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Category: ASEAN

Vietnamese blogger sent back to jail after three years in mental hospital

Editor08 mins

A Vietnamese blogger held for three years in a mental hospital while awaiting trial for criticizing Vietnam’s one-party communist state has been sent back to his former detention center on the orders of the Hanoi Police Investigation Agency, RFA has learned. Le Anh Hung, a member of the online Brotherhood of Democracy advocacy group, was returned to the agency’s Detention Center No. 1 on May 10 following a decision made the day before by police investigators, his mother Tran Thi Nem told RFA in a recent interview. His trial will now be held within a few months, Nem said. Hung, who had logged for Voice of America, was arrested on July 5, 2018 on a charge of “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the state” under Article 331 of Vietnam’s criminal code. If convicted at trial, he could serve up to seven years in prison. He was transferred in April 2019 for “observation and treatment” from jail to Hanoi’s National Institute of Forensic Psychiatry, where he was beaten and forcibly injected with psychiatric drugs, including a powerful sedative that left him unconscious, to treat his supposed mental illness, sources told RFA in earlier reports. While held in hospital, Hung was confined with 15 female patients, journalist Huynh Ngoc Chenh—the husband of prisoner of conscience Nguyen Thuy Hanh, also held in the Institute—told RFA following a May 6 meeting with his wife. However, security guards and hospital staff had prevented Hanh and Hung from speaking with each other, Chenh said. Prisoners at Gia Trung Detention Center are shown returning from work in an undated photo. Photo: State Media Held in cells all day Meanwhile, political prisoners held at the Gia Trung Detention Center in Dak Lak, a province in Vietnam’s central highlands, are being kept in their cells all day, with only an hour allowed outside for meals, for refusing forced-labor assignments, prisoners’ relatives said. Prisoners convicted of political crimes have been singled out for harsh treatment at the center, said Le Khanh Duy—the former husband of prisoner of conscience Huynh Thuc Vy—citing a phone call made by Huynh to family members on May 16. “Vy told me that political prisoners at the detention center are being persecuted,” Le Khanh Duy told RFA this week. “They are locked up in their cells all day for refusing to go to work, and are allowed outside for only one hour each day to get their meals.” Vy, who is serving a 33-month jail term for “offending the national flag” under Article 276 of Vietnam’s criminal code, also reported being harassed by common prisoners suspected of acting under orders to make political prisoners’ lives “more difficult,” Duy said. Other political prisoners held at Gia Trung include Nguyen Trung Ton, a member of the Brotherhood for Democracy now serving a 12-year jail sentence, and Luu Van Vinh, a member of the Vietnam National Self-Determination Coalition, now serving a 15-year term. Phan Van Thu, the leader of a religious group called Council for the Laws and Public Affairs of Bia Son, named for a mountain in coastal Vietnam’s Phu Yen province, is also serving a life sentence at the center. Speaking to RFA, Luu Van Vinh’s wife Le Thi Thap said her husband had previously been allowed to leave his cell twice a day, but now was under heavier restrictions. “Vinh and some other inmates don’t go out to work, and therefore had to stay in their cells while others work outside, but they were allowed to go out for a while at noon and then later in the afternoon,” Thap said. “But I’ve heard that things have gotten worse since last month, so now I want to visit my husband and ask him about this in person,” she said. ‘No forced labor’ The use of forced labor in Vietnamese prisons has been strongly criticized by human rights organizations including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. In August 2020, the Vietnam Times Magazine, a publication of the Vietnam Union of Friendship Organizations (VUFO) published an article titled “There is no forced labor in Vietnam.” Making arrangements for prisoners to work is “a demonstration of the humanity in the policy of the Vietnamese Government and Communist Party,” wrote the article’s author Nguyen Van Dieu, an official of the Ministry of Public Security’s Department of Detention Center Management. Calls seeking comment from the Gia Trung Detention Center rang unanswered this week. Translated by Anna Vu for RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.

