• contact@ij-reportika.com
Ij reportika Logo

Category: ASEAN

Blinken stresses ‘ironclad’ support for Philippines in South China Sea standoffs

Editor07 mins

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with his Philippine counterpart in Manila on Tuesday to lay the groundwork for a summit between the leaders of the United States, the Philippines and Japan next month. U.S. President Joe Biden, Philippine leader Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will meet in Washington on April 11 for trilateral talks that will focus on protecting a “free and open” Indo-Pacific region, according to the White House. Speaking at a press conference alongside Blinken, Filipino Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo said the three-way summit aimed to capitalize on “complementarities” between the countries, notably in infrastructure, critical minerals, energy and maritime security. Blinken said that collaboration on defense and economic issues would only result in all three countries becoming stronger. “So that’s what the summit is about, as well as our work together to uphold international law,” he said. He and Manalo had discussed ways of streamlining the budding trilateral alliance “to make sure that even as we have this leaders’ summit, we have mechanisms in place to make sure there are things working together day in day out.” Blinken’s visit comes at a crucial moment in bilateral relations between the two allies, who have ramped up defense cooperation amid increasing Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea, including in waters that fall within the Philippine’s exclusive economic zone. China claims nearly all of the South China Sea while dismissing the territorial claims of several Southeast Asian nations and Taiwan. “The alliance has never been stronger, but we not only have to sustain that, we have to continue to accelerate the momentum,” said Blinken, who was making his second trip to Manila as America’s top diplomat. He first visited the Philippines in August 2022, weeks after Marcos took office as president. Filipino activists protest at the Mendiola Peace Arch outside the presidential Malacañang Palace in Manila ahead of a meeting between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on March 19, 2024. (Jojo Riñoza/BenarNews) Manalo said he had thanked Blinken for Washington’s “consistent support,” particularly in regards to Chinese harassment of Filipino supply boats. In the most recent incident, four Filipino sailors sustained minor injuries earlier this month when China Coast Guard boats intercepted a supply vessel and fired at them with water cannons. “We discussed regional issues, especially the situation in the South China Sea, and I stated that the Philippines is committed to managing disputes in accordance with our national interests, the rules-based international order and international law, especially UNCLOS,” Manalo said, referring to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. “We reaffirmed our shared view that a strong and capable Philippines would make a formidable ally for the United States.”  Blinken reiterated Washington’s “ironclad commitments” to defend the Philippines from outside aggression. He also said the two allies had shared concerns about Chinese “actions that threaten our common vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific,” including within the Philippine exclusive economic zone. “Repeated violations of international law and the rights of the Philippines – water cannons, blocking maneuvers, close shadowing, other dangerous operations – these waterways are critical to the Philippines, to its security, to its economy, but they’re also critical to the interests of the region, the United States, and the world,” Blinken said.   On Tuesday, China’s foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said the U.S. had no right to interfere in disputes between Manila and Beijing and China would take the necessary actions to defend its territory. “Military cooperation between the United States and the Philippines should not harm China’s sovereignty and maritime rights and interests in the South China Sea, let alone be used to prop up the Philippines’ illegal position,” Lin told a regular briefing, according to a report from Reuters.  Blinken is expected to meet with Marcos later on Tuesday. The Philippine leader recently returned from a trip to Germany and the Czech Republic in which he criticized Beijing’s expansive territorial claims and sought support for a free and open South China Sea.  Camille Elemia contributed reporting from Manila. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.

