Vietnam has banned the release of the Warner Bros feature film “Barbie” because its trailer includes a crude cartoon map that Vietnamese netizens believed depicted China’s “nine-dash line” territorial claims in the emotive South China Sea maritime territorial dispute. The decision mystified the studio, which said the map that prompted Hanoi to pull the movie was a “child-like crayon drawing” that traced Barbie’s travels and carried no political message.
A junta fighter jet repeatedly strafed a village in Myanmar’s Kayah state, killing an 11-year-old boy and injuring two more locals, Karenni Defense Force Officials told RFA Wednesday. The plane attacked Kyauk Su village three times on Tuesday night, said an information officer of Hpasawng township People’s Defense Force who did not want to be named for security reasons. “A jet fighter came and bombed at night,” the official said. “The injured are not seriously hurt. A Christian church and around six homes were also destroyed.” On Wednesday a jet attacked the Daw Noe Khu displaced people’s camp on the Thai-Myanmar border, killing a 32-year-old man and injuring two women. More than 4,000 people were sheltering at the camp, according to Karenni Progressive Party Joint Secretary, Aung San Myint. “The jets came around 1:00 a.m. and dropped bombs four times,” he said, adding that a school was destroyed by the bombing and a medical clinic and some houses were damaged. The officials of the Karenni Defense Force said that the junta is launching an offensive from Hpasawng township in order to fully control Mese township and is sending its forces to the region by air. Hpasawng People’s Defense Force said the army has had no opportunity to launch ground offensives so it relies on airstrikes and heavy artillery to attack civilian targets. The junta has not released a statement on the attacks. RFA called junta spokesperson for Kayah state Aung Win Oo by phone, but nobody answered. On July 4, three civilians, including a two-year-old child were injured when the air force bombed a displaced people’s camp in the western part of Demoso. The founder of the Karenni Human Rights Group, Ba Nyar, said that the attack was a war crime. The junta has carried out 527 airstrikes in Moebye (Moe Bye), Pekon and Pinlaung townships in southern Shan state and Kayah state since the February 2021 coup, according to the latest figures released by Progressive Karenni People’s Force. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
Junta officials are preparing to sue two independent media outlets, accusing them of not paying broadcasting fees imposed just before the military took power in a coup d’etat more than two years ago. The Yangon offices of the Democratic Voice of Burma, or DVB, and the Mizzima news agencies were raided by junta security forces in March 2021 – a month after the Feb. 1, 2021, military coup d’etat. The State Administrative Council, the official name of the military government, revoked the operating licenses of the outlets, which now operate online and underground. The junta’s Ministry of Information announced the lawsuit on Saturday, saying they still must pay for using the state-owned Myanmar Radio and Television platform to air news and entertainment in the months before the military takeover. According to the lawsuit, DVB owes a month’s fee of more than 20 million kyats, or about US$9,500, while Mizzima must pay 80 million kyats, or about US$38,000, for four months of services. DVB and Mizzima told RFA on Monday that the lawsuit was illegal because it was brought by a junta that unlawfully seized power. Mizzima News’ office in Thanlyin, Yangon, was raided by junta troops on Mar. 9, 2021, eight days after the military coup. Credit: Citizen journalist ‘Within minutes of the military coup’ That’s also why DVB doesn’t owe any fees to the junta, said Editor-in-chief Aye Chan Naing. Its broadcasting license contract was signed with a civilian government that was elected by the people, he said. “We had to pay MRTV every three months,” he told RFA. “We were never late to pay. But within minutes of the military coup, our television channel was cut for exactly one month without any notice from them.” Mizzima’s founder and chairman, Soe Myint, told RFA that the outlet would pay the bill if it could access its bank account, which had 90 million kyat (about US$42,000) when it was seized by the junta in March 2021. He said he hasn’t received any emails or official paperwork about the lawsuit. “If it is in an independent, judicially competent and safe situation, I am ready to defend this lawsuit in court at any time. Whether it is inside Myanmar or anywhere abroad,” he said. “I can present the fact that the military junta unlawfully seized my house and all my properties in any free and fair court of law.” The junta has also charged seven Mizzima employees with violating Section 505(a) of Myanmar’s Penal Code, Soe Myint said. That part of the law pertains to the circulation of statements, rumors or reports with the intent to cause military officers to disregard or fail in their duties. RFA attempted to contact junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for a response on the lawsuit, but his phone rang unanswered. Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