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Junta troops murder 3 dozen civilians over 4 days in Myanmar’s Sagaing region

Editor09 mins

Junta forces brutally murdered nearly three dozen civilians — including members of the Buddhist clergy — over the course of four days in Myanmar’s embattled Sagaing region, sources said Monday. The military dismissed the allegations as “fabrications.” Residents told RFA’s Myanmar Service the killings took place from May 10-13 in Sagaing’s Ye Oo and Pale townships, beginning with an early morning raid on the former’s Mon Taing Pin village. A resident of Mon Taing Pin, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal, said junta troops rained heavy artillery and mortar shells down on the village around dawn on May 10 in an attack that members of the anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary group later told RFA killed two of their fighters on guard in the area. “They entered our village after firing a variety of heavy weapons. Once in the village, they set up sentries all over and went to the monastery, where they arrested people hiding there and brought them out with hands tied behind their backs,” the resident said. “There was one group of 10 men, and then another group of eight, and another group of 12, and so on. All of them were later beaten to death and their bodies were placed under houses that the troops set on fire.” The villager called the attack “indescribably cruel” and “calculated.” On May 12, when the troops finally left the area and villagers were able to return, they discovered the charred remains of 28 people — 18 inside of homes destroyed by arson in Mon Taing Pin and another 10 similarly disposed of in nearby In Pin village. The victims were all men, between 20 and 60 years old, sources said, adding that in addition to Mon Taing Pin and In Pin, several homes burned in neighboring Si Son village, and around 10,000 residents from 10 area villages fled into the jungle during the attack. Photos provided to RFA by residents of the area appear to show human remains so thoroughly burned that little is left besides bone fragments and blackened internal organs. In other images, the bloated bodies of two young men lie askew next to a motorbike, their faces unrecognizable due to decomposition. One photo shows the lower half of a severed torso, next to a pair of amputated legs. Buddhist monks killed An aid worker, who also declined to be named, told RFA that his organization was compiling a list of victims on Monday. “The houses that were burned down are being cleared up — our main goal is to get the villages into a habitable state,” he said. “The houses were destroyed by fire, so we must make some makeshift repairs. We need funding to make food available. There villages are mostly destroyed, so we are in urgent need of donations.” Refugees from the attack are also in need of shelter as the rainy season approaches, he said. A member of the Ye Oo Township PDF told RFA that the threat of attack remains, as the military maintains a heavy presence in the area. “We don’t know at this time what they might do. The people in the region don’t dare to return to their villages, even though the situation has calmed down,” he said. “We’re trying to find ways to lift their spirits, to make them strong and help them. These are our priorities.” Separately, two Buddhist monks and two young novices were killed on May 13 when junta troops fired heavy artillery into the center of Sagaing’s Pale township, Po Thar, a fighter with the local Black Leopard PDF, told RFA.  Po Thar said that on May 12, the Black Leopards launched an attack on the military proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party office in Pale, setting it on fire. “The next day, when the military column that was on a mission to Let Yet Ma village returned to Pale, they learned that a PDF group was in the town and started firing artillery shells,” he said. “But the PDF fighters were gone, and they were hitting ordinary people. One of their shells hit the Mya Thein Dan Monastery in the center of the town and killed the abbot, another monk and two young novices.” ‘Fabricated’ reports Junta deputy minister of information, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, called the reports of civilian deaths “fabricated.” “These are just rumors. When they have a favorable outcome, [the PDF] says they were responsible. And if one of them is killed, they claim it was a [civilian],” he said, calling the reports part of the PDF’s “routine tricks.” He said the military attacked and captured a PDF camp near Ye Oo’s Sigone village on May 11, killing more than 10 paramilitaries and confiscating a cache of makeshift mortars, weapons and other related materials. Last week’s attacks follow a May 1 announcement by the military that Ye Oo had been upgraded from a township to a district level. PDF fighters in the area told RFA that a military tactical commander is now overseeing the area and that several armored vehicles and troop reinforcements have since been deployed there. Myint Htwe, a former lawmaker with the deposed National League for Democracy party in Ye Oo, said that since the beginning of May, the military has been clearing out an increasing number of villages in the township. 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. Fighting between the military and the PDF in the area has intensified in recent months, displacing thousands of civilians, according to sources. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

