early June. The Hong Kong Police said on Monday that they hadn’t received any application to hold a large gathering on Hong Kong Island on June 4. League of Social Democrats spokeswoman Chan Po-ying said the group hasn’t yet decided what, if anything, it will do to mark this year’s anniversary. Former chairman Avery Ng said there are currently no plans for such an event. “The government has used a number of excuses in the past few years to refuse to allow citizens to hold large-scale gatherings,” Ng told RFA. “So I wouldn’t be surprised if any application by other people to hold a June 4 event was turned down this year too.” “Of course, the government keeps hoping that people will forget about June 4, but I don’t think they will,” he said. People attend a vigil commemorating the 32nd anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen square pro-democracy protests and crackdown outside of the Chinese consulate in Los Angeles, California, June 4, 2021. Deeply rooted after 30 years You Weijie, spokeswoman for the Tiananmen Mothers victims’ group said it was a shame that the event couldn’t go ahead in Hong Kong, but said people wouldn’t forget the date, nor the three decades of vigils that had already happened. “The candlelight vigil in Victoria Park went on for more than 30 years, and is deeply rooted in the memories of everyone with a conscience,” You told RFA. “It’s part of the desire to live a free life.” “The candlelight won’t be extinguished; it will just be lit by people of conscience all over the world,” she said. Many of those commemorating those who died when the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) rolled into Tiananmen Square, putting a bloody end to weeks of student-led protests in the spring and early summer of 1989 will likely be on the democratic island of Taiwan. Taiwan’s New School for Democracy has said it will keep up the vigil tradition in support of Hong Kong, which now has around 1,000 political prisoners amid a citywide crackdown on dissent instigated by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the wake of the 2019 protest movement. Chairman Tzeng Chien-yuan said the group will co-host the vigil in Taiwan on the night of June 3-4, now that Victoria Park is no longer an option. “Back when I was growing up, I actually used to envy Hong Kong’s freedoms and rule of law,” Tseng said, in a reference to Taiwan’s peaceful transition from single-party state under authoritarian rule by the Kuomintang (KMT) to a pluralistic democracy with a strong human rights record. “Taiwan’s path to democracy was nourished and supported by Hong Kong, and I think we Taiwanese are duty bound to speak up for Hongkongers and for all Chinese people now that the June 4 event can’t be held there any more,” Tseng said. People hold candles during a vigil in Hong Kong on June 4, 2018, to mark the 29th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown in Beijing. Credit: AFP Pillar of shame The centerpiece of this year’s ceremony will be a smaller replica of the Pillar of Shame sculpture, which was dismantled and removed from public view among other commemorative artworks on Hong Kong university campuses, amid a crackdown on public criticism of the government under a draconian national security law imposed on the city by Beijing. “The rule of law has fallen in Hong Kong, which is so close to Taiwan,” Tseng said. “It means Taiwan is also under great threat from the expansionism, infiltration and encirclement [practiced] by the CCP.” “We have also been through a struggle on the way to democracy … so the Taiwanese people are on a historic mission … to use our democracy as a model,” he said. The Taiwan branch of Amnesty International also plans to premiere “May 35th”, a Hong Kong stage play linked to June 4, in Tainan and Taipei on June 1 and 3 respectively, its secretary general Eeling Chiu told RFA. “The June 4 commemoration has been banned and suppressed in Hong Kong for the past two years,” Chiu said. “We want to bring May 35th to Taiwan … so that more Taiwanese know about June 4.” Chiu said younger Taiwanese are an important political force. “They bring a lot of change … so we are looking forward to reaching more young people.” As the anniversary approached, a U.S.-based rights group said there are now more than 1,000 political prisoners in Hong Kong, compared with a handful at the start of the 2019 protest movement. “The large number of political prisoners is a key indicator of the deterioration of the rule of law, judicial independence, and protections of civil and political liberties, marking Hong Kong’s rapid descent into authoritarianism,” the Hong Kong Democracy Council (HKDC) said in a recent report. “In few places in the world…