Read More

‘Piles of corpses’ left after Myanmar junta attacks village

Editor04 mins

A junta aerial bombardment killed and injured dozens in western Myanmar, locals told Radio Free Asia.  Most residents in Thar Dar, a predominantly Rohingya village in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, were sleeping when a fighter jet dropped a bomb around 1 a.m. Friday, a local said.  “Twenty-three people died on the spot and more than 30 were injured. There are piles of corpses in the village,” said the man who didn’t want to be named for safety reasons. “Children and elderly are among the dead, covered with tarpaulin and everything. Most of those who died and were injured lost their limbs.” Thar Dar village, nearly five kilometers (three miles) north of Minbya city, was captured by the Arakan Army on Feb. 26. The rebel group has also seized six other townships in Rakhine state, including most recently Kyaukphyu, where a large Chinese mega-project is located. The army also controls Pauktaw township in neighboring Chin state to the north. While the Arakan Army has announced its intentions to control the state’s capital of Sittwe, junta troops have focused their resources on both small and large-scale attacks against civilians, which villagers have labeled a pattern of indiscriminate killings. Thar Dar village has little more than 300 houses and a population of under 2,000, residents said. While there was no battle in the area to warrant an attack, residents told RFA the village had become a brief refuge for Rohingya fleeing nearby Sin Gyi Pyin village after it was also targeted. Rakhine state has also seen other attacks on the ethnically persecuted group, including an attack that killed an entire Rohingya family in Sittwe.  RFA contacted Rakhine state’s junta spokesperson U Hla Thein for more information on Thar Dar’s aerial bombardment, but he did not pick up the phone. Junta columns regularly shell and drop bombs on villages in Minbya, Mrauk-U, Pauktaw and Ponnagyun townships where they have already lost control, residents said.  As of March 3, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported more than 170 civilians had been killed and over 400 injured since the fighting in Rakhine state began again on Nov. 11, 2023. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 