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As borders reopen, labor shortage looms in Laos’ SEZs

Editor07 mins

Laos’ special economic zones (SEZs) are losing labor rapidly as workers move on to greener pastures in Thailand following a reopening of the borders between the neighboring Southeast Asian countries last week. Many of the workers who left for Thailand have previously worked in the country. When the pandemic hit and they lost their jobs, they returned home to Laos before the two countries sealed their borders. The large workforce later took jobs in SEZs in the capital Vientiane region, where Chinese companies are given concessions in exchange for development and jobs. With no other choice, the workers were forced to accept wages that were a mere fraction of what they could get in wealthier Thailand. But the reopening of the borders last week brought a mass exodus of workers, Thanongxay Khounphaithoun, director of the Special Economic Zone Management Department of Vientiane, told local media. In the five SEZs in Vientiane, only 3,375 workers are on the job and, of those, 2,737 are Laotian, he said. To operate at full capacity, the zones need a total of 6,000 Lao workers this year and 10,000 next year. The money is simply better in Thailand. “We can’t attract workers,” an employee at one of the SEZs told RFA’s Lao Service on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. “The problem is that most Laotians came to work with us only temporarily then quit. And now they went back to Thailand,” he said. Another factor that may cause workers to favor Thailand to the SEZs is the language barrier. The Thai and Lao languages are mutually intelligible. But working in the SEZs may require learning Chinese, ultimately for less money. “Chinese companies need Lao workers who speak Chinese,” an employee of a Chinese company in one of the capital’s SEZs told RFA on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “If you speak Chinese, you can send your application and resume to their email then wait for a call,” the employee said. But the companies in the SEZ badly need workers and are taking anyone they can get, another employee of a Chinese company in a different SEZ told RFA. “We need a lot workers in the production department. Those who have graduated from high school and are 18 years old or older can apply,” the second employee said. An unemployed Lao resident who used to work in Thailand told RFA that although he could find a job in the SEZs relatively easily, he did not plan to apply. “I don’t want to work in the special economic zones because the wages are too low. I’ve seen an announcement from the Labor Ministry that says the SEZs need a lot of workers, but I don’t want to apply because it’s not worth it,” he said. The difference in wages between the two countries is stark. A Lao worker who is employed in a suburb of Thailand’s capital Bangkok told RFA that she now makes more than three times what she did in Laos for the same job. “In Laos, I worked at a factory in Savannakhet province and I received a basic salary of 1.1 million kip [U.S. $85] per month,” she said.  “Here in Thailand I get 10,000 baht [$288] a month and the cost of living in Thailand is cheaper too.” The Lao Federation of Trade Unions in late March called on businesses to raise the minimum wage from 1.1 million kip ($85) to 1.5 million ($115), the Vientiane Times reported. RFA reported last week that the Lao kip is also in serious decline, losing value against the Thai baht and U.S. dollar to the tune of a 6% drop between January and April. This has coincided with a 15-50% increase imported household goods, meaning that wages paid in kip have gone down in terms of what they can purchase, and wages paid in baht have remained stable by the same measure, and have gone up when compared to the value of the kip. Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

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Vietnamese delegation’s loose lips caught on video during US-ASEAN summit