Cambodian opposition party’s signs destroyed in run-up to local election

Editor3 years ago08 mins

Members of Cambodia’s largest opposition party said on Tuesday their campaign signs for June 5 elections in southern Siem Reap province were vandalized and destroyed in the latest of a pattern of harassment. Candlelight Party officials have complained for weeks about incidents of harassment by local officials representing Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP). Every five years, voters in the nation of 16 million people elect councils to represent rural precincts know as communes and urban districts called sangkat. This year some 86,000 candidates from 17 political parties are competing for 11,622 seats in 1,652 precincts nationwide. While the councils hold relatively little power, the June 5 election will test the dominance of the CPP and the limits of political freedom for opponents five years into Hun Sen’s crackdown on civil society, media and the internet. Sock Kissing, the chief of the Candlelight Party’s northwestern province, told RFA’s Khmer Service that signs his party hung in public places were deliberately destroyed, which he said shows the bias held by local officials toward the CPP. “The Candlelight Party urges the authorities to provide equal protection toward the party’s candidates, supporters and party property,” he said. The Candlelight Party has risen from the ashes of the main opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party, whose strong showing in previous communal elections in 2017 prompted Hun Sen have the party dissolved, paving the way for his CPP to win all 125 parliamentary seats in 2018. With its rise has come what Candlelight officials say are made-up accusations that the party has used fake names for candidates and has put forward candidates in violation of Cambodian election laws. Several Candlelight Party activists have been jailed on allegations of submitting false documents to run in the communal elections, and many others say they have been harassed or attacked by people loyal to the CPP. Sock Kissing said that although authorities are monitoring the campaign trail in Siem Reap, they are watching his party in hopes of catching its candidates slip up, rather than ensuring a free and fair election. He intends to file a complaint with the National Election Commission. The Provincial Election Committee’s secretariat chief, Men Vann Sam, told RFA that he had worked with local officials to resolve all complaints. “We are investigating the incidents with local authorities. We are working for all parties, not only the Candlelight Party,” he said. Norn Thera, a Candlelight candidate in Siem Reap, told RFA that he also submitted complaints about political harassment, which makes it hard to conduct a campaign fairly. “I am very sad over the incidents. I can’t accept it. Many party’s banners were destroyed in public spaces,” he said. Destruction of any political party’s property is a crime that affects the political rights of the Cambodians, Sam Kuntheamy, director of the Neutral and Impartial Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia, told RFA. Voting holiday for textile workers The labor ministry announced Tuesday it will give garment factory workers three days paid leave from June 4-6 to vote. Yang Sophoan, director of the Cambodia Alliance of Trade Unions, told RFA that the move is a possible indication of CPP’s confidence in its position heading into the election. “It shows that the CPP thinks it has a huge advantage in the election,” she said. Before the pandemic, Cambodia’s garment sector employed about 1 million workers and accounted for 45 percent of Cambodia’s exports. The CPP, the only party large enough to field candidates nationwide, is expected to win a landslide victory, enjoying the power of incumbency and patronage in what Hun Sun has effectively turned into a one-party state at the national level. The government should allow time for workers from remote areas of the country to travel back home to vote, Ath Thun, president of the Cambodian Labour Confederation, told RFA. Government spokesperson Phay Siphan said the government was not considering extending the voter leave beyond three days. Given the country’s modern infrastructure, he said workers should not need more than 10 hours of travel. The government is not covering transportation expenses, Phay Siphan said. The Ministry of Labor, however, urged factories to pay the workers before they leave to vote, or at least loan them money for travel expenses. Meanwhile, NGOs monitoring the campaign say they have reported no serious incidents so far. Kang Savang, a monitor with the Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia, said parties have continued to conduct their campaigns, including by marching and distributing leaflets. “There is no serious irregularity or threat during this election campaign,” he said. The National Election Commission issued a statement Tuesday that said the campaigns were proceeding normally. “In general, the election campaign in the fourth day went smoothly with security, safety and order, without violence or intimidation,” it said. Translate by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