Read More

Vietnam’s next leader faces crunch time with economy, demographics

Editor014 mins

January brought a fresh gust of rumors about the whereabouts of Nguyen Phu Trong, the Communist Party of Vietnam general secretary. He hadn’t been seen in public for a few weeks and failed to meet with the visiting president of Indonesia, leading some commentators to speculate that his health was deteriorating once again.  We had been here in 2019 when it was rumored – accurately, it turned out – that Trong had suffered a stroke while on a visit down south. This time around, Trong showed up again rather quickly, delivering a speech to the National Assembly on January 15. But rumors of the 79 year-old’s failing health are a reminder of his and the country’s frailty.   Given that party chiefs tend to rule for two five-year terms, we can assume that the next general-secretary, if voted in at the next Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) National Congress in 2026 and if Trong does actually retire then, will rule until 2036.  It is not overly dramatic to say that the next party chief will govern during the most consequential decade of Vietnam’s development.  Women work at the Hung Viet garment export factory in Hung Yen province, Vietnam, Dec. 30, 2020. (Kham/Reuters) Not least, that person  is likely to enter office facing even more uncertain world politics.  One uncertainty is China, whose economy is in a terrible state and which is set to experience perhaps the worst demographic crisis of any country in known history.  The other is a retreating America. The great debate in the United States right now is whether to maintain its post-1945 interest in world affairs or to descend into nationalism and protectionism. If Washington chooses the latter – and Donald Trump’s possible re-election later this year would be an indication of that – the globalization we’ve known since 1945 that has depended on U.S. security guarantees, not least to keep the seas safe for world trade, could collapse.  Vietnam has arguably been one of the biggest beneficiaries of globalization – perhaps second only to China in recent decades. More to the point, China and the United States combined account for 46 percent of Vietnam’s exports and 40 percent of its imports.  Demographic time bomb Hanoi can do little to rectify China’s troubled economy or dispel America’s isolationist tendencies. But it can clean its own house.  The most existential concern, as framed by a headline in the state-run press last year, is its “demographic time bomb.” Thailand is set to lose 10 million people of working age by 2050, about a quarter of its current workforce. China, based on conservative estimates, will lose 217 million workers, down from 984 million today.  Vietnam, thanks to its citizens having so many children in the 1990s, will only see its working-age population dip by around 253,000 people by 2050, from 67.6 million now – a 0.3 percent fall. The workforce will have passed its peak by the mid-2030s.   Instead, Vietnam appears set to suffer the problem of too many retirees. Vietnam became an “aging” society in 2011, when 7 percent of its population was aged over 65. It will become an “aged” society, when that demographic is more than 14 percent of the population, in 2034.  Elderly people exercise at a public park in Hanoi, Oct. 9, 2018. (Kham/Reuters) Vietnam will be the fourth “aged” society in Southeast Asia, after Singapore, Thailand and Brunei. The percentage of people over 65, those who don’t work and are net extractors of state money, will double between now and 2050, from 10 percent to 20 percent.  In fact, people over 60 will go from 14.7 to 26.5 percent of the population over this timeframe. That’s the figure to bear in mind since Vietnam’s retirement age for men will be 62 in 2028 and 60 for women in 2035.  Moreover, the proportion of retirees will probably be higher than 26 percent of the population since women, who retire earlier, outnumber men by the time they’re 60 years old. So it’s possible that Vietnam is looking at around a fifth of its population in retirement by 2030 and nearly a third by 2050.  Unlike Thailand and China, whose demographic future is dire, more so than some analysts think, Vietnam won’t see a declining workforce at the same time as an increase in retirees, so it won’t be left trying to scrape less money from fewer workers for greater welfare payments to more retirees.  However, Vietnam is starting from a lower wealth base. If its GDP per capita doubles between now and 2034, it would still be on par with Thailand’s GDP per capita today. If it triples, it will be on par with today’s Malaysia, which won’t become “aged” until 2042.  Tough decisions won’t wait Vietnam risks becoming old before it becomes rich, unless, that is, it can turbocharge its economy over the coming decade and half. According to the World Bank, Vietnam has until 2042 before its “demographic window of opportunity will close.”  The state will have to find vastly more money for its retirees, sapping funds that could be invested in infrastructure and education.  Spending on education has already fallen from around 18 percent of government expenditure in the early 2010s to around 15 percent. Infrastructure spending has been criminally misused. Just look at the badly managed Ho Chi Minh City metro project.  Currently, average social insurance payments are just $240 per month, a little over two-thirds of workers’ average income. A lengthy World Bank report noted that “Countries with old-age dependency ratios equal to Vietnam’s projected level in 2035 typically spend 8-9 percent of GDP on public pensions, well above the 2-3 percent that Vietnam has spent over the past decade”.  Commuters fill the street during morning rush hour in Ho Chi Minh City, Jan. 12, 2024. (Jae C. Hong/AP) By today’s GDP, that means the Vietnamese state will need to find something in the range of $18-21 billion annually just for pensions within a decade. That’s not counting the additional…

