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To Lam moves to secure full term at pinnacle of Vietnamese power

Editor1 year ago010 mins

To Lam’s recent relinquishing of the presidency of Vietnam is no sign of weakness or a challenge to his leadership. It was a logical step toward securing a full term as Communist Party general secretary. In a system that prides itself on collective leadership, there was consternation within the Communist Party of Vietnam, or CPV, about Lam’s rapid accumulation of power over the past year. The National Assembly has been signaling since August that this transfer of power would happen. For Lam, the presidency was just a stepping stone. While he seemed to enjoy the diplomatic function and traveled to eight countries in his brief five month tenure, and there’s a logic to the most powerful person being the country’s top representative, his priority is getting elected to a full term with his team at the 14th Party Congress in January 2026. While Lam may be the CPV general secretary, he still needs the support of the party Central Committee, and there are other power centers that he has to contend with. He has nothing like Xi Jinping’s hold over the Communist Party of China. Stacking the Politburo The 18-member Politburo elected at the 13th Party Congress in January 2021 has fallen to a low of 12 members. Lam has moved to fill the ranks. There have been five new Politburo members elected since May, including his protege, Luong Tam Quang at the Ministry of Public Security, or MPS. Deputy Prime Minister of Vietnam Tran Luu Quang delivers a speech at the Nikkei Forum “Future of Asia” in Tokyo on May 25, 2023 Lam understands that the party’s legitimacy comes through performance. Lam is not just stacking the Politburo; he’s appointing allies, especially those from his home province of Hung Yen, across key party positions. Lam installed another MPS deputy, Nguyen Duy Ngoc, as the head of the Central Committee office, a very powerful behind-the-scenes position in personnel issues and agenda setting. Lam now has his eyes and ears at the nerve center in the Central Committee. Ngoc also serves on the CPV’s 12-member Secretariat, which runs the party’s day-to-day affairs. Institutional checks Also new to the Secretariat is Le Minh Tri, who heads the Central Committee’s Civil Affairs Committee and is the prosecutor general of the Supreme People’s Procuracy. Le Hoai Trung, Lam’s top foreign policy adviser, who has been by his side in all foreign trips and meetings, also serves on the Secretariat. Lam is also moving to neutralize opposition. He appointed Vu Hong Van, a police major general also from Hung Yen, as deputy chairman of the Central Inspection Commission. Its chairman, Tran Cam Tu, is the one person on the Politburo who could cause the general secretary some trouble. He heads an investigative body with powers to investigate senior leadership that’s beyond Lam’s control. And as a reminder that Lam is not in complete control, on Oct. 25, the Politburo elected Tu as the standing chairman of the Secretariat, over Lam’s preferred candidate, Nguyen Duy Ngoc. Soldiers march in a parade in Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam, May 7, 2024. The other institutional check is the People’s Army. While armies tend to dominate politics in Southeast Asia, in Vietnam, power is the security police, a reflection of the regime’s fear of popular color revolutions. In addition to Lam and Luong Tam Quang, there are four other members of the Politburo who came up through the Ministry of Public Security. Many have looked to the military as an institutional check on the MPS, which is why the election of Luong Cuong to the presidency on Oct. 21 is seen as so important. Gen. Cuong is a career political commissar, becoming the chief of the Vietnam People’s Army’s General Political Department in 2016. As the top party official in the military, he also served on the Secretariat since 2016, becoming its standing chairman when Truong Thi Mai was forced to resign in May. In addition to Cuong, Minister of National Defense Phan Van Giang serves on the Politburo. Shoring up army ties Lam has been trying to build ties to the military. As general secretary, he is concurrently the chairman of the Central Military Commission, the highest defense decision-making body. In that capacity, he routinely meets with different military units and leadership. Lam’s also trying to carefully make his mark on personnel. He promoted Trinh Van Quyet, the current head of the General Political Department, to the Secretariat. He promoted three other senior officers from Hung Yen Province, including Deputy Minister of National Defense Hoang Xuan Chien, and Lt. General Nguyen Hong Thai, the commander of Military Region 1, which borders China. Even if the generals aren’t happy with a cop as chairman of the Central Military Commission, Lam is slowly putting his people into leadership positions. And all this matters, because the army comprises 11-13% on the Central Committee, the largest single bloc. Lam understands that getting allies into key positions should make himself unassailable just over a year from now at the 14th Congress. Through Luong Tam Quang, he can continue to investigate rivals. Other allies are in charge of personnel selection and drafting key party documents. The Communist Party of Vietnam has a culture of collective leadership – a norm that Lam briefly violated. By ceding the presidency, especially to a military man, he neutralizes some of the opposition to him, while giving up very little real power. In his consolidation of power, Lam took down eight different rivals on the Politburo since December 2022, a period of unprecedented political churn. Any more turmoil could be counter-productive. Lam seems to have succeeded in getting all his ducks in a row to be elected to a full term in January 2026. So rather than see the relinquishing of the presidency as a sign of weakness, it’s more accurate to think of it as a sign of growing political strength. Zachary Abuza is a professor at the National War College in Washington and an adjunct at Georgetown…