Editor04 mins

A video that captured crass remarks made by Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and other high-ranking officials prior to their meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken went viral over the weekend and was removed from the U.S. State Department’s YouTube account. The Vietnamese officials met with Blinken on Friday as part of the two-day U.S.- summit with the 10-member Association for Southeast Asian Nations. According to a series of tweets about the incident by Southeast Asia analyst Nguyen Phuong Linh, the video shows the Vietnamese delegation laughing that U.S. President Joe Biden told Prime Minister Chinh that he could “not trust Russia.” Chinh also describes the meeting with Biden as “straightforward and fair and that Vietnam isn’t afraid of anyone,” after which the Vietnamese ambassador to the U.S., Nguyen Quoc Dzung, said they “put [Biden] into checkmate.” Minister of Public Security To Lam is also seen praising the former deputy national security adviser during the Trump administration, Matthew Pottinger, for being young and smart and having a wife who was born in Vietnam. The Vietnamese officials also refer to a number of U.S. officials without using honorific terms that in the Vietnamese language their titles alone would command. The State Department typically captures video footage of dignitaries prior to meetings with its senior staff and shares the videos on its YouTube account. In most cases, these videos will show smiles and handshakes and are largely uneventful. The video was published shortly after their meeting on Friday but by Saturday evening, the video became “unavailable” on YouTube. RFA was not able to determine why the video was removed from the State Department’s account. “So embarrassing for the Vietnamese that the State Dept. appears to have taken the video offline,” former BBC journalist Bill Hayton wrote on his Twitter account. The dialogue caught in the video “might indicate a more serious issue of how dysfunctional the incumbent cabinet in [Vietnam] is in general, and how incompetent the [Vietnamese] leaders are in terms of comms, foreign affairs and security,” Linh tweeted. RFA’s Vietnamese Service, which shared the video on its Facebook account, received comments from followers that were critical of the Vietnamese delegation. “Talking about your host while you’re a guest at their house is so uneducated,” Facebook user Kien Nguyen commented. “This kind of language, coming from the Prime Minister’s mouth. It sounds like what you hear in bus stations,” Hoa Nguyen, another Facebook user, said. Translated by An Nguyen. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

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Myanmar’s shadow government holds talks with powerful Arakan Army

Editor08 mins

Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) on Monday met for the first time with leaders from the country’s formidable Arakan Army (AA) insurgent group, prompting speculation over an alliance that an analyst said could give the opposition the upper hand over an overextended military. NUG Foreign Minister Zin Mar Aung and Min Ko Naing, the head of its Alliance Relations Committee, held a two-hour meeting via video conference with United League of Arakan/Arakan Army (ULA/AA) chairman, Gen. Tun Myat Naing, and Gen. Sec. Nyo Tun Aung. The NUG said in a statement that the two sides discussed “the current political situation in Myanmar.” “The parties held cordial discussions on the state of the nation and exchanged views,” said the statement, which referred to the Rakhine group as the “ULA/AA-led Rakhine People’s Government.” “Additionally, the current activities of the National Unity Government were discussed by relevant ministries,” it added, without providing further details. AA spokesperson Khing Thukha confirmed the meeting in an interview with RFA’s Myanmar Service, calling it an “exchange of views” on the political situation in Myanmar more than 15 months after the military took power in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup. The AA agreed to a ceasefire with Myanmar’s military in late 2020 after around two years of intensive fighting. The ceasefire was tested in February when the military attacked two AA bases in Rakhine state, prompting clashes in the region, sources told RFA at the time. Talks with the NUG, which the junta has labeled a “terrorist organization,” are likely to ruffle feathers in Naypyidaw. When asked whether the AA expects a resumption of fighting with the military in Rakhine, Khaing Thukha said that time will tell. “It depends on [the junta’s] actions, and whether they respond militarily or politically,” he said. “We will respond as necessary, depending on their actions.” Monday’s meeting came a day after the NUG issued a statement marking Rakhine National Day and expressing condolences for “the suffering of the people affected by the military and political conflict in Rakhine state,” and pledging to “work with relevant organizations to bring about justice.” The shadow government sent a similar message on April 10 to mark the 13th anniversary of the founding of the AA. Potential shift in power Political analyst Ye Tun said that if talks between the NUG and the ULA/AA are successful, fighting could resume in Rakhine and shift the nationwide balance of power in favor of the armed resistance, led by the NUG-aligned People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary group. “If renewed fighting occurs there, the military will have to extend its forces even further to deal with a new battlefront,” he said. “It would not be able to mobilize and attack in one place, so the PDFs would enjoy a slight advantage over the other fronts.” Ye Tun noted that the AA has yet to respond to an invitation to peace talks last month from junta chief, Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing. He said the ethnic Rakhine army would not attend if it pursues an alliance with the NUG. Earlier this month, the country’s four most powerful ethnic armed groups — the Kachin Independence Organisation, the Karen National Union, the Karenni National Progressive Party and the Chin National Front— all rejected the invitation, saying that by not offering the NUG and the PDF the chance to participate, the junta showed it is unwilling to meet halfway. The NUG has reportedly made overtures to the AA in the past. On April 16, ULA/AA Chairman Tun Myat Naing tweeted that the NUG had “invited us to join hands” in the aftermath of the coup, but the AA chose not to respond because “we had our own agenda to pursue.” Fierce fighting erupted between the military and the AA in December 2018 under deposed National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government, but the two sides brokered a ceasefire in November 2020 and the region had been largely quiet since. However, on May 15 this year, the AA announced that the junta had undermined the agreement and said clashes with the military “could occur at any time” in Rakhine state. Ten armed ethnic groups have signed a Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement with the government since 2015 and have suggested that the deal remains in place, despite an already flailing peace process that was all but destroyed by the unpopular junta’s coup. Previously, all 10 said they would not pursue talks with the military, which they view as having stolen power from the country’s democratically elected government. The military has made 12 invitations to the country’s armed ethnic groups since the coup, but the April offering marked the first time Min Aung Hlaing said he would attend. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