Read More

Vietnamese police track down Montagnards in Thailand

Editor08 mins

Police from Vietnam’s Dak Lak province made unexpected visits to two areas in Thailand where a number of ethnic minorities are seeking refugee status on grounds that they have been persecuted, they told Radio Free Asia.  Members of the Montagnard community said they panicked when the agents visited their homes on Thursday to persuade and threaten them to return to Vietnam. The term “Montagnard” was coined by French colonialists to describe tribes who live in Vietnam’s Central Highlands, many of whom are Christians, but Vietnam has rejected use of the term.  Police also searched for those wanted in last June’s armed attacks on two People’s Commune headquarters in Dak Lak province in the Central Highlands that left nine people dead, the refugees said.  The area where the attacks took place is home to about 30 indigenous tribes who have a long history of conflict with the Vietnamese majority, and who claim they have been discriminated against. In January, 100 individuals were tried in the case, and 10 were sentenced to life in prison on terrorism charges. The remainder were handed sentences ranging from three-and-a-half years to 20 years, mostly on terrorism-related charges. Vietnamese lawyers criticized it as a hasty show trial.  Montagnards living in Bang Len district Nakhon Pathom province, 60 kilometers (37 miles) from the Thai capital Bangkok, said Thai police brought the Vietnamese police officers to their homes.  Thai police officers asked the Montagnards to gather in a front yard where two of eight Vietnamese officers dressed in plainclothes questioned them, one of the refugees told Radio Free Asia on Friday. Not convinced The two officers gave their names and said they were from the homeland security force in Dak Lak province and from the Gia Lai provincial police, while the other officers took photos and videos with smartphones and camcorders, the refugee said.  They tried to persuade the Montagnards to return to Vietnam, saying they would take care of their transportation, food and accommodation expenses,” he said.  “Once you return to Vietnam, we’ll take care of everything,” the refugee said, recalling the officers’ words.  But he was skeptical. “If we returned to Vietnam, we would die,” he said “We would never be safe. What the Vietnamese [authorities] want is to imprison us.”  Dinh Ngan, an ethnic Bana refugee, said the directorof the Gia Lai provincial police said he would be their “guardian” if they wanted to return. Otherwise, the director said the police would arrest them or they would face difficulties. Another refugee, Nay Phot, said the same official told the Montagnards to return to Vietnam where the government would be lenient towards them and provide them with land and vehicles.  “They threatened that if we didn’t come back, the police would have to arrest us, and then the government would no longer forgive us,” he said. In a statement posted nine days ago, Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security branded Montagnard Stand for Justice and the Montagnard Support Group as terrorist organizations linked to the 2023 Dak Lak attacks.  Asking about others The refugee, who requested anonymity out of fear of his safety, said the two officers asked him and others about the whereabouts of Y Quynh Bdap and other wanted Montagnards, showing them their images and arrest warrants on their cellphones.  Y Quynh Bdap, co-founder of Montagnard Stand for Justice, was accused of being associated with the Dak Lak attacks and later sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison on a terrorism charge at a trial held in Vietnam this January. He has denied participating in the attack. Police Col. Adisak Kamnerd of the Bang Len police told RFA that he had not received requests from any agency to allow Vietnamese officers to go there.  Another security official, who asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media, told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service, that this was the first known incident whereby Vietnamese police questioned Vietnamese refugees in Thailand, violating their basic privacy rights. He also called the action “undiplomatic.” “I believe they are coming after the suspects in the Dak Lak attacks,” he said. The incident occurred one day after the Public Security Online Newspaper reported that Minister of Public Security To Lam met with Thai Ambassador to Vietnam Nikorndej Balankura. During the meeting, Lam proposed that the two sides sign an agreement on extradition and mutual legal assistance in criminal matters. RFA did not receive a response to an email sent to the U.N.’s refugee agency in Bangkok. Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to an emailed request for information.  Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

Read More

Junta regains control of still-smoldering city in Myanmar

Editor04 mins

A 10-day battle in central Myanmar has left one city in ashes, residents told Radio Free Asia on Friday.  Fighting between resistance groups, or People’s Defense Forces, and junta soldiers began in Sagaing region’s Kani city on March 2, locals said.  Sagaing, an agricultural region in the heart of Myanmar’s dry zone, has faced the brunt of junta attacks since Myanmar’s 2021 coup began.  Civilians region-wide have been subject to indiscriminate arson, arrests, shelling from heavy weapons and raids as rebel groups have proliferated in Sagaing’s central plains and neighboring Chin state.  People’s Defence Forces have been trying to capture Kani since March 2, focusing attacks on the city’s police station, school and administrative office where junta troops are stationed. Kani city is the capital of Kani township.  The result has been a city in ruin and full of bodies. The amount of casualties is still unknown since much of the city remains inaccessible, according to one local who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.  “Much of inner Kani city has already been destroyed. There are corpses of civilians and junta soldiers. Civilians’ houses were burned down there,” he said. “We found that the houses of revolutionaries were torched initially. That’s all we can say at the moment.” A People’s Defense Force soldier fighting in urban Kani told RFA the junta air force dropped 500-pound bombs during the battle. After the rebel group captured a hill near Kani on March 7, the junta’s army retaliated with helicopters and fighter jets. The air force repeatedly targeted urban areas and rural villages around the city, according to defense force officials. Junta troops regained control of the city and nearby Nyaung Pin Wun village on March 12, but both sustained severe fire damage in the following days, residents said. Sagaing’s junta spokesperson told RFA that the arson was likely a defense tactic used by rebel armies. “It is also possible that the burning was started by the People’s Defense Forces to disrupt the army. It could cause the army to not be able to chase [resistance fighters] while they were fleeing,” Nyunt Win Aung explained. He declined to comment on villagers’ accusations that bombs had been dropped by his administration’s army. “Now the army can control the city completely. The People’s Defense Forces are no longer there. They fled again. If the people live in the city, they can come back.” Kani has been deserted since fighting broke out, and nearly 10,000 residents from nearby villages have also fled to safety, according to the residents. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.