Myanmar’s junta has arrested the head of Daik-U Central Prison in Bago region, along with seven of his staff, for allegedly helping inmates contact People’s Defense Forces, sources close to the prison told RFA Tuesday. Some of the sources said the warden died during interrogation but RFA was unable to confirm this. The sources – who declined to be named for fear of reprisal – said the warden, Lt. Myo Htike, was arrested at the end of June for helping prisoners communicate with outsiders. He is being interrogated at the prison, along with the other arrested staff which include his deputy Yan Naing Tun, one of the sources said. “Lieutenant Myo Htike is good-natured and is also willing to help, so he helps political prisoners with some issues,” he said. “Other workers were arrested for not knowing what the lieutenant was doing,” said the source, adding that it’s not yet known when the eight will appear in court. RFA Burmese called Naing Win, the deputy director general of the junta prison department, regarding the arrests but he did not answer the phone. On June 27, guards took 37 political prisoners out of the prison, saying they were being transferred elsewhere. Relatives and friends said seven of the prisoners were killed. And in May, guards beat three Daik-U Central Prison inmates to death during the violent interrogation of 24 prisoners, accused of communicating with members of the Bago People’s Defense force, sources close to the prison told RFA at the time. They said the injured, some in a critical condition, were put in a dark room with no food for four days. Since May several more political prisoners at Thayarwady Prison in Bago region and Myingyan Prison in Mandalay region were also beaten to death during interrogation, while others have been critically injured according to family members and sources close to the prison, who all requested anonymity to protect prisoners and their relatives. There was speculation that the interrogations took place in retaliation for a prison break at Taungoo Prison in Bago region on May 18. Inmates grabbed guns from prison guards and nine managed to escape into the jungle where they were met by members of a local People’s Defense Force. One of the escaped prisoners later told RFA they were originally trying to free Win Myint, the deposed president who is being held at Taungoo. Almost 24,000 people have been arrested by the junta since the February 2021 military coup, with over 19,000 still in detention, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma).Still Detained including Sentenced Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
Junta jets dropped bombs on a village in Chin state, in the west of Myanmar, killing three people including a nine-year-old girl, the Mindat township People’s Administration Group told RFA Monday. Group spokesman Yaw Man said jets attacked Vung Khung village repeatedly on Saturday morning. “They shot three times with fighter jets, dropped two 500-pound bombs, and fired with other weapons, sending the villagers running like the world was about to end,” he said. “There was a nursing mother who had left her baby behind and fled to another place. She was killed by a bomb that was dropped on the place where she was sheltering on the way home to pick up her baby. Her neighbor’s nine-year-old child died next to her. “The locals don’t dare to live in the village anymore, so they are fleeing to their hill farms and other villages.” Yaw Man said a 65-year-old woman was also killed and a 50-year-old man injured in the attacks. Locals said there was no reason for the raids because the junta had not been fighting with the Chinland Defense Force. As well as attacking by air, infantry regiment 274, based in Mindat, fired long-range artillery at the village destroying the school and damaging 10 homes. The junta has released no statement on the attack and junta Deputy Information Minister Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun did not answer his phone when called by RFA on Monday. Last month air attacks on Mindat and Thantiang townships destroyed a monastery and four houses. RFA data show that 44 civilians have been killed by junta air attacks in Chin state since the February 2021 military coup. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
A comedy troupe in Myanmar uses income generated from videos to fund charitable initiatives, including supporting needy families and single mothers, members of the team told us. The group, formed in 2021 in the central Sagaing region’s town of Kale is led by comedian Nau Sing, who moonlights as a taekwondo coach. The short videos are posted on Nau Sing’s Facebook and YouTube accounts, both of which have tens of thousands of followers or subscribers. Nau Sing told us that the Myanmar Service channel did not start out profitable, but now that it is, he continues to make them for charity. “I have loved charity since I was young,” he said. “After three years of creating these videos, I started to get money, so now that I have income, I donate as much as I can.” The comedy troupe lacks access to a computer, so all the editing is done on mobile phones, but recent trends have made short videos with minimal editing popular, and that has made the videos successful, the Nau Sing charity said. Ma San San, one of the team members, told us that she is happy when the