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Malaysian FM: ‘Junta should be more open to ASEAN proposals’

Editor08 mins

The Myanmar junta should do more to help ASEAN deliver humanitarian aid across the turmoil-hit country, Malaysia’s top diplomat said after meeting in Washington with the Burmese opposition’s foreign minister. Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah spoke to reporters here on Saturday after his first in-person meeting with Zin Mar Aung, his counterpart from the opposition “shadow” government of Myanmar, made up of elected leaders who were overthrown in a military coup in February 2021. “I think the junta should be more open to ASEAN proposals, especially in the current situation in helping to distribute the humanitarian assistance,” Saifuddin told a press conference. “We have to be transparent. We want to make sure that whatever that is distributed will reach the actual target group. What we don’t want to happen is for humanitarian assistance to be weaponized by the junta and used in a certain way that is so discriminatory, that only certain people will receive the assistance.” The two diplomats met at a hotel near the White House, a day after the leaders of Malaysia and other members of the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations met with President Joe Biden and other senior U.S. officials for a special U.S.-ASEAN Summit here. Saifuddin described his discussion with Zin Mar Aung as a “heart-to-heart” one that focused largely on how to improve the distribution of humanitarian aid inside Myanmar. Zin Mar Aung, who represents the National Unity Government (NUG) on the world stage, later took to Twitter to post a message about the meeting with Saifuddin. “Had a productive meeting with Foreign Minister of Malaysia @saifuddinabd about the dire situation in Myanmar, and how the NUG and Malaysia can work together to restore peace and democracy in Myanmar, including humanitarian assistance and support for the Myanmar refugees,” she tweeted on Sunday. During her visit to Washington, Zin Mar Aung also met with Wendy Sherman, a senior U.S. State Department official who played a prominent role at the U.S.-ASEAN Summit, on the sidelines of that meeting. Among his ASEAN counterparts, Saifuddin has been leading calls lately for the Southeast Asian bloc to hold informal talks with the National Unity Government. The Burmese military government, in the meantime, has denounced reports of engagements in the U.S. capital between State Department and NUG officials and has sent protest notes to all ASEAN countries and the United States calling on them to not speak with the shadow government, Reuters reported on Saturday. It cited a statement from the junta-appointed foreign ministry.   During their meeting, Saifuddin and Zin Mar Aung also discussed the possibility of Malaysia allowing the NUG to open an office in Kuala Lumpur, Saifuddin said, adding this idea had yet to be discussed in detail. Given the NUG’s prominent role in Myanmar, the opposition government could play an important role in helping deliver and distribute humanitarian aid, Saifuddin said.   “[W]e have the same understanding that humanitarian assistance must be organized in a certain way that it is transparent. We cannot have only the junta doing the humanitarian assistance,” Saifuddin told reporters. “Malaysia’s proposal is that you must have a strong presence of international organizations, and the best way is to have organizations under the auspices of the United Nations.” The U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is in Myanmar already, but more needs to be done, according to Saifuddin. Malaysia is proposing that each of ASEAN’s other member-states offer up one NGO to help deliver aid to the Burmese people, he said. Brutal crackdown According to human rights groups, at least 1,800 civilians have been killed during a brutal crackdown against opponents of the coup led by Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the junta chief, who was barred from attending the Washington summit. ASEAN has been heavily criticized for failing to carry out a five-point consensus that leaders from the bloc as well as the junta chief had agreed to at an emergency summit in Jakarta in April 2021. Since then, the junta has refused to allow a special envoy from ASEAN to meet with NUG officials during his visits to the country, and which was framed among the five points in the so-called consensus. At Saturday’s news conference, a reporter asked Saifuddin whether the conditions existed for ASEAN to open informal talks with the NUG. “I think the conditions [are] already here,” he said. “Now we are saying [that] after one year, nothing [has] moved. Since nothing [has] moved, more people are killed, more people [have] fled the country.” “We can’t wait for another one year, so we have to be creative,” Saifuddin said. “And this is why we are saying, look, we have been for one year talking to the junta and nothing seems to be moving, so it’s about time we also talk to the NUG, even if it is in an informal way.” BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.

