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Category: ASEAN

Myanmar guerrilla group says it shot junta conspirator in Yangon

Editor04 mins

A man accused of working with Myanmar’s ruling junta has been shot in the head in central Yangon, a local guerilla group said. The Urban Owls released a statement shortly after Monday’s shooting claiming responsibility for the attack, saying that businessman Nyan Lwin Aung was targeted for his close relationships with military leaders.  They said the man accompanied junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing on his trip to Russia last year and met with Russian Defense Ministry officials. Nyan Lwin Aung also bought weapons for the junta, the group claimed. He was shot in the head at an intersection in Latha township, residents told Radio Free Asia on Tuesday. “It happened at around 10 p.m. last night,” said one local, asking to be kept anonymous for fear of reprisals.  “He was sent to the Yangon General Hospital. A large number of junta troops arrived with military vans and investigated 17th to 19th Street after the shooting incident.” Police and soldiers began searching civilians along the busy Shwedagon Pagoda Road after the shooting, the local said. Another Latha resident said Nyan Lwin Aung was shot at close range in his left temple and was sent to Yangon General Hospital. The hospital’s emergency department confirmed to RFA Burmese that Nyan Lwin Aung arrived at the hospital Monday night with a serious wound. One surgeon said he was in a critical condition and being treated in the intensive care unit.  Yangon division’s junta spokesperson and regional attorney general Htay Aung had not responded to RFA at the time of publication.  Monday’s statement by the Urban Owls added that Nyan Lwin Aung had also worked for the Ministry of the Interior, installing CCTV facial recognition cameras.  It said he had a company in Myanmar with business subsidiaries in Thailand, Russia, China, and the United Arab Emirates under the name North Gate Engineering and Technology. RFA has yet to confirm the group’s claims. When a reporter called North Gate’s Yangon office an employee said he was not authorized to comment. The guerilla group has carried out a number of killings, claiming responsibility for the death of Ye Khine, security chief of the Yangon International Airport, as well as Minn Tayzar Nyunt Tin, a junta-affiliated lawyer accused of money laundering. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.

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Myanmar junta seeks to wipe out headquarters of Kachin rebel group