Mobile phone service cut amid heavy fighting in Myanmar’s Sagaing

Editor3 years ago06 mins

Myanmar junta troops on Tuesday briefly cut mobile phone service to eight townships in Sagaing region, leaving more than a million residents without cell access in an effort to mask the movements and operations of Military Council forces in the war-torn area, Myanmar sources say. Phone lines were cut for six hours from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m., with affected areas including Monywa, Pale, Khin Oo, Ye-U, Kanbalu, Kyun Hla and Kani. local sources said. “Yes, the phone lines were cut off around 7,” a resident of Khin Oo told RFA, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “I found a missed-call notification on my phone earlier and now I’m calling you back, but even still the signal is dropping off now and then. “The spot I’m speaking from now has a pretty strong signal, and there is also a place where you can get 2G internet service. But we have to find these kinds of places to make our calls go through,” he said. “Service has been available on and off, but right now it seems to be working again,” said a villager in Sagaing’s Ye-U, where more than 150,000 residents have had trouble making and receiving calls since 6 a.m. “Earlier in the morning, both of my phones didn’t work.” Local providers MPT and Telenor were both down, the source said, also declining to be named. “Service is okay one minute, and then the next it’s not,” he added. Nearly 20 calls made by RFA to affected townships at around 10 a.m. failed to connect, while a call made in the afternoon to a resident of Monywa was blocked. Phone service was largely restored in the township by around 1 p.m., residents said. Myo Swe, director general of the ruling Military Council’s Directorate of Communications, told RFA he was unaware of the reports of a cut-off in services. “I don’t know anything about this issue. We’ll take a look into that,” he said. Inn Phat village in Sagaing’s Khin Oo township is shown after being burned by Myanmar junta troops, May 16, 2022. Photo: Citizen Journalist But a spokesman for the Myanmar Defense Force, an armed group set up to oppose junta rule, said that junta troops had cut phone service in Sagaing to prevent reporting of their activities and movements in the area. “They don’t want news of their soldiers committing arson reaching the media and the international community,” the spokesman, Bo Taw Win, said. “We have video files of some of them burning houses, but we can’t upload them because of the weak signals. We can only upload photos. “But they also want to cover up our victories. They don’t want people to know about the intensity of the fighting here, and they don’t want any aid from donors to reach us,” Bo Taw Win said. Military activity had been reported in Kani and Ye-U townships after phone service was cut Tuesday morning, he added. Northwest Myanmar’s Sagaing region has been the center of some of the strongest armed resistance to junta rule since the military seized power from the country’s democratically elected government in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup. Myanmar’s military has for months conducted an arson campaign in Sagaing targeting rural villages, killing civilians and burning hundreds of homes, leaving thousands displaced. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane for RFA’s Myanmar Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Long lines for gasoline in Laos as shortage worsens