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China, ASEAN to hold South China Sea code of conduct talks this month

Editor06 mins

China and countries from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will conduct face-to-face consultations on a Code of Conduct (COC) in the disputed South China Sea later this month in Cambodia, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has said. Spokesperson Zhao Lijian told reporters in Beijing that the consultations will be done in person “in the latter half of this month… despite the impact of COVID-19.” For the last two years, most of the negotiations over the South China Sea, the thorniest issue between China and ASEAN, have been conducted online because of the pandemic. China and ASEAN agreed on a Declaration of Conduct of Parties (DOC) in the South China Sea in 2003, but progress on a COC has been slow going amid an increasing risk of conflict. China’s diplomats are believed to be making fresh efforts to speed up COC negotiations with ASEAN, especially as China’s close ally Cambodia is holding the bloc’s chairmanship this year. “Establishing a COC is clearly stipulated in the DOC, and represents the common aspiration and need of China and ASEAN countries,” said spokesman Zhao. He said that China “is fully confident in reaching a COC,” which would provide a “more solid guarantee of rules for lasting tranquility of the South China Sea.” Yet analysts say there are still major stumbling blocks to be addressed, such as China’s self-proclaimed historical rights over 90 percent of the South China Sea and the long-standing division within ASEAN over maritime disputes. China and five other parties including four ASEAN member states –Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam – hold competing claims in the South China Sea but the Chinese claims are the most expansive and a 2016 international arbitration tribunal ruled that they had no legal basis. “If the idea is to produce a comprehensive COC that addresses all of the different concerns of the claimant countries, I do not think it is achievable,” Jay Batongbacal, director of the Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea at the University of the Philippines, told RFA in an earlier interview. Credit: RFA U.S.-ASEAN Special Summit The South China Sea was high on the agenda at last week’s Special Summit between ASEAN countries and the United States. The Joint Vision Statement issued at the end of the summit said that parties “recognize the benefits of having the South China Sea as a sea of peace, stability, and prosperity.” “We emphasize the importance of practical measures that could reduce tensions and the risk of accidents, misunderstandings, and miscalculation,” the statement said. Without mentioning China, the signatories of the joint vision statement “emphasized the need to maintain and promote an environment conducive to the COC negotiations” and said they welcomed further progress “towards the early conclusion of an effective and substantive COC.” Some analysts, however, think that the U.S. involvement may not be beneficial to the COC negotiation process. “I don’t think it will help improve the South China Sea situation,” said Kimkong Heng, a senior research fellow at the Cambodia Development Center. “The U.S. has its own agendas that might exacerbate rather than facilitate the South China Sea negotiation,” he said. Cambodia is not a claimant in the South China Sea. From Phnom Penh’s standpoint, the U.S. will likely “continue to pressure Cambodia on the potential Chinese military base in the kingdom,” added Heng “This will serve as a barrier for any meaningful negotiations between the U.S. and Cambodia on national and regional issues,” Heng said. ASEAN comprises ten members: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.    

