Category: ASEAN

Tensions between Myanmar’s military and the Arakan Army (AA) insurgent group are rising in the restive western state of Rakhine, although an uneasy ceasefire remains in effect for now, residents in the area told RFA. In late 2020, the AA agreed to end about two years of intense fighting with Myanmar’s military. The ceasefire was tested in February when the military attacked two AA bases in Rakhine, prompting new clashes in the area, sources told RFA at the time. Although the skirmishes did not lead to an all-out conflict, locals say tensions remain high and fighting could soon resume. The AA’s commander-in-chief, Maj. Gen. Tun Myat Naing, tweeted a warning to the leader of the junta’s Western Command, Htin Latt Oo, as the military and the AA work to establish a presence in towns like Minbya and Rathedaung. “We saw heavy security in Rathedaung Township since about a week ago,” Kyaw Min Khaing, a resident of Rathedaung, told RFA’s Myanmar Service. “It seems like both sides are ready for a full-scale battle. There are lots of them, in full force, both inside and outside the town. So, people are worried about a renewed fighting.” Soldiers from both sides are said to be facing each other in several Rathedaung villages, including Chaung, Aung Thar Si and Hteeswe. “Our people are worried because there are similar tensions in other areas,” said Annthar Gyee, a resident of Minbya, a town of 170,000 people where junta and AA forces have confronted one another. “There could be new fighting breaking out at any time. This time it could be bigger than before. What will happen if there is renewed fighting? We are worried about the consequences,” Annthar Gyee told RFA. On May 15, the AA said in a statement that the junta was deploying more forces in Rakhine, including areas controlled by the United League of Arakan (ULA), the AA’s parent political organization. The AA’s statement indicated that it viewed the junta’s activities to be a threat to the ULA’s administrative authority. Residents told RFA that junta soldiers are stationed in Taungup, Kyaukpyu, Ramree, Pauktaw and Ponnagyun to monitor AA activities in Rakhine, especially in Muslim villages. They also urge villagers not to support the AA and to inform them about the AA’s activities. The AA has called on the public to be vigilant in case tensions boil over and fighting erupts. Junta spokesman, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, told RFA that the military is only trying to promote security in the region. “We have to do what is necessary for security. What we are seeing lately is the AA’s statements about the current worrisome situation and the possibility of renewed fighting,” he said. “So, the question we want to ask is, What kind of attitude did they have when they issued such statements? We have to think about whether they are asking for some fighting,” Zaw Min Tun said. AA spokesman Khaing Thukha said what happens next will be determined by the junta’s activities in Rakhine. “We will take necessary action, depending on the political or military moves of the Myanmar army,” Khaing Thukha said. Disruptive activities by the military have brought the people of Myebon township to the brink, Pe Than, a former member of Myebon’s People’s Assembly, told RFA. “If the Myanmar army continues to harass and arrest our people or disrupts our judiciary practices, as they have been doing, I don’t think it’ll be long until we see new fighting.,” Pe Than said. “Troops from both sides are in close proximity on the ground and if new fighting were to occur, it’d be quite intense,” he said. He said the current ceasefire in Rakhine was a matter of mutual agreement that could be undermined without clarity between the two sides. Despite a ceasefire between the AA and the military, there are tens of thousands of people that have been displaced by the fighting between December 2018 and November 2020 and are still unable to return to their homes. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen blasted a man who threw a shoe at him last week in Washington, saying that if the U.S. fails to condemn him, then similar attacks against his political opponents in Cambodia would be justified. “If the U.S considers shoe-throwing as freedom of expression, it is encouraging [the practice] in other countries,” said Hun Sen, a strongman who has ruled Cambodia since 1985 and who allows little opposition or criticism. “Now I am concerned for the safety of the opposition party leaders,” he said. “Here we can also throw shoes at opposition party leaders’ heads in Cambodia,” he said. As the 69-year-old Hun Sen prepared to meet supporters in Washington last week on the eve of a summit of U.S.-Southeast Asian leaders, a retired Cambodian soldier, Ouk Touch, flung a shoe that whizzed by his head and missed him. The incident at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel on May 11 was caught on video and went viral on social media. Ouk Touch, 72, a resident of California, last week told RFA that he had been planning the attack for quite some time and he hoped that Hun Sen would be humiliated.  He said family members died in a 1997 grenade attack on rival politicians in Hun Sen’s governing coalition that has been widely attributed to the prime minister’s supporters. He was able to talk his way into the group of Hun Sen supporters outside the hotel. He said Hun Sen’s bodyguards jumped toward him and attempted to beat him, but U.S. security officials intervened and urged him to leave the scene. Scene of an incident in which former Cambodian soldier Ouk Touch threw a shoe at visiting Prime Minister Hun Sen in Washington, D.C., May 11, 2022. Credit: Screengrab of official TV. Upon his return to Cambodia from the U.S. summit with leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Hun Sen lashed out at Ouk Touch, saying the attack was premeditated. He said he would not be sending a diplomatic note to the U.S. over the issue, but promised that Ouk Touch would be prosecuted if he were to return to Cambodia. In February opposition activist Sam Sokha was released after serving a four-year prison term for throwing her shoe at a poster of Hun Sen and sharing it on social media. She is among scores of activist jailed in a sweeping crackdown on opponents of Hun Sen, the media and civic society groups that begin in 2017. Sam Sokha told RFA’s Khmer Service that Hun Sen “should be more patient and should not imprison people without finding out the reason” they protest, she said. “Pertaining to my case, [he] should have asked me why I did it. He should have tried to find out what the cause of the dissatisfaction is.” Throwing a shoe is nothing compared to the suffering of innocent people under Hun Sen’s rule, Khmer-American human rights lawyer Seng Theary told RFA’s Khmer Service. “It is an individual’s frustration, but the incident represents many people’s feelings,” she said. Exiled political analyst Kim Sok told RFA he is saddened that Hun Sen is taking the incident seriously and has allowed it to incite hatred among people and dilute Cambodia’s diplomatic relationships. The analyst, who took asylum in Finland to avoid arrest in the 2017 crackdown, said he feared concern Hun Sen’s supporters would start attacking opposition leaders. Many opposition figures are in hiding, exile or prison. “Any comment from Hun Sen should not be taken for granted. It is incitement. It will happen because Hun Sen is an influential figure managing all issues in the country,” he said.  Translate by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

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.