Editor010 mins

The Myanmar junta is going all out with its air and ground forces to wipe out the headquarters of ethnic Kachin rebels in northern Kachin state, eliminating a lifeline of support for anti-regime militias in neighboring Sagaing region, political and military analysts said. A fierce battle broke out between military troops and Kachin Independence Army forces on Monday near the Lai Lum Awng Jar base camp in Kachin’s Momauk township, said Col. Naw Bu, the group’s information officer. Between 50 and 100 junta soldiers have been trapped by KIA forces inside the camp for more than two months, he said. The junta launched three air strikes while some of its troops who tried to rescue them were intercepted by the KIA along the route.  Fierce fighting between junta troops and joint KIA and local People’s Defense Forces – ordinary citizens who have taken up arms against the junta – in the upper townships of adjacent Sagaing region earlier this year began moving in July towards the KIA’s headquarters in Laiza, a remote mountainous town in Kachin state that lies on the border with China, area residents and KIA members said. Since then, the junta’s 1,000-strong force has been attacking Nam Sam Yang village in Waingmaw township near Laiza, while the KIA and some soldiers from the Arakan Army, another ethnic armed group, have jointly defended it, they said.  There also has been three months of intense and continuous fighting along the Myitkyina-Bhamo road as the junta tried to gain control of the major cities of Hpakant, Bhamo and Myitkyina in Kachin state, Naw Bu said.  “The junta even launched air strikes,” he said. “That’s how intense the military situation is.”    “They have reinforced their troops to try to control Hpakant, Myitkyina and Bhamo cities,” he added. “That’s why their troops have reduced strength in Sagaing region, and fighting there has decreased as well.” Hotbed of resistance Up to now, areas of northern Sagaing bordering Kachin have been a hotbed of armed resistance since the military seized power from the democratically elected government in a February 2021 coup. Nine military junta warships loaded with weapons and food supplies, which sailed up from Mandalay along the Ayeyarwady River, arrived in Bhamo on Aug. 19 to reinforce the military base along the Myitkyina-Bhamo road near Laiza, according to local and KIA sources who declined to be named for safety reasons. When the junta columns could not move forward after intercepting KIA forces burned their vehicles and destroyed their supplies, the junta launched air strikes, they said.  More than 1,000 residents displaced by the fighting have taken refuge in monasteries and Christian churches in Momauk and Bhamo, said a Bhamo local. Kachin Independence Army recruits undergo training at a military camp near Laiza in northern Myanmar’s Kachin state, Feb. 13, 2012. Credit: Vincent Yu/AP Over 80 battles have occurred in the vicinity of Bhamo, Hpakant, Tanai, Shwegu, Momauk, Waingmaw and at the KIA’s Laiza headquarters between July 23 to Sept. 11, during which junta forces conducted more than 20 air strikes, Naw Bu said. During these battles, 51 junta soldiers were killed and 106  were injured, he said, though he did not disclose the number of KIA casualties. Win Ye Tun, the junta’s social affairs minister and Kachin state spokesman, said he did not know details about the fighting.  Junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun could not be reached for comment. ‘Cut it from the roots’ Thein Tun Oo, executive director of the pro-military Thayninga Institute for Strategic Studies, said the military is targeting KIA headquarters in Laiza because it wants to eliminate the supply source for armed opposition in the region. “As long as you cannot control the sources of supply for your enemies, you won’t be able to control what is happening on the front,” he said. “This means that if you only cut the branches without cutting the root sources, it will not be enough to kill a tree. To cut down a tree, you need to cut it from the roots.” “Because Laiza is a major source of supplies for the resistance groups, the military’s major aim is to wipe it out so that at least its supply lines of personnel and weapons can be eradicated,” he said. The military junta is trying to wipe out Laiza, so it can control the upper part of Sagaing region, said a political and military analyst on condition of anonymity so he could speak freely.  “Since the junta has suffered the loss of many territories especially in Sagaing region, it is attacking Laiza in Kachin state to strategically control and cut the source of supplies for the revolutionary forces becoming stronger in Sagaing region.” Junta troops have been attacking the Laiza headquarters with a much larger force than before, while the KIA is strongly resisting them to prevent the regime from achieving its goal, he added. With junta soldiers stepping up fighting in Kachin state, the number of attacks in the upper Sagaing region, such as Indaw, Tigyaing, Katha and Banmauk townships, has decreased, local defense forces said. The junta’s Light Infantry Battalions 416, 309, 301 and 416 used to be stationed in Indaw township and would raid villages, but now only the 77th battalion is there, said the information officer of Indaw Revolution, a defense team in Sagaing region, as troops appear to be headed to Hpakant for reinforcement. More than 80 battles have been fought in Indaw township, and more than 20 civilians have been killed by junta soldiers since the 2021 coup, said the information officer, who declined to identify himself by name for safety reasons. Similarly, KIA-PDF joint forces have fought more than 100 battles with junta troops in Katha township, resulting in the deaths of over 80 civilians and the burning of more than 900 houses, according to an official of the Katha township People’s Defense Force. RFA could not independently confirm the death toll figures.  More than 24,000 civilians have fled to safety due to…

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Airstrikes and shelling killed 44 civilians in Myanmar in September

Editor04 mins

Casualties continue to mount in Myanmar as junta forces make increasing use of airstrikes and heavy artillery bombardments on civilian targets. Figures compiled exclusively by Radio Free Asia show that 44 civilians were killed and 142 injured in such attacks in September alone. On Sept. 28, four members of the same family died when a shell landed on their house in Sagaing region’s Kale township. “The shell dropped landed straight on their house and they died on the spot,” a local resident who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals told RFA Burmese. Locals said villages are often targeted after junta troops suffer casualties in fighting with People’s Defense Forces in Sagaing. A battle between the two sides broke out in Pale township in Sagaing region on Sept. 29. The junta then fired on the Htan Ta Pin neighborhood, killing a 64-year-old woman and destroying houses, locals said. “The junta opened fire at least 10 times and five to six shells dropped on Htan Ta Pin, with the others falling on an adjoining neighborhood,” said a local who also declined to be named. The attacks are indiscriminate; last Wednesday 18 students were injured in Sagaing region’s Wuntho township when a shell exploded next to a school. RFA’s figures show Sagaing was the hardest-hit region or state last month with 20 deaths and 38 injuries as a result of aerial and land bombardment. Bago region was the second hardest hit with four civilian deaths and 26 injuries. The region has seen fierce fighting between junta troops and the military wing of the Karen National Union, a powerful ethnic group. For the year through September, 816 civilians were killed in shelling and aerial attacks, with 1,628 people injured, RFA figures show. Junta forces rely on airstrikes and shelling in areas where ground troops have made little progress, according to political analyst Than Soe Naing. “The air raids cause massive casualties nationwide,” he said. “The junta has stepped up its terrorist acts by carrying out these indiscriminate attacks.” RFA called junta spokesperson Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun seeking comment on the rising civilian casualties, but no one answered. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.