Marshall Islands wins Human Rights Council seat with climate, nuclear justice agenda

Editor2 years ago06 mins

Marshall Islands was elected on Wednesday to sit on the United Nations Human Rights Council, or HRC, from next year, with climate change and nuclear justice as its top priorities. Currently there are no Pacific island nations represented on the 47-member peak U.N. human rights body. Marshall Islands stood with the full backing of the Pacific Islands Forum, or PIF, and its 18 presidents and prime ministers. The HRC’s mission is to promote and protect human rights and oversee U.N. processes including investigative mechanisms and to advise the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Addressing the General Assembly in September, Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine warned that “common multilateral progress is failing us in the hour of greatest need, perhaps most at risk are human rights.” She said accountability must apply to all nations “without exception or double standard.” “Our own unique legacy and complex challenges with nuclear testing impacts, with climate change, and other fundamental challenges, informs our perspective, that the voices of the most vulnerable must never be drowned out,” she said in New York on Sept. 25. Aerial view of a surge of unexpected waves swamping the island of Roi-Namur in the Marshall Islands, pictured Jan. 21, 2024. (Jessica Dambruc /U.S. Army Garrison-Kwajalein Atoll/AFP) In 2011, Marshall Islands along with Palau issued a pioneering call at the General Assembly to urgently seek an advisory opinion on climate change from the International Court of Justice on industrialized nations’ obligations to reduce carbon emissions. While they were unsuccessful then, it laid the foundation for a resolution finally adopted in 2023, with the court due to begin public hearings this December. Heine has been highly critical of the wealthy nations who “break their pledges, as they double down on fossil fuels.” “This failure of leadership must stop. No new coal mines, no new gas fields, no new oil wells,” she told the General Assembly. When Marshall Islands takes up its council seat next year, it will be alongside Indonesia and France. Both have been in Heine’s sights over the human and self-determination rights of the indigenous people of the Papuan provinces and New Caledonia respectively. For years Indonesia has rebuffed a request from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights for an independent fact-finding mission in Papua and ignored the Pacific Islands Forum’s calls since 2019 to allow it to go ahead. “We support ongoing Forum engagement with Indonesia and West Papua, to better understand stakeholders, and to ensure human rights,” she told the General Assembly. In May, deadly violence erupted in New Caledonia over a now abandoned French government proposal to dilute the Kanak vote, putting the success of any future independence referendum for the territory out of reach. Heine said she “looks forward to the upcoming high-level visit” by PIF leaders to New Caledonia. No dates have been agreed. President of the Republic of the Marshall Islands Hilda Heine addresses the 79th United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., Sept. 25, 2024. (Reuters/Eduardo Munoz) Countries elected to the council are expected to demonstrate their commitment to the U.N.’s human rights standards and mechanisms. An analysis of Marshall Islands votes during its only previous term with the council in 2021 by Geneva-based think tank Universal Rights Group found it joined the consensus or voted in favor of almost all resolutions. Exceptions include resolutions on human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories where it “has generally voted against,” the report released ahead of the HRC election said. As part of its bid to join the council, Marshall Islands committed to reviewing U.N. instruments it has not yet signed, including protocols on civil and political rights, abolition of the death penalty, torture and rights of children. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika

Myanmar junta forces kill, mutilate villagers, insurgents say

Editor2 years ago08 mins

Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. Myanmar junta soldiers massacred and mutilated at least 25 villagers in revenge for an insurgent attack and impaled some of the victims on stakes as a warning, anti-junta forces in the strife-torn central region of Sagaing told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday. Various pro-democracy insurgent factions in Sagaing have been waging a sustained guerrilla campaign on the military this year, attacking junta positions and convoys in the arid, heartland region dominated by members of the majority Burman community. The bloody military campaign in Budalin township, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) northwest of the city of Mandalay, followed a Sept. 30 insurgent attack on a military position near Si Par village in which 30 junta troops were killed and 40 were captured, insurgents said. A junta column of more than 100 soldiers started raiding villages in Budalin on Oct. 4, arresting scores of people as well as killing suspected rebels sympathizers over the next two weeks, Min Han Htet, a senior member of an insurgent faction called the Student Armed Forces, told RFA. “We’ve determined that they’ve killed no less than 25 people. The nature of the killings was very cruel,” he said. “They decapitated them, they cut off their arms and legs. The corpses were planted on fences. Those are the types of scenes we’ve encountered.” RFA tried to contact the junta’s main spokesperson, Zaw Min Tun, to ask about the situation in Sagaing but he did not answer the telephone. The Office of the Chief of Army Staff denied in a statement on Monday that soldiers had killed six people in Si Par village. Min Han Htet said seven people from Myauk Kyi village were killed, six from Si Par, six from Budalin town, two from Ta Yaw Taw village, one from Se Taw and several others who had yet to be accounted for. Details from areas being occupied by the military, including Saing Pyin Lay village, were difficult to ascertain, an aid group said. The soldiers responsible for the killings were under the authority of the Northwest Military Command, based in the town of Monywa, and included members of the 33rd Battalion, insurgent sources said. About 300 homes were burned in the security sweep by junta forces, who were backed up by numerous airstrikes, Min Han Htet said. Residents of the region estimated that more than 100,000 people had fled from their homes in the area. Internally displaced people in Budalin township, Sagaing region, on May 21, 2024. ( Citizen Photo) ‘March on’ Thet Oo, information officer for the Sagaing People’s Support Network, which tries to help victims of the conflict, said nearly 15,000 displaced people were in urgent need of help. “What they mainly need are things like rice, cooking oil and other provisions, as well as medicines to care for their health,” he said. “If they stay in their village during storms and rain, in the cool and wet seasons, they need shelters.” The United Nations says more than 3 million people have been displaced by the fighting in Myanmar this year. The shadow civilian National Unity Government, or NUG, set up by pro-democracy politicians after the military overthrew a civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi in early 2021, denounced the killing and mutilation of villagers and reiterated a call for the outside world to stop supplying arms to a military that murders its people. “What does the international community expect of a terrorist group that commits such cruel atrocities?” said the NUG’s Minister of Human Rights Aung Myo Min. “People are dying. This isn’t a time to meet and talk about hopes for peace. Their actions aren’t indicative of peace,” he said, referring to a recent call by the junta for talks, which the opposition dismissed as window-dressing for a foreign audience. The NUG said at least 23 people were killed in Budalin township between Oct. 11 and Oct. 20, in 17 raids by the military, which included airstrikes on five villages. Junta forces had also used scores of villagers as human shields, the NUG’s Ministry of Human Rights said in a statement. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners rights group said 26 people, including six childrens, were killed in Sagaing, this month, up to Oct. 22. Eleven of them died after being detained, it said. Min Han Htet said his group would step up its fight. “Although the enemy tries to scare us, we urge everyone to march on, unafraid, with our students and other revolutionary forces in Sagaing,” he said. RELATED STORIES A new generation in Myanmar risks their lives for change No limits to lawlessness of Myanmar’s predatory regime Month of fighting leaves once-bustling Myanmar town eerily quiet Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika

China calls for action after attack on consulate in Myanmar

Editor2 years ago011 mins

Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese China on Monday urged Myanmar’s junta to find and punish the perpetrators of a bomb attack on its consulate in Mandalay over the weekend, but observers warned that more attacks are likely amid public anger over Beijing’s support for the military regime. China has remained one of the junta’s few allies since the military orchestrated a coup d’etat and seized control of Myanmar in February 2021. Chinese investment in Myanmar is substantial, and the armed opposition has attacked several projects in a bid to cut off badly-needed revenue for the junta, which is straining under the weight of global sanctions in response to its putsch. On Friday evening, unknown assailants detonated a bomb at the Chinese consulate in Mandalay region’s Chanmyathazi township, damaging part of the building’s roof, the junta and Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Saturday. No one was hurt in the blast. No group or individual has claimed responsibility. On Monday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Li Jian condemned the attack and called on the junta to “make an all-out effort to hunt down and bring the perpetrators to justice.” The Chinese consulate in Mandalay also urged all Chinese citizens, businesses and institutions in Myanmar to monitor the local security situation, strengthen security measures and take every precaution to keep themselves safe. Myanmar’s junta has said it is investigating the incident and is working to arrest those responsible. Opposition condemns attack An official with the Mandalay People’s Defense Force, which runs anti-junta operations in the region, denied responsibility for the bombing. “The Mandalay People’s Defense Force has not carried out any urban missions, including the attack on the Chinese consulate general’s office recently,” said the official who spoke to RFA Burmese on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. The foreign ministry Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, or NUG, also condemned the bombing in a statement that said it opposes all terrorist acts that tarnish relations with neighboring nations. It said differences of views should be solved through diplomatic means rather than violence. “Such kinds of attacks have absolutely nothing to do with our NUG government or our People’s Defense Force,” said NUG Deputy Foreign Minister Moe Zaw Oo. “We never commit terrorist acts and we condemn such attacks.” RELATED STORIES China undermines its interests by boosting support for Myanmar’s faltering junta China denies entry to Myanmar nationals trapped by battle Myanmar rebels capture border base near Chinese rare-earth mining hub Moe Zaw Oo suggested that the junta had orchestrated the attack to “[create] problems between our forces and China.” “The junta is trying to exacerbate the conflict … and sowing discord,” he said, without providing evidence of his claim. Tay Zar San, a leader of the armed opposition, echoed the NUG’s suspicion that the junta was behind the attack. “The military regime and its affiliated organizations are intentionally provoking ethnic and religious conflict under the context of anti-Chinese sentiment,” he said, adding that the junta has “organized” anti-Chinese protests in downtown Yangon and Mandalay. He also provided no evidence to back up his claims. Attempts by RFA to contact junta spokesperson Major General Zaw Min Tun for a response to the allegations went unanswered Monday. Enemy of the people Tay Zar San said that the people of Myanmar have been angered by Beijing’s support for the junta and its attempts to pressure ethnic armed groups along its border to end their offensive against the military. Since launching the offensive nearly a year ago, heavy fighting for control of towns in northern Shan state has sparked concern from China, which borders the state to the east, and forced it to shut previously busy border crossings. China has tried to protect its interests by brokering ceasefires between the junta and ethnic armies, but these haven’t lasted long. Myanmar’s Army Commander Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, left, speaks with Chinese President Xi Jinping at a hotel in Naypyidaw, Jan. 18, 2020. (Office of the Commander in Chief of Defense Services via AP) Junta supporters have expressed concern that territory lost to the armed opposition will not be retaken and are posting messages opposing China’s engagement on social media. Earlier, the junta supporters staged anti-China protests in Yangon, Mandalay, and the capital Naypyidaw. Than Soe Naing, a political commentator, said that the people of Myanmar will increasingly target China if Beijing continues supporting the junta. “As this struggle intensifies, anti-Chinese sentiment in Myanmar is likely to grow,” he said. “However, it is important to recognize that this is not a conflict with the Chinese people, but rather a response to the Chinese Communist Party’s stance and the misguided policies of its leadership on the Myanmar issue.” Additional tension The consulate bombing came amid reports that China’s military had fired at the junta’s Russian-made MiG-29 fighter jets as they carried out airstrikes on ethnic rebels on the border. A video of the purported attack – in which anti-aircraft guns fire into the air while Chinese-language commands are given – went viral on Saturday evening, although RFA has been unable to independently verify its authenticity or the date it took place. Additionally, an official with the People’s Defense Force in Sagaing region’s Yinmarbin township told RFA that his unit had ambushed a junta security detail guarding a convoy of trucks carrying copper from the Chinese-run Letpadaung Copper Mine Project in nearby Salingyi township. At least one junta soldier was killed, but the convoy was able to proceed, said the official, who also declined to be named. A traffic police officer directs traffic near a welcoming billboard to Chinese President Xi Jinping, in Naypyidaw, Jan. 17, 2020. (Aung Shine Oo/AP) RFA was unable to independently verify the official’s claims and efforts to reach the junta’s spokesperson for Sagaing region went unanswered Monday, as did attempts to contact the Chinese Embassy in Yangon. In late August, junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing vowed to protect Chinese assets and personnel in Myanmar during a meeting…

PRC at 75: In China under Xi Jinping, people run or ‘lie flat’