Editor3 years ago010 mins

A gasoline shortage in Laos has motorists queuing in long lines for hours, only to drive away with a small amount of fuel, or none at all, sources in the country told RFA. The price of gas has risen worldwide since the Russian invasion of Ukraine has rattled oil markets and put a strain on the global supply. Landlocked Laos has no oil reserves and imports most of its gasoline from neighboring countries. Though a newly built refinery began operations in 2020, the country’s gas prices are the most expensive in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) outside of Singapore. According to the GlobalPetrolPrices.com website, as of May 16, gasoline in Laos cost U.S. $6.35 per gallon. Laos usually imports 120 million liters (31.7 million US liquid gallons) of gasoline each month but recently has been able to import only 20 million liters, an employee of a fuel importing company told local media. The shortfall leaves Laotians in a daily scramble to get what they can. “There simply is no gas at the pump,” a motorcyclist from the capital Vientiane told RFA’s Lao Service. “The government warns people not to hoard gas, and motorcyclists like me are only allowed to get 1.5 liters of gas at a time. That’s not enough to fill up the tank. If we don’t have gas, we can’t go to work, and the boss will complain.” A government worker from the southern province of Champassak told RFA that most pumps in his area are only open for one hour each day. “If you miss it, there will be no more gas that day,” the government worker said. “This is a serious crisis.” No fuel for plowing The lack of gasoline across Laos is affecting all segments of its economy and nearly every aspect of people’s lives. A farmer in the northern province of Oudomxay told RFA that he cannot plow as frequently as he would like because of the lack of fuel. “We have to get up early then walk between two to five kilometers to the farms, and then we don’t have gas to plow the rice fields either,” he said. “We’ll just have to wait for gasoline to come in.” In northern Laos, transportation companies have been forced to leave their vehicles parked, one bus owner said. “It’s not worth continuing,” he said. “We have fewer passengers now.” Residents of rural villages in Savannakhet province say the shortages leave them even more isolated, a villager told RFA. “No gas, no going out. Only staying at home,” said one villager. Another Savannakhet resident said a pregnant neighbor was almost forced to give birth at home because her husband didn’t have enough gasoline to drive her to her doctor. “My car had some gas left, and I decided to take her to the hospital,” she said. Meanwhile in Borikhamxay, the shortage is also complicating the ability of students to take their final exams, as many rely on motorbikes to commute to school, a principal of a high school told RFA. “Many students live five kilometers or up to eight kilometers from the school … and now, they don’t have gas and can’t go to school,” the principal said. “Likewise, many teachers who live far away from schools some days don’t go to school or come late because they don’t have gas, or they were in line at the pump for gas.” Kip fall behind shortage Laos’ foreign currency problems are a chief cause of the gasoline shortage, Phosisoi Kouthilath, the director of the Industry and Trade Department of Savannakhet province, told RFA. “In our country, the exchange rates are going up every day especially the U.S. dollars. The fuel importers don’t have the dollars to import more gas. That’s why pumps are running out of gas.” According to Asia News Network, the kip depreciated by 6% against the U.S. dollar between Jan. 4 and April 8. A report from the Bank of Laos (BOL) said that from February this year, the kip entered a period in which it set records for decreases in valuation relative to the U.S. dollar and the Thai baht. An official of the Industry and Trade Department of Savannakhet Province said the currency devaluation is making it harder to import gas. “We have to pay in foreign currency for gas,” the official said. “The government doesn’t have the money to give to the gas importing companies.” Laos is entirely dependent on foreign fuel, Sisangkhom Khotyotha, chairman of the Lao Fuel and Gas Association, told RFA. “All fuel in Laos comes from abroad. The importers must pay in U.S. dollars that keeps appreciating, but the kip keeps depreciating,” he said, adding that with the demand for gas is also rising. Turning to Russia? The Lao Prime Minister’s Office issued a notice on May 6 ordering the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Lao Fuel State Enterprise to begin negotiations to buy cheaper oil from Russia. But the situation in Ukraine and international opinion might complicate things. “We’re setting up a national committee that will include the government agencies and gas importing companies. This committee will meet and discuss about the possibility of buying Russian gas,” an official of the Ministry of Industry and Trade told RFA. “However, it won’t be easy. It might be difficult to buy Russian gas because of the conflict with Ukraine,” the official said. Getting the gas from Russia has logistical challenges as well, a government official told RFA on condition of anonymity. “Usually, we import most of our gasoline from Thailand. To change the route won’t be that easy,” the government official said. The Standing Committee of the Lao National Assembly, meanwhile, has agreed with a government proposal to halve all fuel taxes, an official at a fuel warehouse in Vientiane told RFA. The Lao government is also attempting to switch its fleet of vehicles away from gas-powered cars to electric. But that effort is a long way from having any effect on…