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Zoned out: China-Myanmar Economic Corridor still going nowhere

Editor014 mins

As Myanmar’s economy continues to skid, with soaring inflation, a depreciating kyat, and flat revenue, junta leader Min Aung Hlaing seems to be looking for a few Chinese-backed marquee projects to kickstart growth, and ensure Beijing’s long-term commitment to the State Administrative Council, as the regime is formally known.   In August Min Aung Hlaing called for the completion of the Kyaukphyu special economic zone (SEZ) and container port, while engineering work is starting on the 810-km railway connecting Kyaukphyu with Muse, a city on the Myanmar-China border.  The project in western Myanmar has evolved and absorbed different components since a 2011 memorandum of understanding for the Kunming-Kyaukphyu railway led eventually to a set of projects under China’s ambitious $1 trillion Belt and Road Initiative. But as the BRI prepares to celebrate its tenth anniversary at a summit in Beijing in October, China, unhappy with the slow pace of CMEC implementation, looks unlikely to extend an invitation to Min Aung Hlaing, denying him the recognition that he covets. Oil tanks seen on Maday island outside Kyaukphyu, Myanmar, are seen May 17, 2017. Credit: Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters Chinese projects in Myanmar were facing trouble before Min Aung Hlaing overthrew the country’s elected government on Feb. 1, 2021. Now they are beset by unrest, power shortages and transport woes.  Kyaukphyu began as a small port for offshore and imported oil, as well as being the land terminus for the Shwe gas field. The 51-49 joint venture between China National Petroleum Company and the Ministry of Oil and Gas Enterprises constructed a pier and 12 tanks, which commenced operations in 2013.  The US$2.5 billion 750 km oil pipeline and 770 km gas pipeline to Kunming became fully operational in 2017. That year, PetroChina opened up a refinery in Kunming that was able to handle 7% of China’s total refining needs.  These pipelines were China’s strategic priority, but Beijing had other goals for linking landlocked southwestern China to the Indian Ocean. China saw the project as a way to address what then Chinese President Hu Jintao described in 2003 as the “Malacca dilemma” of vulnerability to a naval blockade of the Southeast Asian waterway which carries two-thirds of China’s energy imports and trade flows. In 2018, the two sides established the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) to jumpstart the projects as part of the BRI, the signature project of Hu’s successor Xi Jinping. Beijing also saw as supporting Myanmar’s National Ceasefire Agreement signed by some ethnic armies in 2015 to end years of hostilities with the government. All existing Myanmar projects were folded into the CMEC, and still there was little movement. Two of the first MOUs were a feasibility study for the first phase of the railway project and an environmental and sustainability impact study of Kyaukphyu. Ambitious projections A December 2015 tender between the government of reformist military leader Thein Sein and a consortium of Chinese corporations led by the state controlled investment company, CITIC, established the Kyaukphyu SEZ and deepwater port. The $7.3 billion project was 85% owned by the Chinese consortium. The phased project included the 1,736 hectare Kyaukphyu SEZ followed by two deep water container ports on Maday and Ramree islands. At capacity, 270 and 237 hectares ports would be able to berth 10 ships at once and handle 4.9 million containers annually.  There were wild promises by CITIC, including projections of adding $10 billion to GDP annually and the creation of 100,000 new jobs. But little happened.  And there was already pushback from the elected National League of Democracy government led by Aung San Suu Kyi . Fearful of a scenario that played out when Sri Lanka became heavily indebted to China, in 2018, the Suu kyi administration renegotiated the agreement, lowering China’s stake to 70% as well as decreasing the overall debt for the project. But the ethnic cleansing and violence in Rakhine state, the location of the port facility, kept everything at a standstill.   Xi Jinping’s January 2020 visit to Myanmar took advantage of Aung San Suu Kyi’s diplomatic isolation following the forced expulsion of Rohingya Muslims in 2017 that led to UN genocide charges. More than 30 agreements were signed, many of which related to Kyaukphyu and its rail links.  Days before the February 2021 coup, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Suu Kyi to push for the quick implementation of CMEC projects, including Kyaukphyu. Myanmar’s State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi meets with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Naypyidaw, Jan. 11, 2021. Credit: Thar Byaw/Myanmar State Counsellor Office/AFP Seven months after the military seized power, site work began on the 1,740 hectare site. But there were immediate protests from the 20,000 people who were being displaced and harbored mistrust over promised compensation. Unrest was also fueled by civil disobedience against the coup, and junta crackdowns and arrests of local officials and activists.   Another impediment for the project is the regional shortage of electricity. In 2019, a Hong Kong based firm, VPower, which is partially owned by CITIC, won an emergency tender to provide electricity in Myanmar. By 2021, it had nine different power projects around the country, including three in Kyaukphyu.  Yet, the firm shut down the 200mw Kyaukphyu II project in mid-2021, despite it being a 60-month contract. By 2022, VPower had shut down the Kyaukphyu I  plant. Both were dismantled. The firm cited a number of factors in the closing of the plants, including irregular supply of LNG, currency controls and other issues related to the post-coup investment climate. Left unsaid was the government’s inability to pay for the amount of electricity that it contracted for and to pay the sum in U.S. dollars.  That left only one power plant in Kyaukphyu, a 135mw gas-fired plant, a 2020 joint venture between VPower, CNTIC, and Myanmar’s Supreme Group. It was still in operation in early 2023, though there are reports that it has recently closed. Underwriting the junta Without power, little is progressing. In March 2023, a Chinese company signed a MOU…