Read More

800 Chinese deported from Myanmar’s Thai border

Editor03 mins

More than 800 Chinese nationals were deported from near Myanmar’s border with Thailand in relation to online fraud, according to China’s Ministry of Public Security. The group was deported Wednesday from Myawaddy’s infamous gambling and scam center, Shwe Kokko, in Myanmar’s Kayin state through neighboring Thailand, the ministry said in a statement on Wednesday. Scam centers have plagued the border areas of Thailand, Myanmar and China as nationals from all three countries are tricked into – and subsequently enslaved in – online fraud. Tens of thousands of Chinese nationals were deported from Myanmar in 2023 by both junta and rebel army officials for their roles in both perpetuating and being trapped in criminal schemes. Many are linked to forced labor, human trafficking and money laundering, which proliferated after COVID-19 shut down casinos across Southeast Asia. A resident in Myawaddy told Radio Free Asia that the gambling businesses in Myawaddy should be eradicated. “The [Chinese nationals] have been repatriated through Thailand as they were illegally staying in Shwe Kokko. They kept saying that [authorities] are continuously sending them back,” he said, declining to be named given the issue’s sensitivity.  “There are still gambling businesses in Myawaddy. The [big] gambling business split off and many small ones appeared in the city center. They are still there.” Since March 2023, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security has been cooperating with Myanmar and Thai authorities on the border to crack down on transnational communication network fraud and online gambling activities. The 800 Chinese nationals were linked to an online money laundering gang, according to the statement. The details of the repatriation could not be confirmed by RFA. The arrests were a result of the long-term trilateral cooperation between China, Myanmar and Thailand, it continued. According to Myanmar junta-backed media, 52,820 foreigners, including 50,772 Chinese nationals, were repatriated from Oct. 5, 2023 to March 6, 2024. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.   

Read More

Indiscriminate shelling kills mothers, children in Myanmar

Editor03 mins

An artillery attack in northern Myanmar killed five civilians, residents told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday. The victims included two women in their 30s and three children in Kachin state’s Bhamo township. Conflict in the area has already killed three civilians and damaged houses across the Chinese border since the Kachin Independence Army took 14 junta camps last Thursday. Flights at an airport nearby were grounded for the foreseeable future after short-range missiles damaged the runway.  Following the group’s six-day attack last week, the Kachin Independence Army told RFA it plans to reopen the nearby Myitkyina-Bhamo road, not having had control of the camps alongside it since 2011.  The shelling on Tuesday originated from the junta’s Bhamo-city based No. 21 Operation Command Headquarters, but landed in Kan Ni village. All five victims died immediately, said one Kan Ni local. “The mother, Myint Maw, and her two children, as well as another unnamed mother and her child died,” he told RFA on Wednesday, asking to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. “The three children were five to ten years old, one girl and two boys.” The dead will be cremated at Kan Ni village cemetery on Wednesday, residents said. Junta troops have been firing shells at several small villages like Kan Ni, despite there being no fighting in the area, locals said. RFA phoned Kachin state junta spokesperson Moe Min Thein to learn more about the shelling, but he did not respond by the time of publication. Junta troops and the Kachin Independence Army, alongside allied resistance groups, have clashed over Kachin state’s lucrative jade mining industry.  Civilians have accused the junta’s army of torching houses, killing civilians and conducting raids on villages throughout the state.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.