charity can make a difference in other people’s lives. “When we … gave them a bag of rice, they burst into tears,” she said. “They said they had never been able to buy a whole bag of rice, rather they could buy only a few tins of here or beg for more there. They were in tears because they said a bag of rice would hold them over for a long time, and I was thrilled. The Nau Sing charity group, seen May 12, 2023, raises money by creating comedy short videos and posting them on Facebook and YouTube. Credit: Citizen journalist The group plans to donate to the needy once every month, said Ko Nau Sing, another member of the group. “We have established a Nau Sing page [on social media],” said Ko Nau Sing. “We are planning to donate once a month as much as we can based on the income. But whether there are contributions or not, we plan to donate once a month.” The charity donates food worth 100,000 kyats per month (US$48) for a family of five that is struggling to make ends meet, it said. The charity also supports single mothers who struggle to take care of their children. One such mother, Ma Man Lan Nyaung, lives with her five children at a shelter inside a church. She told us that she and two of the older children had been begging on the streets to support the family. “We were not shy anymore. We begged from every house that we thought had some food to spare,” she said. “At that time, the Nau Sing group donated rice, oil, salt, and chickpeas. I am very grateful to them for their donations.” Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw. Edited by Eugene Whong.
It wasn’t the Communist Party that lifted the Vietnamese out of poverty; the people did it themselves. The country’s free-market revolution was the result of bottom-up pressure from the masses who broke the command-economy so much that the communist government had to accept a private sphere of business. Their pilfering from state-run companies and trading on the black market, and their ability to own more and more surplus produce after the state took its share, meant the government simply couldn’t handle the collectivized economy that had left Vietnam one of the world’s poorest countries in the 1980s. When the communist government gave an inch, the people demanded more. “The idea that economic success stems from a strategic shift in Party thinking [in 1986]… is actually a myth,” the economist Adam Fforde wrote. “Success instead drew upon systematic violations of Party ideology dating from the late 1970s, if not earlier.” The party’s economic reform package of 1986 (doi moi, or “renovation”) is common knowledge. Less so the promises of political renovation. Nguyen Van Linh, the incoming party general secretary that year, told writers and journalists that they should ‘stick to the truth’. One of those who took Linh at his word was Bao Ninh, a young novelist and war veteran from the North. “So much blood, so many lives were sacrificed for what?” he wrote in his 1990 book, The Sorrow of War. The poet and translator Duong Tuong called Bao’s work the “first truthful book about the war.” Truthful because it neither glorified victory against the Americans (“In war, no one wins or loses. There is only destruction”), nor regarded Communist Party leaders as the only heroes. Bao argued most Vietnamese were fighting for national peace, nor for Marxism. Naturally, the book was banned. Vietnam’s Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh (R) gestures to U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris in the Government office in Hanoi on August 25, 2021. Credit: Manan Vatsyayana / Pool / AFP The point is that even in a one-party, communist state, ordinary people can exert power. Today, the government still severely represses its citizens. There is no free media. There are no genuine elections. But the Communist Party is genuinely worried about the thoughts of the common man. Those domestic pressures are difficult to assess and frequently in debates on policy, such as about Vietnam hedging between the United States and China, it’s far easier to focus on “externalities”. The position at one extreme of that foreign policy debate, for instance, argues the Vietnamese government is denied any agency whatsoever because of material conditions: China is Vietnam’s main trading partner and principal aggressor; the United States is Vietnam’s main export partner and security “guarantor.” So by more closely aligning with either, Vietnam risks war or economic ruin. The other extreme says the Communist Party has a good deal of agency, and what shapes foreign policy is a shared ideology that makes it friendly with China, factional struggles within the party, and the whims of certain government officials. But consider a speech given in 2021 by Nguyen Phu Trong, now three-term Communist Party general secretary. Any nation “has to deal with two basic issues, internal and external,” he stated. “These two issues have an organic, dialectical relationship…[they] support each other like two wings of a bird, create positions and forces for each other, connect and intertwine more and more closely with each other.” Foreign policy today, he added, is a “continuation of domestic policy”. He said a little later: “Foreign affairs must always best serve the domestic cause.” That domestic cause for Trong is the