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Cambodian-American lawyer transferred to prison in capital

Editor06 mins

Cambodian authorities have transferred an outspoken Cambodian-American lawyer and human rights defender from a remote jail to the country’s largest prison on the outskirts of the capital Phnom Penh, a Prison Department official said Friday.  Theary Seng, a 52-year-old American citizen, has been serving a six-year sentence in Preah Vihear Prison, in the north, since June 2022, when she was convicted treason, stemming from her failed efforts in 2019 to bring about the return to Cambodia of political opposition leader Sam Rainsy. The Ministry of Interior transferred her to Prey Sar II Prison, which houses detained women, in the capital on Sept. 23, said Prison Department spokesman Nuth Savna. “There is no reason for the transfer,” he told Radio Free Asia. “It was the decision of the ministry’s leadership.”  Theary Seng’s lawyer and supporting NGOs requested her transfer because her appeal case is being tried in the capital. Sam Chamroeun, her attorney, said the transfer will enable Theary Seng to work with her  defense team and to meet with her family in Phnom Penh.  Theary Seng was one of many casualties of former Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government ahead of a July 23 general election that the ruling Cambodian People’s Party won in a landslide. But Western governments and opposition activists deemed it a sham because officials prevented the main opposition Candlelight Party from participating on a technicality. In the months leading up to the election, Hun Sen used a combination of legal action, threats, harassment and arrests to target the political opposition, activists, independent media and civil society groups.   People wait at an entrance to Prey Sar Prison on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in an undated file photo. Credit: RFA/Uon Chhin Though Sam Chamroeun filed an appeal against the guilty verdict handed down by a court in the Phnom Penh verdict, the Appeals Court has not yet scheduled a hearing. He said that he will meet his client soon to discuss further steps. “I received two statements from the Prison Department to meet with Theary Seng, so there will be no obstacle for a meeting between client and lawyer because she is nearby,” he said. Hunger strike After her arrest, authorities sent the activist from Phnom Penh Prison to Preah Vihear on June 15 to ensure public security and order, according to the Prison Department.  While in Preah Vihear Prison, Theary Seng went on a 10-day hunger strike five days after the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued a judgment calling her detention “arbitrary, politically motivated, and in violation of international law.” Jared Genser, Theary Seng’s pro bono international human rights lawyer, told RFA on Wednesday that he will use the working group’s report to build momentum for her case.  He will also push for the United States to designate her case as “wrongfully detained” under the Levinson Act, a 2020 law that would allow sanctions to be imposed on individuals responsible for holding U.S. nationals hostage. Humanitarian groups said that the transfer was meant to politically persecute her since her case is being handled by the Phnom Penh court.  Soeung Sengkaruna, a spokesman for the rights group Adhoc, urged Cambodia’s judiciary to speed up Theary Seng’s appeal process so she can receive justice because she did not commit a crime.   “We haven’t seen the new government improve freedom spaces yet,” he said, referring to the government of Prime Minister Hun Manet, Hun Sen’s son who came to power following the July election, won by the ruling Cambodian People’s Party in a landslide.  “We will continue to monitor the situation and hope that Theary Seng’s case is a start for resuming freedom and political space,” Soeung Sengkaruna said, referring to the government’s illiberal rule and rights violations.  Translated by Yun Samean for RFA Khmer. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