Read More

Week-long battle in northern Myanmar displaces over 110,000

Editor06 mins

Week-long fighting between the junta and a northern ethnic army is responsible for mass displacement in Myanmar, locals told Radio Free Asia on Tuesday. Junta troops entered Hsihseng city in western Shan state on March 3, where gunshots could still be heard as of Monday at noon, said one Hsisheng resident, asking for anonymity.  “The battle is still going on. The junta based in Hsaik Hkawng village and Bang Yin city are shelling towards Hsihseng city,” he said. “On March 3, the junta troops returned to enter Hsihseng city, and the fighting has been going on ever since and hasn’t stopped yet.” The Pa’O National Liberation Army captured Hsihseng on Jan. 22, causing junta troops and the allied Pa-O National Army to retaliate with heavy weapons and airstrikes. The Pa-O National Liberation Army is an insurgent group composed of the Pa-O, an ethnic group native to northeast Myanmar’s Shan state. More than 100,000 people from six urban Hsihseng neighborhoods and 60 villages in Hsihseng township have fled to safety, as have the residents of 31 villages in neighboring Hopong township. Fighting also resumed in southern Shan state’s Pinlaung township on Saturday, forcing nearly 10,000 civilians from 17 villages to temporarily relocate. A Pinlaung resident who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons told RFA on Monday that fighting between the junta and Karenni Nationalities Defense Forces and allied Pa-O National Liberation Army resumed in the township after junta troops carried out an offensive. “The junta army carried out the offensive and confronted them there. It’s been three days since March 9,” he said. On Sunday and Monday, fighting grew more intense as the junta began using airstrikes and heavy weapons, he added. Heavy damage in southern Shan state The renewed conflict has killed nearly 50 civilians and injured 60 more from Jan. 22 to March 11, despite a Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement signed by both the Pa-O National Liberation Army and junta officials in Hsihseng, Hopong and Loilen townships, according to the Pa-O Youth Organization. Roughly half of the dead were killed by airstrikes or heavy weapons, among them five children, according to the youth organization’s Monday statement.  “The military council has increased the airstrikes and drone bombings in the Hsihseng city battles. In Hopong’s Mae Nel mountain ridge, the junta carried out an airstrike when the locals returned after fighting calmed on March 8,” said Nan, a spokeswoman of the Pa-O Youth Organization.  “It killed a man on the spot in Kyauk Ka Char village, Hopong township. About 10 houses were damaged, although there was no fighting in that village.” In some areas, civilians are continuing to die from airstrikes, she added. Thirteen of the near 50 deaths occurred when people died after being arrested and interrogated by the junta. Eight people, including those internally displaced, died due to other causes. Four children were among the 60 injured. Airstrikes injured 36 people, artillery shells injured 18 and six were injured by landmines and other causes, according to the statement.  The junta army fired over 1,500 explosives, and conducted over 400 attacks by air and drones, destroying nearly two hundred homes, as well as 15 religious buildings.  RFA reached out to Shan state’s junta spokesperson Khun Thein Maung to confirm the organization’s statistics, but he did not answer calls. In early 2023, conflict killed more than 30 civilians and displaced more than 10,000 during fierce battles between the Karenni National Defense Forces, affiliated resistance groups, or People’s Defense Forces, and junta troops in Pinlaung township. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 