survival and virality of the Communist Party. Domestic concerns dictate The other importance of The Sorrow of War was as an early sign nationalism was tumbling out of the hands of the Communist Party, which had staked its legitimacy on having led victory over the French, then Americans and then Chinese. But it was starting to lose its grip in the early 1990s when it struck peace with Beijing. Further anger flowed from the public as Chinese capital began flowing into Vietnam. In 2006, national hero General Vo Nguyen Giap (the “Red Napoleon”) accused the regime of selling off Vietnamese land for exploitation by Chinese bauxite speculators. Years-long protests turned “the nationalist tables on the Party by accusing it of caving in to the Chinese at the very time the latter were expanding their territorial claims against Vietnam in the South China Sea”, wrote the historian Christopher Goscha. That process has only expanded over time. One could say that the Communist Party is now scared of nationalism. Chinese academics seem especially taken with the idea that all nationalist protests in Vietnam are directed by the Communist Party. That is rarely the case. The party follows events; it seldom leads them. Netizen anger drove the recent cases of the Hollywood film “Barbie” being banned in Vietnam over a crude map that some said showed China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, and threats to boycott concerts by the South Korean K-Pop band BlackPink. During the Vanguard Bank standoff in 2019, when the Chinese military was once again harassing Vietnamese vessels in the South China Sea, officials in Hanoi reportedly discussed whether to allow some limited protests. “But, warned some other officials, demonstrations must be tightly controlled. If not, the protests might be taken over by individuals and groups in Vietnam, specifically democratization advocates”, wrote Ben Kerkvliet in Speaking Out in Vietnam, a study of political activism. That remains a concern. If the party takes a strong stance against China, that risks setting off nationwide nationalist protests that the party cannot control and which might quickly be whipped up into anti-communist agitation. Between June 9 and 11, 2018, more than 100,000 protesters demonstrated across Vietnam, arguably the largest nationwide protest seen in decades, as the National Assembly debated a bill to create three special economic zones (SEZs) along Vietnam’s coastline. The investment minister said publicly…
At least five members of rival Rohingya militant groups were killed in a gunfight Friday at a refugee camp in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district, police and other sources said. Separately, following a four-day visit to refugee camps in that southeastern district, International Criminal Court (ICC) Chief Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan urged the world to provide more humanitarian support because, he said, Rohingya were missing meals after the U.N. World Food Program had cut monthly aid to U.S. $8 from $12 on June 1. The killings in Friday’s shootout before dawn marked the latest bloodshed between the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) and Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO). Up until relatively recently, Bangladesh officials had denied that Rohingya militants had a foothold in the sprawling refugee camps near the Myanmar border, where security has deteriorated sharply. “The gunfight that left five dead this morning was between two Rohingya armed groups, ARSA and RSO,” Md. Farooq Ahmed, an assistant superintendent with the Armed Police Battalion, told BenarNews. Sheikh Mohammad Ali, officer-in-charge of the Ukhia police station, said law enforcers recovered the corpses of those killed in the gunfight, which took place around 5 a.m. at the Balukhali camp. Camp resident Nur Hafez said gunshots woke him. “I heard a hue and cry. Rushing to the scene, I found some blood-stained injured people lying on the ground. The police took them away after a while,” he told BenarNews. “Due to contests among different groups inside the camp, the killings are increasing,” Hafez said. Syed Ullah, a Rohingya camp leader, said that the feud between the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army and Rohingya Solidarity Organization had surfaced over efforts to exert dominance in the camps. “The ordinary Rohingya people have been living in a terrified atmosphere,” he said. The population of the densely crowded camps has swollen to about 1 million after about 740,000 Rohingya crossed the border into Bangladesh as they fled a brutal military offensive in their home state of Rakhine in Myanmar. That followed a series of deadly attacks by ARSA forces on Burmese military and police posts in Rakhine in August 2017. Ullah said uncertainty over efforts to repatriate the Rohingya to Myanmar had caused frustration, leading to an increase in criminal activities at the camps. “We at the camps have faced two-pronged difficulties – our monthly food allocations have been reduced twice and now we face the danger of being killed by the armed groups,” he said. ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan speaks to reporters in Dhaka following his first visit to Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar, Feb. 27, 2022. (BenarNews) Karim Khan, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, visited the camps to interview Rohingya about atrocities they suffered before fleeing to Bangladesh. He had made a similar visit in February 2022 after the Hague-based ICC authorized the investigation in 2019, but that was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The pre-trial chamber concluded at the time that it was reasonable “to believe that since at least 9 October 2016, members of the Tatmadaw [the Myanmar military], jointly with other security forces and with some participation of local civilians, may have committed coercive acts” against the Rohingya people that constitute crimes against humanity, according to a 55-page court document. In a separate investigation, the International Court of Justice allowed a case to proceed that the Gambia had brought against Myanmar’s military regime alleging genocide against Rohingya. The ICJ in May ruled to allow Myanmar officials until Aug. 24 to present arguments and evidence “necessary to respond to the claims” made against them. Following his four-day visit, Karim Khan expressed concern that Rohingya are going without meals. “[U]p to March, Rohingya men, women and children were given three meals a day, they were given enough money to eat three times a day. And since March, they have (been) eating twice a day, and not even twice,” he told reporters at the Inter-Continental Hotel in Dhaka hours after flying in from Cox’s Bazar. Mohammad Alam, a leader of Leda camp in Teknaf, had told BenarNews that the new monthly allocation translates to about 28 taka (25 cents) per day per person or about nine taka (eight cents) per each of three meals a day. “Is it possible to feed a family with such an allocation,” Alam asked. During his news conference, Karim Khan, who said he discussed the issue with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, expressed similar concerns. “What could you do with nine taka – I was told one egg is 12 taka,” he said, pointing out that some meals are skipped. He said children would ask their parents, “‘Where is lunch?’” “The heart should note that this is an area where the world should give support,” Karim Khan said while urging the World Food Program and other United Nations agencies to step up. “[I]t is a symptom of a malaise in which we have to show that every human life matters, that we give resources fairly and adequately wherever possible, that we realize 1.1 million people in a camp, the government of Bangladesh also needs support,” he said. “If people are hungry and there is no hope, it will lead to tension and difficulties.” BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.
Laos has launched a hotline that citizens can call for government assistance, but people appear afraid to use it because callers must reveal their names, phone numbers and addresses. Laos, one of the world’s few avowed Marxist-Leninist states, has given critics lengthy jail terms for social media comments. Residents say they don’t want to get in trouble for reporting problems.
Myanmar’s junta has accused a Sagaing region People’s Defense Force of killing 15 civilians in an attack on a village, a state news agency reported Thursday. Locals confirmed to RFA that fighting between junta troops and the local defense force broke out on Wednesday morning at Ngwe Twin village in Ayadaw township. People Media, a news agency of the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party, said the defense force fired hand-made mortars, killing 15 locals – including a 12-year-old – at a monastery. It said seven people, including three monks, were also injured. The report did not give the names and ages of the alleged casualties but said the injured were being treated at the Monywa Military Hospital. RFA has not been able to confirm the report. Ngwe Twin village is occupied by several junta-backed militia groups and residents say the local People’s Defense Force often attacks because the army is also stationed there. When RFA asked the defense force based in Ayadaw township about alleged deaths, the information officer confirmed the attack on Ngwe Twin village but said it targeted a Pyu Saw Htee militia base. “There could have been [civilian] casualties,” said the man who declined to be named for security reasons. “There was some resistance against us when fighting broke out at the monastery. Almost all of them were Pyu Saw Htee. But some unrelated people may have been affected. We expected this and moved elderly people into their homes to minimize [civilian casualties] when we entered the village.” He declined to confirm the reported mortar attack, citing the need for security. The People’s Defense Force did issue a statement claiming responsibility for a June 20 attack on the village and Pyu Saw Htee camp in which it used drones to drop bombs. More than 8,000 people have been killed across Myanmar due to armed clashes following the February 2021 military coup according to reports last month by independent research group ISP (Myanmar) and the Oslo Peace Center. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
Our mission is to present authentic and accurate investigative reports on issues that most media houses won’t even dare to speak about.
Don’t miss our future updates! Get Subscribed Today!