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Soaring palm oil prices prompt long lines in Myanmar

Editor07 mins

The price of edible palm oil in Myanmar has soared in recent months to more than five times what it was prior to the February 2021 military coup, leading to long lines around the country. A staple commodity in Myanmar, where it is used to cook, the cost of palm oil is a barometer for inflation and the health of the wider economy, which has become progressively worse since the takeover amid fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, international sanctions and junta mismanagement. In 2020, before the coup, the price of a viss (3.6 pounds) of palm oil was just over 1,800 kyats (US$0.85), but in recent months has hovered north of 10,000 kyats (US$4.75), forcing consumers to curb their purchasing.  Responding to the increase, the junta recently ordered major palm oil wholesalers to sell their product at around 4,200 kyats (US$2) per viss per household. The central bank’s official exchange rate for the kyat is 2,100 kyats per U.S. dollar, which has been in force since April last year, but on the external market, one U.S. dollar trades for between 3,300 and 3,500 kyats, sources tell RFA Burmese. May Thu, from Yangon’s Insein township, told RFA she can no longer buy the amount of palm oil she needs from retail stores and now must join thousands of others standing in long lines around the country to buy it at wholesale rates. “Housewives have to go and stand in line whether they are busy or not because they have no oil to cook with,” she said. “That’s why they have no choice but to wait in line to buy it.” May Thu said wholesalers only sell the oil on certain days and that she has to “rush to get a token and wait in line whenever they announce the sale.” ‘Shoving one another under the burning sun’ A resident of Mandalay who, like others RFA interviewed for this report, declined to be named citing security concerns, said that there are days when she has to return home empty-handed after standing in line for hours to buy oil. “We have to wait in line, shoving one another under the burning sun … about every other day,” she said. “It’s like that all over Mandalay. Some people don’t get to buy the oil. About 300 people line up for only 150 bottles worth.” A housewife in Yangon told RFA that there are always people who suffer from overheating and faint while standing in line in the extremely hot weather. “We want to be able to buy it at 4800 kyats per viss – the same price the junta sells at – from retail shops in our neighborhood,” she said.  “As only the lower class uses palm oil, that’s who lines up for it,” she said. “There are often arguments with people swearing at one another. It’s just another way our lives have been uprooted these past two and a half years [since the coup].” ‘Get arrested or don’t sell’ Wholesalers said the cost increase and the junta’s order to sell at reduced prices has put them in a bind. “The situation is such that we either sell at a higher price and get arrested or we don’t sell at all,” said one businessman. “That’s why many oil merchants have stopped selling, leading to a shortage of palm oil. The market economy mechanism is broken.” Another businessman suggested that the junta had ordered wholesalers to sell for reduced prices to generate lines as part of a “show” for the global community. “Are they trying to make a scene that appears as if they are providing enough to the people when international visitors come?” he wondered. “No other country has this type of situation – only in Myanmar do people have to wait in line to buy palm oil.” In 2022, Myanmar imported a monthly average of around 40,000 tons of palm oil, with the maximum in July at 58,600 tons and the minimum in May at 25,000 tons. Domestic oil production in Myanmar is insufficient, and two-thirds of palm oil consumed in the country is imported from abroad. Amid the drop in value of the kyat since the military takeover, Myanmar has had to purchase foreign imports at higher prices and is experiencing various shortages. Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

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Junta threatens prison terms for unregistered SIM card users