More than a dozen Rohingya die when boat capsizes off Myanmar coast

Editor3 years ago09 mins

More than a dozen people, including women and children, died on Saturday when a boat carrying at least 90 Rohingya from western Myanmar’s Rakhine state to Malaysia capsized and sank in the Bay of Bengal during a storm, Myanmar residents and rescue workers said. The passengers, refugees from deadly crackdowns on Rohingya Muslims by Myanmar troops that have driven nearly a million people into camps in Rakhine and neighboring Bangladesh, had paid U.S. $1,500-2,500 each to traffickers to take them to Malaysia, where they hoped to find employment, some of the Rohingya survivors told RFA. More than 50 other passengers remain missing, and more than 20 survivors, mostly men, have been detained by local authorities at the Shwe Thaung Yan township police station in Pathein district of Ayeyarwady region, the sources said. “Ninety people were said to be on the boat, 23 were arrested, and 14 dead bodies have been found so far, most of them children around 11 or 12 years of age,” said a Shwe Thaung Yan resident who declined to be named for safety reasons. RFA has not been able to independently confirm the figures. Seven bodies were recovered after they washed ashore Sunday near the popular Shwe Thaung Yan beach, local rescue workers said. Six others were found earlier in the afternoon in the Wetlet area, and another body washed up on the shore in Shwe Thaung Yan’s ward No. 1. The bodies were not found on the resort side of the beach, one local said. One rescue worker said the bodies were buried Sunday night with the help of Muslim religious leaders from Pathein. “The bodies were buried yesterday,” he said. “The leaders of their religious group came and buried them. We found another dead body in Shwe Thaung Yan No. 1 ward at about 5.30 p.m. The Muslim leaders buried it too. They came from Pathein.” The passengers were trying to reach Malaysia from displacement camps in Rakhine’s Sittwe, Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships, locals said. The ward administrator said that the traffickers and some people about 20 years of age were found alive. “The single body found in our ward was that of a 10-year-old girl,” he said. He speculated that the boat may have been sunk in a cyclone. “The sea around here is very scary. Storms come unannounced sometimes,” he said. Traffickers apprehended Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, spokesman for Myanmar’s ruling junta, said that the boat capsized about five nautical miles west of Thapyay Hmaw Island near Shwe Thaung Yan. “A search was carried out and found 14 Bengalis dead. The rest will be deported as usual,” he said. Authorities captured five “suspects” in Shwe Thaung Yan’s Thae Gone village at about 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, Zaw Min Tun said. “We checked them and found them to be human traffickers. They were bringing these Bengalis from [Rakhine’s] Rathedaung [township] by boat to go to Yangon and then to Malaysia,” he said, using a derogatory term for Rohingya, who in Myanmar are considered illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. In addition to tens of thousands of Muslim refugees in Rakhine, more than 740,000 Rohingya have been sheltering since a 2017 crackdown at refugee camps in southeastern Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar, where they are fenced in and not allowed to work outside their confines. Rohingya in the camps and those still in western Myanmar pay traffickers to transport them to Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand to find work and a better life. Groups of Rohingya have also packed into boats and sailed off in search of asylum in other countries, often only to be denied entry. Tin Hlaing from the Rohingya displacement camp in Thetkeibyin village, Sittwe township, said many have tried to leave Myanmar with the help of traffickers, which in most cases has not ended well. “They left because there are a lot of difficulties in the refugee camps here,” he said. “About 90% of them had financial problems. Jobs are scarce. In some cases, children have grown up. … That’s why they leave.” The Rohingya often ignore warnings of camp administrators about the risks of paying traffickers to transport them, Tin Hlaing said. “About 35 out of 100 people make it,” he said. “They have to pay a lot of money to the traffickers and now they are losing their lives.” “The latest tragedy shows once again the sense of desperation being felt by Rohingya in Myanmar and in the region,” Indrika Ratwatte, director of the regional bureau for Asia and the Pacific at the U.N.’s refugee agency (UNHCR), said in a statement issued Monday. “It is shocking to see increasing numbers of children, women and men embarking on these dangerous journeys and eventually losing their lives.” At least 1,000 Rohingya have left internal displacement camps in Rakhine’s Buthidaung, Maungdaw and Sittwe township s every year in an effort to eke out a living elsewhere. They usually must pay traffickers 3 million-5 million kyats (U.S. $1,600-2,700) per person to be smuggled. Nay San Lwin, co-founder of the Rohingya Liberation Coalition, said Rohingya hoping for a better future in Malaysia have been repeatedly deceived by traffickers “People are not allowed to travel, [and] their working rights are restricted, so they try to flee, thinking that if they go to Malaysia, they will find a brighter future,” he said. RFA could not reach Maung Maung Than, social affairs minister of Ayeyarwady region, for comment. Myanmar police arrested 41 Rohingya in Shwe Taung Yan’s Nwe Nyo Chaung village on March 22 after their boat broke down and was stranded on the beach. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane for RFA’s Myanmar Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Former RFA blogger in failing health in Vietnam jail