Editor2 years ago018 mins

Read this story in Mandarin. When Xi Jinping took his place as leader of the ruling Chinese Communist Party in 2012, some commentators expected he would be a weak president beset by factional strife in the wake of the jailing of former Chongqing party chief Bo Xilai and cryptic official references to rumors of a coup in Beijing. Yet Xi has evoked more comparisons with late supreme leader Mao Zedong than any other leader since Mao’s death in 1976, with his cult of personality, his abolition of presidential term limits and his intolerance of any kind of public criticism or protest, including in Hong Kong. Blamed by many outside China for his government’s handling of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan, Xi seriously damaged his reputation among the Chinese people with three years of grueling lockdowns that saw some people welded into their own apartments and others carted off to mass quarantine camps in the middle of the night. While the zero-COVID years eventually ended in late 2022 amid nationwide protests known as the “white paper” movement, a mass exodus of people dubbed the “run” movement was already under way. Refugees and dissidents, private sector executives and middle-class families with children have been willing to trek through the Central American rainforest to get away from life in China, in the hope of gaining political asylum in the United States. “I left China for Ecuador and Colombia, then walked north through the rain forest,” one migrant — an author whose writings were banned under Xi — told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview. “I left on Aug. 8 and entered the United States on Oct. 21.” “I was limping from my second day in the rainforest, and I was robbed by bandits,” the person said. “I could have died.” A migrant from China, exhausted from the heat, rests on the shoulder of a fellow migrant from Nicaragua after walking into the U.S. at Jacumba Hot Springs, California, on June 5, 2024. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP) Another recent migrant — a writer — said they left because everything they wrote had been banned. “My articles were banned from newspapers and magazines, my name was not allowed to be mentioned, and I couldn’t take part in public events,” they said. “I realized if I stayed in China, my life would just be a huge disaster, so I fled in a hurry.” Xu Maoan, a former financial manager in a private company, said he used to make a good professional salary of 10,000 yuan (US$1,400) a month, but lost his job due to the COVID-19 restrictions. He never succeeded in finding another, despite sending out hundreds of resumes, and recently joined many others making the trek through the rainforest to the U.S. border. “I didn’t find out about the white paper movement until I got to the United States,” Xu told RFA Mandarin. “All news of it was blocked in China.” Reversing course? But it wasn’t just the pandemic; Xu and many like him were growing increasingly concerned that Xi was reversing the investor-friendly policies of late supreme leader Deng Xiaoping, with his confrontational attitude to Western trading partners and hair-trigger sensitivity to “national security,” an elastic term used to describe any activity that could threaten or undermine the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s official narrative. “I have personally experienced how the government drove away foreign investors and cracked down on the private sector, in the name of national security,” Xu said. “The government is in financial difficulty, so if they don’t like you, they raid you.” Chinese police conduct work during a raid of the Shanghai office of international consultancy Capvison in an undated photo. (Screenshot from CCTV via AP) “[Xi] quarreled with Europe and the United States, frightening foreign investors, who withdrew to Vietnam and India,” he said. “His values are the opposite [of Deng Xiaoping’s].” “The domestic economy has collapsed, but they just won’t admit it,” he said. “I was afraid we would be going back to the days of famine and forced labor of the Mao era, so I left in a hurry.” Xi’s abolition of presidential term limits in 2018 and the creation of what some fear is a Mao-style cult of personality around him is also driving concerns. “Xi has deified himself as the ‘core’ leader with his own personality cult, but he lacks Mao’s charisma,” Ma Chun-wei, assistant politics professor at Taiwan’s Tamkang University, told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview. “He requires everyone to study Xi Jinping Thought throughout the party and the whole education system.” Oppression of Uyghurs, Tibetans Xi has also presided over the mass incarceration of Uyghurs in Xinjiang’s “re-education” camps, the surveillance and suppression of Tibetans and their culture, as well as the upgrading the Great Firewall of internet censorship and the installation of surveillance cameras in schools to monitor students and teachers alike. Under his tenure, private companies have been forced to set up Communist Party branches, and censorship is tighter than it has ever been, Ma said. Yet Xi is one of the most ridiculed leaders in recent Chinese history, according to exiled author Murong Xuecun. “He has had the most nicknames of any general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in the past 70 years,” Murong told RFA in a recent interview. “Some people calculate that he has more than 200 nicknames.” Many of Xi’s nicknames are now banned from China’s internet, including Xi Baozi, Winnie the Pooh and Xitler, and their use has led to imprisonment in some cases. Pro-democracy activists tear a placard of Winnie the Pooh that represents President Xi Jinping during a protest in Hong Kong on May 24, 2020. (Isaac Lawrence/AFP) “The key to all of this is the political system,” Murong said. “Xi rose to lead the Communist Party and have power over appointments, the military, the party, the police and national security agencies through a series of opaque and intergenerational processes.” “He commands everything, yet his power isn’t subject to…