Editor04 mins

Myanmar’s junta-controlled Ministry of Transport and Communications is threatening mobile phone service sellers and users with six months in prison if they don’t register, or fraudulently register, SIM cards, state controlled newspapers said Wednesday. A ministry statement carried by the media, citing Section 72 of the telecommunications law, told users they needed to submit their personal information to register the cards. One Yangon resident told Radio Free Asia he had mixed feelings about the announcement. “This kind of systematic registration is good under normal circumstances but security has become a concern following the [Feb. 2021] military coup,” said the person, who declined to give his name for security reasons. A technology expert who also requested anonymity said the junta could use artificial intelligence to eavesdrop on calls and texts in order to spot anti-junta conversations. Just over a year ago, the Department of Post and Telecommunications under the junta’s Ministry of Transport and Communications said it would cancel all SIM cards that hadn’t been registered with a national ID card and confiscate any remaining balance on the cards. The ministry said all SIM cards must be registered by Jan. 31, 2023. Although the practice is common in many countries, critics say Myanmar’s military intends to use identity registration as a way to crack down on pro-democracy activists and the People’s Defense Forces. In July 2021, the junta reportedly told major mobile operators to track the devices of dissidents and report on their behavior. The move prompted Norway’s Telenor to abandon its Myanmar operations a few months later. A company named Shwe Byine Phyu, with reported ties to top junta leaders, stepped in to provide telecom services in Telenor’s place under the “Atom” brand. Last year, Qatar-based telecom operator Oredoo, which is the third most popular brand in Myanmar, sold its investments for US$576 million to Singapore’s Nine Communications, reportedly owned by a Myanmar national close to the military. The other two operators have even closer military ties. Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications (MPT) came entirely under the junta’s control following the 2021 coup. Mytel is a joint venture between the Myanmar military and Vietnam’s Ministry of Defense. Aung Pyae Sone, son of junta leader Min Aung Hlaing, holds Mytel shares. According to the list of telecommunications operators in 2021, there were 20 million Myanmar Posts and Telecommunication (MPT)  SIM users, 18 million Atom users, 15 million Ooredoo users and 10 million Mytel users. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.

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India plans to extend fence along Myanmar border