Read More

Videos appear to show Myanmar military training Rohingyas

Editor012 mins

Videos have emerged on social media in recent days that appear to show junta personnel providing military training to ethnic Muslim Rohingyas at a site in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state, amid reports of forced recruitment around the country. On Feb. 10, the junta imposed a military draft law – officially called the People’s Military Service Law – prompting civilians of fighting age to flee Myanmar’s cities. Many said they would rather leave the country or join anti-junta forces in remote border areas than serve in the military, which seized power in a 2021 coup d’etat. The junta has sought to downplay the announcement, claiming that conscription won’t go into effect until April, but RFA has received several reports indicating that forced recruitment is already under way. Two videos emerged on Facebook over the weekend showing junta troops training a group of people wearing full military uniforms in the use of firearms and around 30 armed people wearing fatigues inside of a military vehicle. They were posted to the site with a description that identifies the subjects as Rohingyas. A third video, posted on March 7, shows junta Rakhine State Security and Border Affairs Minister Co. Kyaw Thura visiting a warehouse where hundreds of people, believed to be Rohingyas, are seated in military attire. RFA was unable to independently verify the content of the videos. Reports suggest the junta has been forcibly recruiting Rohingyas in Rakhine in recent weeks, and residents told RFA Burmese that the video shows members of the ethnic group receiving training at a site in the north of the state, although they were unable to provide an exact location. They said that junta personnel have detained and enlisted around 700 Rohingyas for military training from the Rakhine townships of Buthidaung, Maungdaw and Kyaukphyu, as well as the capital Sittwe, since the Feb. 10 announcement, with the goal of forming a militia. In Kyaukphyu, the training has progressed to using firearms, said a resident who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. “It is known that the current training phase involves firearms practice,” the resident said Monday. “Gunfire has been heard over the past two or three days, although the training regimen varies daily.” Many of the detainees are living at Kyaukphyu’s Kyauk Ta Lone camp for internally displaced persons, or IDPs, where on Feb. 29 junta authorities forcibly gathered 107 mostly ethnic-Rohingya Muslims between the ages of 18 and 35 at the camp’s food warehouse, after collecting their personal information. Former military captain Nyi Thuta, who now advises the armed resistance as part of the anti-junta Civil Disobedience Movement, questioned why the military regime is forcibly recruiting the Rohingya when it has refused to grant them citizenship. “These people are being coerced and manipulated in various ways into fighting to the death for the junta, which is facing defeat in [the civil] war,” he said. ‘No way to escape’ Some 1 million Rohingya refugees have been living in Bangladesh since 2017, when they were driven out of Myanmar by a military clearance operation. Another 630,000 living within Myanmar are designated stateless by the United Nations, including those who languish in camps and are restricted from moving freely in Rakhine state. Rights campaigners say the junta is drafting Rohingya into military service to stoke ethnic tensions in Rakhine, while legal experts say the drive is unlawful, given that Myanmar has refused to recognize the Rohingya as one of the country’s ethnic groups and denied them citizenship for decades. People who appear to be Rohingya Muslims ride in the back of a military vehicle, March 9, 2024. (Image from citizen journalist video) Myanmar’s military is desperate for new recruits after suffering devastating losses on the battlefield to the ethnic Arakan Army, or AA, in Rakhine state. Since November, when the AA ended a ceasefire that had been in place since the coup, the military has surrendered Pauktaw, Minbya, Mrauk-U, Kyauktaw, Myay Pon and Taung Pyo townships in the state, as well as Paletwa township in neighboring Chin state. On Feb. 28, the pro-junta New Light of Myanmar claimed that Rohingya had not been recruited for military service because they aren’t citizens. Attempts by RFA to reach Hla Thein, the junta’s attorney general and spokesperson for Rakhine state, went unanswered Monday. Nay San Lwin, a Rohingya activist, condemned the coercion of members of his ethnic group into military service as a “war crime.” “They wield power and resort to coercion and arrests,” he said, adding that he believes the junta’s goal is to “obliterate the Rohingya community.” “I perceive this as part of a genocidal agenda.” Earlier this month, the shadow National Unity Government, or NUG – made up of former civilian leaders ousted in the coup – warned that Rohingya were being pressed into duty by the military “because there is no way to escape.” Kachin youth fleeing recruitment Meanwhile, residents of Kachin state said Monday that young people in the area are increasingly fleeing abroad or to areas controlled by the armed resistance to avoid military service. The draft law says males between the ages of 18 and 35 and females between 18 and 27 must serve in the military. A draft-eligible resident of Kachin’s Myitkyina township said that he and others like him “no longer feel safe” in Myanmar. “Since the conscription law was enacted, it has become quite difficult for us to realize our dreams,” he said. “It isn’t even safe to go out to a restaurant. We feel threatened daily.” People stand in line to get visas at the embassy of Thailand in Yangon on Feb. 16, 2024. (AFP) But even for those who have left the country, life can be difficult abroad. A young Kachin named Ma La Bang who recently relocated to Thailand said he doesn’t have a visa to stay in the country legally, and told RFA that people like him worry about being forced to return home. “Young people living…