Editor3 years ago07 mins

A Vietnamese journalist jailed for writing articles that criticized Vietnam’s one-party communist government is in failing health, with prison authorities refusing family requests to send him outside the facility for medical treatment, RFA has learned. Nguyen Truong Thuy, a former vice president of the Vietnam Independent Journalists Association (IJAVN), is serving an 11-year sentence at the An Phuoc detention center in southern Vietnam’s Binh Duong province on a charge of “propagandizing against the state.” He had blogged on civil rights and freedom of speech issues for RFA’s Vietnamese Service for six years and visited the United States in 2014 to testify before the House of Representatives on media freedom in Vietnam. Thuy, 72, is now suffering in custody from back pain, high blood pressure, scabies and inflammatory bowel disease, Thuy’s wife, Pham Thi Lan, told RFA in a recent interview. “I visited him on May 14, and he told me that he now has less back pain but still has to take medicine to treat the problem with his large intestine. And he still has problems with scabies, as the treatment he has been given for this so far has been unsuccessful,” Lan said. Detention center authorities have rejected requests to send Thuy to a medical center outside the jail for better treatment and have downplayed the severity of his condition, Lan added. “In a letter he sent home in March, my husband wrote that he sometimes had to urinate in his cell and seek medical help every week because of issues with his health, and because of this, I made a request that he be sent to another facility for treatment,” Lan said. “But the center said his health was not that bad, and they told me to correct the information in my report.” A former officer in the Vietnam People’s Army, Thuy worked at a construction company after being discharged and then retired with a pension of more than 6 million VND ($260) per month. But payments were stopped in March after an authorization letter allowing his family to receive his pension on his behalf expired. Thuy’s harsh treatment behind bars may be due to his refusal to plead guilty to the charges filed against him or to recognize the court’s verdict in his trial, Lan said. She called on the international community to pressure Vietnam’s government to allow him to seek medical care. Calls by RFA seeking comment from the An Phuoc detention center were unanswered. Truong Van Dung is shown with his arrest warrant issued by Hanoi Police on May 21, 2022. Police in Vietnam’s capital in a separate case on May 21 arrested Hanoi resident and human rights activist Truong Van Dung, charging him under Article 88 of Vietnam’s 1999 Penal Code with “conducting propaganda against the State,” Dung’s wife Nghiem Thi Hop told RFA the same day. Dung, who was born in 1958, was taken into custody at around 7 a.m. at the couple’s home, Hop said. “While I was out shopping, I received a phone call from a neighbor telling me he had been arrested, and I came back at 7:30 but they had already taken him away.” Police in plain clothes then arrived and read out an order to search the house, taking away books, notebooks, laptop computers and protest banners, she added. Dung had participated in protests in Hanoi including demonstrations against China’s occupation of the Paracel Islands — an island group in the South China Sea also claimed by Vietnam — and protests against the Taiwan-owned Formosa Company for polluting the coastline of four central Vietnamese provinces of Vietnam in 2016. Public protests even over perceived harm to Vietnam’s interests are considered threats to its political stability and are routinely suppressed by the police. Dung’s arrest under Article 88 of Vietnam’s Penal Code is the second arrest on national security charges reported since Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh’s May 12-17 visit to the U.S. Cao Thi Cue, owner of the Peng Lai Temple in southern Vietnam’s Long An province, was arrested on charges of “abusing the rights to freedom and democracy” under Article 331 of the 2015 Penal Code. Both laws have been criticized by rights groups as tools used to stifle voices of dissent in the one-party communist state. Translated by Anna Vu for RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Flickering dreams of democracy

Editor3 years ago01 mins

Cambodia is set to open two weeks of campaigning for local Commune Council elections on June 5. Prime Minister Hun Sen has urged authorities to remain neutral during the race, but politicians are wary after months of violence and harassment directed against aspiring candidates from parties other than the strongman’s Cambodian People’s Party. Cambodians also recall the previous local elections in 2017, where a strong showing by the main opposition party prompted Hun Sen, who has ruled the country since 1985, to ban the party and arrest its leader, a move that allowed his party to sweep all seats in parliamentary voting the following year.

Category: ASEAN