Editor010 mins

India plans to begin installing an additional 70 kilometers (44 miles) of border fencing over concerns about illegal immigrants entering Manipur state from neighboring Myanmar and an increase in arms and drugs smuggling. India and Myanmar share a 1,600-kilometer-long (1,000-mile-long) border. Manipur state, where the additional fencing will occur, accounts for 400 kilometers (250 miles) of that border, of which less than 10% is fenced, leaving the region open for arms and drug smuggling, according to Indian media.  Earlier this year, Indian authorities began installing barbed-wire fencing along Manipur’s border with Myanmar to curb smuggling, infiltration and other border crimes, according to Indian media. “In view of the rise in illegal immigration and drugs smuggling from the neighboring country, safeguarding our porous borders has become an urgent necessity,” N. Biren Singh, chief minister of Manipur state, said at a meeting with officials from India’s Border Roads Organisation, Indian media reported on Sept. 24. The organization develops and maintains road networks in India’s border areas and in friendly neighboring countries. The move comes as nearly 60,000 Burmese civilians from Chin state and the northern Sagaing region have fled across the border into India’s Manipur and Mizoram states since the military ousted Myanmar’s democratically elected government in a February 2021 coup, according to ethnic Chin civil society organizations. Junta forces have bombed and conducted armed attacks on civilian areas while trying to root out resistance fighters. Over 5,000 of them have taken refuge in Manipur state, of which more than 70 have been arrested for immigration violations or other charges, according to India For Myanmar, a group that helps Burmese refugees in India. Trapping civilians Human rights groups and Burmese refugees have decried the move to extend the fence in Manipur because it would keep people from fleeing into a safe area. “The closure of the border is only intended to fence off Myanmar refugees, but I don’t think it will prevent many other crimes and other illegal trade,” said Salai Dokhar, founder of India For Myanmar.  “If India wants to end these illegal businesses, it should cooperate with the western countries and those with strong democratic values to be able to take more effective actions along the border,” he said. In 2018, under Myanmar’s previous civilian-led government, travel was allowed through the Myanmar-India land border to promote trade between the two countries. But now the Manipur government has accused Myanmar of allowing more arms and drug trafficking on the border, thereby worsening ethnic conflict in the state due to an influx of Burmese civilians fleeing violence at home. Ethnic conflict Manipur itself is experiencing an ethnic conflict between the mostly Hindu Meiteis and the mainly Christian Kukis, and state officials often accuse the Burmese refugees who seek a safe haven there of making the problem worse.  In the meantime, Indian authorities in Manipur state arrested an alleged terrorist suspected of being associated with Myanmar-based rebel groups, and handed him over to the National Investigation Agency, India’s central counter-terrorism law enforcement agency, the Indian English-language daily newspaper Deccan Herald reported on Sept. 23.  Refugees who fled Myanmar rest in a shelter at Farkawn quarantine camp in India’s eastern state of Mizoram near the Myanmar border, Sept. 23, 2021. Credit: AFP Although Myanmar’s armed resistance groups have traveled across the border to India, they have done nothing to cause harm or damage, and have even helped arrest border drug smugglers, said Chin National Defense Force spokesperson Salai Kyung Gain.  The Chin ethnic armed group in western Myanmar’s Chin state, which lies south of Manipur state and east of India’s Mizoram state, is the armed wing of the Chin National Organization. “If we close these entrances and exits on the border, there will be some difficulties,” Salai Kyung Gain said. “Drug and arms trade always occurs along the border, but they have become more frequent lately during tough situations like there is now.” “But since our defense forces and revolutionary forces have to commute to the Indian side of the border, such as to Mizoram, we help arrest some [weapons and drug smugglers] as much as we can to protect the people,” he said. ‘Will hurt Myanmar refugees’ If the Manipur state government extends the fence, it will hurt Myanmar refugees forced to flee their homes by Myanmar junta forces fighting anti-regime forces in Chin state and Sagaing region, said Salai Kyung Gain. Indian authorities have driven back Burmese civilians from Sagaing and Chin who fled across the border to Manipur, forcing them to shelter along the border in difficult conditions, some of the refugees said.  Pu Khaing, a displaced Burmese, told RFA that those who fled were civilians and not arms or drug smugglers. “There is no problem for us with their fence because we are no longer building our refugee camps on the Indian side, but only on the Myanmar side of the border,” he said. “They [Indian authorities] drove us out, but the smugglers have their own way of crossing the border. Ordinary refugees don’t get involved with them.” A Burmese refugee in Mizoram, who declined to be named for safety reasons, said the local office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in New Delhi should not ignore the situation. “If they shut down the [Burmese refugees’] right to freedom of travel, we will have to see what kind of measures UNHCR will take,” he said. “Another thing is that we have to wait and see what kind of action the Mizoram state government will take against us.” The Indian Embassy in Yangon and the UNHRC in New Delhi did not respond to emailed requests for comments. RFA could not reach junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment.  Translated by Myo Min Aung for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

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Young political prisoner dies of heart attack in Myanmar prison

Editor02 mins

A 21-year-old political prisoner who was sentenced to a long term in Myanmar’s Insein Prison died of a heart attack at the weekend, sources close to the family told Radio Free Asia on Monday. The prison authorities informed family members about the death of Min Hein Khant on Sunday evening and they went to the Yangon prison to see the body. A source close to the family said Min Hein Khant was in good health before his arrest, but he was severely tortured during interrogation and did get treated for heart disease in prison. “I found out that he had a heart attack in May,” said the source. “He fell down and went to prison hospital. There, the doctors checked and found out that he had a heart attack but he was told to see a specialist only after he was released from prison. There was nothing in the prison.  “He fainted once again in August and I heard that he was fine yesterday, but he died after fainting. It happened because he could not have proper medical treatment.” Min Hein Khant was a member of Pazundaung and Botahtaung townships’ Youth Strike Committee and was arrested on Nov. 1, 2021. He was sentenced to 27 years in prison under the Explosive Substances Act. RFA phoned the junta’s prison department about his death but no one answered. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.

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What to do about ‘freedom from speech?’