Read More

Indiscriminate shelling kills family in western Myanmar

Editor06 mins

Heavy artillery in Myanmar’s west killed seven people over the weekend, locals told Radio Free Asia. After the ethnic rebel army captured a city only 24 kilometers (15 miles) from Rakhine state’s capital of Sittwe on Mar. 4, most residents fled as junta soldiers prepared for battle.  While the Arakan Army has not entered Sittwe, a shell explosion on Saturday night is responsible for the deaths and five additional injuries. All victims were Rohingya living between Sittwe’s Kathe and Aung Min Ga Lar neighborhoods. A resident who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons told RFA on Sunday that five people were killed instantly, while two more died at Sittwe Hospital. “Five died on the spot at the beginning, and two died on Sunday morning,” he said. “The first five dead were a whole family.” The dead were sent to Sittwe Hospital’s mortuary, locals said, adding that most of the injured were hit by shrapnel in the head and lower body. The names and ages of victims could not be confirmed as telecommunication remains difficult to access in the area, but children and elderly women are among the casualties, residents said. RFA contacted Rakhine state’s junta spokesperson Hla Thein for more information about the explosion, but he said that he didn’t know anything about the attack. Military-controlled newspapers claimed on Monday that the Arakan Army fired into Sittwe’s Kathe neighborhood, killing the seven civilians. RFA contacted Arakan Army officials for comment on this accusation, but did not receive a reply by the time of publication. A man who identified himself as part of Sittwe’s Rohingya community told RFA on Sunday that the restrictions and travel ban imposed by the junta have been particularly harsh for those in the ethnic group, historically targeted by the Myanmar military. “Everyone is worried,” he said, asking not to be named for fear of persecution. “People don’t know when and at what time a heavy weapon will fall, so people live with fear and anxiety.” Junta-affiliated police officers in Sittwe city, Rakhine state, taken on an unknown date. (RFA) Junta troops arrived in Sittwe’s Kathe neighborhood a few hours after the explosion, he said, adding that security has been tightened and almost no one dares to walk freely around the area.  Despite allowing civilians to travel within Sittwe, those remaining in the capital have been told they are not allowed to leave, residents said. Another Sittwe resident who also asked for anonymity told RFA he suspects the military junta’s repeated attacks on civilians are intentional. “Heavy weapons have not just fallen once or twice,” he said. “I doubt that the heavy weapon firing had any purpose because they dropped shells in civilian neighborhoods, not a military target.” Locals claimed ammunition was fired from Sittwe-based Police Battalion No. 12, but RFA has not been able to independently verify this statement. On Feb. 29, soldiers firing explosives into a crowded market in Sittwe killed 12 civilians and injured 18 more in what appeared to be another round of indiscriminate civilian attacks.  As of Feb. 18, renewed fighting in Rakhine between the military junta and Arakan Army has killed 111 civilians and injured 357 since it began on Nov. 13, 2023, according to a statement by the Arakan Army.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.

Read More

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