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27 charred bodies discovered in Sagaing after Myanmar junta’s latest arson attack

Editor03 mins

Villagers found 27 charred bodies inside burnt homes yesterday in northwestern Myanmar’s Sagaing region, where the ruling military junta has for months conducted an arson campaign targeting rural villages, burning hundreds of homes, and leaving thousands displaced.  The villagers told RFA that the bodies were found in the Mon Dai Pin and Inbin villages of Ye Oo township. While there was no fighting in their area, the villagers said, soldiers arrived during a military operation and spent a night in the village.  “Most of the villagers fled to safety, [but] some were unable to escape,” one villager said. RFA has not been able to confirm the incident and attempts to contact junta spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun went unanswered.  A military column from nearby Taze township raided Mon Dai Pin on May 9 and set fire to about 30 houses, villagers said.  In addition to the charred bodies, villagers said three monks from the village monastery were taken away by the military. Of the 27 bodies, 17 were found in Mon Dai Pin and the other 10 were found in Inbin.  Some of the bodies were found on the street, and villagers said some of them had gunshot wounds. The victims were identified as local residents in their 40s. The villagers said that since the fire has not fully died down, they could not search all the homes. RFA previously reported on the junta’s burning of 500 homes in Sagaing in only three days, with the military cutting off internet access in 27 of the region’s 37 townships in early March. The information blackout has left villagers in the dark about the campaign as the military moves from village to village in a crackdown on opponents of its Feb. 1, 2021 coup.  Soldiers had destroyed around 200 and 70 homes in Mingin’s Thanbauk and Zinkale villages, respectively, on April 25, some 220 homes in Khin Oo’s Thanboh village the following day, and an unconfirmed number of homes in Shwebo’s Malar and Makhauk villages on the evening of April 27, RFA’s investigation found.

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In Myanmar, daily commute gets tougher

Editor01 mins

Residents of Dala, a township on the southern banks of Myanmar’s Yangon River, rely on an extensive ship and motorboat system to reach the country’s largest city, Yangon, on the other side of the water. More than 180,000 people live in Dala, and half of them commute to Yangon for work each day. But since the military seized power last year, the price of fuel has skyrocketed across the country, and people in the township are finding it difficult to afford the cost of the boat trips. Operators are also considering raising the price of the trips, which currently stands at 200 kyats, around $0.12 USD. Many residents have also lost their jobs in the city amid the economic downturn that has followed the coup and the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Economics and hotspots Myanmar and Ukraine on agenda of US-ASEAN Summit final day