Editor015 mins

A recent survey from the Pew Research Centre, ostensibly about the opinions of Buddhists and Muslims in South and Southeast Asia, offered a disheartening read to those of us who cherish free speech. But the study also highlighted that it is wrong to think the only enemies of free speech are the region’s authoritarian governments.  The pollsters asked respondents from four Southeast Asian states to choose between two statements: “People should be allowed to speak their opinions publicly even if they upset other people” or “harmony with others is more important than the right to speak one’s opinion”. Around two-thirds of respondents—69 percent in Cambodia, 67 percent in Indonesia, and 64 percent in Singapore—chose harmony over free speech. Interestingly, 59 percent of Thais chose the opposite.   It’s more straightforward, though not easy, to pick a fight with governments for their repression of free speech, as it is to argue against the common claims that free speech is an illusion or that democracies are just as censorious as authoritarian states. What’s harder to comprend, and more dangerous not to rebut, is the proposition that freedom of speech is undesirable and honesty is a species of antisocial behavior. Indeed, the argument you should keep silent even if you know you would speak the truth. But that is what one confronts in Southeast Asia, vide the Pew survey.   A Thai man prays in the rain during an all-religion prayer meeting for peace and harmony at the Lumpini park, in Bangkok in 2010. Thousands of residents gathered at dawn to pray for peace at sites across Bangkok where people were killed and high rise buildings torched in two months of political violence. Credit: Manish Swarup/AP I say it’s harder because one must realize that it is not just your governments who want to silence you; it’s also your neighbors. None of this is palatable. It’s far easier to think that all tyranny stems from way up high, in part because one has to get on in society with people who think differently and, also, because it provides a convenient excuse for inactivity.  However, this isn’t a new realization. In 2015, Pew conducted a global survey on people’s attitudes towards free speech. Only 29 percent of Indonesians, for example, thought that people should say what they want without censorship and just 21 percent reckoned that internet use without censorship is important.  What point is there in free speech if one is only allowed to say something uncontroversial or what everyone else already (appears) to think? That’s not free speech; that’s repetition. And repetition doesn’t change people’s opinions nor educate. Why not stick to what you thought at sixteen years old and never change your mind? But in order to be allowed to question your established ideas, to educate yourself, you have to be presented with uncomfortable information in an uncomforting way—few people relish being told they’re wrong and that they have been wrong for years.  I say “allowed” because that is at the core of free speech. It is often assumed that the true victim of censorship is the person engaged in speaking. They are victims, but so, too, is everyone else. If your thoughts are censored, then I am now able to hear them. If my thoughts are censored, you are not allowed to hear my opinions and judge them against your own. As such, censorship makes each person a prisoner of their own thoughts and makes society barren silos. Enforcing the will of the majority I am not singling Southeast Asia out unfairly, The desire for “freedom from speech” is universal. Indeed, the want for a “quiet life”, to be protected from discomforting truths, is much in the Western consciousness, and increasingly so.  It is the defining ethos of totalitarianism—a Western concept—and of almost all religions. Isn’t the founding tenet of Christianity, Judaism and Islam that Adam was wicked for giving up the “harmony” of Eden for a free life, and that all us apparent descents are still being punished for that “crime”? It is often said that censorship is grounded in the need to protect minorities. That, at least, is how social “harmony” is often defined in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia; multiethnic countries with political systems that fracture on racial or religious lines. However, time and time again what one finds in practice is that censorship is used to enforce the will of the majority over the minority. Worse, what this becomes is the assertion that harmony can only be protected by prosecuting the minority so that the majority does not engage in violence.  Malaysia’s Police Chief Khalid Abu Bakar warned journalists “Don’t do anything or publish drawings or writing that can cause exasperation in the community.” Credit: Alexandra Radu/AP file photo There are numerous examples of this. But to take a lesser-known one: in early 2017, a small Chinese-language daily newspaper in Malaysia ran a caricature of the president of the Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) that was deemed by some to be anti-Islamic. Shortly after the cartoon went public, admittedly to the newspaper’s small readership of mainly ethnic-Chinese, a PAS state commissioner warned the newspaper not to forget what happened to the journalists of Charlie Hebdo, when 12 journalists were murdered at the French newspaper’s Paris offices two years earlier. “If you remember last time, there was a French newspaper that published a caricature that angered the whole Muslim world,” said Muhammad Fauzi Yusof, adding that the newspaper would be responsible for the “devastating” consequences. Then-Police chief Khalid Abu Bakar waded into the debate. “Don’t do anything or publish drawings or writing that can cause exasperation in the community. We have to be careful with these things,” he instructed newspapers and journalists. What do we make of this? Obviously, it was not the Chinese-language newspaper, representing a minority, that threatened violence but the politician, from the majority, who told journalists that they could be assassinated en masse. And what about the police chief? He didn’t arrest the politician for a…

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