Editor011 mins

Vice President Kamala Harris offered Southeast Asian leaders maritime security assistance to address “threats to international rules and norms” as the top U.S. diplomat sought deeper ties with regional heavyweight Indonesia and budding partner Vietnam on Friday, the final day of a U.S.-ASEAN Special Summit. Hosting the leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations for a working lunch, Harris stressed the security concerns many of the countries share over aggressive Chinese actions in the South China Sea, where several of the 10 ASEAN states have territorial disputes with Beijing. “Our administration recognizes the vital strategic importance of your region, a role that will only grow with time. And we recognize ASEAN’s centrality in the region’s architecture,” she told the gathering at the State Department in Washington. “As an Indo-Pacific nation, the United States will be present and continue to be engaged in Southeast Asia for generations to come,” Harris said, adding that with a shared vision for the region, “together we will guard against threats to international rules and norms.” “We stand with our allies and partners in defending the maritime rules-based order which includes freedom of navigation and international law,” she said, without mentioning China. To underscore U.S. commitment, Harris said the U.S. will provide $60 million in new regional maritime security assistance led by the U.S. Coast Guard, and will deploy a cutter as a training platform and will send technical experts to help build capacity in the region. That offer followed President Joe Biden commitment at the summit’s opening dinner Thursday to spend U.S. $150 million on COVID-19 prevention, security, and infrastructure in Southeast Asia as part of a package his administration hopes will counter China’s extensive influence in the region. A U.S. Coast Guard ship will also be deployed to the region to patrol waters ASEAN nations say are illegally fished by Chinese vessels. In bilateral meetings Friday with Indonesia and Vietnam, ASEAN’s most populous nations, Secretary of State Antony Blinken stressed deepening partnership in security and stronger economic ties. The second U.S.-ASEAN summit to be held in the United States, following an inaugural gathering in California in 2016, “puts an emphasis on the great importance that we attach, the United States attaches to ASEAN, our relationship, ASEAN centrality,” Blinken told Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi. “We are working together across the board to advance a shared vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific region.  We’re working to strengthen economic ties among countries in the region,” he said at the State Department. U.S. President Joe Biden (L) and leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) arrive for a group photo on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, May 12, 2022. Credit: AFP. ‘Dreadful humanitarian crisis’ in Ukraine Retno welcomed “intensified communication and cooperation between our two countries,” and said “we should use this strategic partnership also to contribute to the peace, stability, and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific.” Departing with a general reticence about discussing the war in Ukraine among of ASEAN states–which include Russia-friendly Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam–the Indonesia minister said: “Our hope is to see the war in Ukraine stop as soon as possible.” Retro’s remarks echoed those made to U.S. lawmakers Thursday by Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo, who noted the Ukraine war’s impact on the global economy, including food and energy price surges. “The Ukrainian war has led to a dreadful humanitarian crisis that affects the global economy,” he said, according to remarks released by his cabinet. Blinken told Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh that Washington and Hanoi are “now the strongest of partners, with a shared vision for security in the region we share and for the strongest possible economic ties.” The crisis following the February 2021 military coup in Myanmar, which was a top focus of Thursday’s meetings on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit, was at the fore of Blinken’s meeting with Cambodia Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn, who also serves as ASEAN’s special envoy to Myanmar. “We’re working very closely together as partners to try to advance a shared vision for the region, including regional security,” said Blinken. Cambodia is this year’s rotating ASEAN chair. “And of course, we welcome the leadership role that you’re playing at ASEAN on a number of issues, including hopefully working to restore the democratic path of Myanmar,” Blinken added. Absent but high on the agenda Myanmar was one of only two ASEAN countries whose rulers were not at the summit. The Philippines is being represented by its foreign minister as it wraps up a presidential election this week, while Myanmar’s junta chief, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, was barred from the summit amid a brutal crackdown on opponents of his military regime that rights groups say has claimed the lives of at least 1,835 civilians. While absent in Washington, the country the U.S. still officially calls Burma was much on the agenda of its fellow ASEAN members Thursday. Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah called out junta officials in a series of tweets for failing to honor their commitment to end violence in the country, while U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman held a meeting with Zin Mar Aung, the foreign minister of the shadow National Unity Government in Myanmar. “The deputy secretary highlighted that the United States would continue to work closely with ASEAN and other partners in pressing for a just and peaceful resolution to the crisis in Burma,” according to a statement by State Department spokesperson Ned Price. “They also condemned the escalating regime violence that has led to a humanitarian crisis and called for unhindered humanitarian access to assist all those in need in Burma.” In Naypyidaw, RFA’s Myanmar Service asked military junta spokesman Maj Gen Zaw Min Tun for comments but he did not respond. But the head of a think tank made up of former military officers who often reflects the regime’s hardline views called the U.S. meeting with the parallel administration “unethical.” “To put it bluntly, it’s an unethical act…

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