Viral party video shot inside Cambodian prison prompts leadership reshuffle

Editor2 years ago05 mins

Cambodia has appointed a new director at Phnom Penh’s Prey Sar prison after a leaked video of a party inside the facility showed prisoners dancing, drinking and appearing to handle drugs. The prison’s deputy director and spokesman, Nuth Savana, will continue in those roles while adding the director title, Minister of Interior Sar Sokha said in a statement on Wednesday. No reason was given for the appointment, but it comes just days after Prime Minister Hun Manet ordered a probe into the video, which began circulating on Facebook and other social media accounts last week. It shows one young man – clad in just his underwear and a pair of sunglasses – dancing next to two prisoners who hug each other as they sway to an electronic beat. In the foreground, another prisoner chops up a white powder as others bop around amid flashing lights. Nuth Savana told Radio Free Asia on Thursday that an investigation he led this week found that the video footage was taken in January 2023 during the Chinese New Year holiday and was shot inside Prey Sar. “I am working on the case step by step,” he said. “The minister of interior ordered strict measures against those who were involved. He ordered inspectors to go there in addition to my team.” On Tuesday, Hun Manet said at a public appearance in Kandal province that he had asked Sar Sokha to investigate why inmates were allowed to have a party in what looks to be a prison’s common area. “We don’t know for sure what is happening on the Facebook video,” the prime minister said, according to a video of his speech that was posted to Facebook. “Maybe the was 10 years old but we need to investigate, and we especially need to reform and strengthen the prisons across the country.” He suggested that management of Prey Sar could be strengthened “by shuffling its leadership.” ‘Strict measures’ ordered In June, prison officials in northern Stung Treng province were accused of taking bribes and then releasing eight Chinese prisoners who authorities said had illegally crossed into Cambodia. The prisoners had told police that they had been smuggled across the border and planned to travel to Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville, a seaside resort that has become a hotbed of criminal activity over the last decade. Prey Sar, located on the outskirts of the capital, is Cambodia’s largest prison with about 8,000 inmates. The prison’s male facility, known as Correctional Center 1, has been criticized for poor conditions and overcrowding. Prey Sar’s previous director, Yin Kun, retired on Sept. 9. The acting director who was named to the role last month was sidelined by Nuth Savana’s appointment this week. As the new director, Nuth Savana said he wanted to reform the prison so that human rights are fully respected and the well-being of prison guards and prisoners is ensured. Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika

Life sentence for Vietnamese tycoon already facing death penalty

Editor2 years ago03 mins

Businesswoman Truong My Lan was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday in relation to a multi-billion-dollar fraud for which she already faces the death penalty, Vietnamese media reported. The Chairwoman of property developer Van Thinh Phat appeared at Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court to hear the verdict after a month-long trial. Lan, 68, was found guilty of fraud, money laundering and cross-border currency trafficking. In April, Lan was sentenced to death for embezzling US$12.5 billion, and a total of 40 years for bribery and violating bank regulations. The court ordered her to repay $27 billion in loans to companies in the Van Thinh Phat group from Siam Commercial Bank, or SCB, in which she holds a 91% stake. Lan’s lawyers said she planned to appeal the death sentence, although a date has not been announced. RELATED STORIES Van Thinh Phat chairwoman sentenced to death in Vietnam’s biggest fraud trial Van Thinh Phat case tests investor confidence in Vietnam One year after inmate’s execution Vietnam continues sentencing people to death On Thursday Lan was sentenced to life for fraudulent property appropriation, 12 years for laundering more than $18 billion, and eight years for illegally transferring $1.5 billion out of the country and receiving $3 billion from abroad, according to Vietnamese daily the Tuoi Tre. During the trial of Lan and 33 other defendants, including her husband Eric Chu, the court heard that the Van Thinh Phat chairwoman told senior staff at the property company, SCB and Tan Viet Securities to issue more than 300 million bonds, allowing her to appropriate $1.2 billion from nearly 36,000 investors. Last Friday, as the trial ended, Lan had been allowed to address the court, appealing for clemency. “Standing here today is a price too expensive for me to pay. I consider this my destiny and a career accident,” Lan said, according to the VNExpress news site. “For the rest of my life, I will never forget that my actions have affected tens of thousands of families.” Edited by Taejun Kang. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika

Police say son of Cambodian Muslim leader facing sexual assault charges

Editor2 years ago03 mins

The son of a high-ranking Cambodian Muslim cleric has been arrested on charges of sexual assault and rape after police received complaints from residents of a Phnom Penh student dormitory. Police said they heard complaints from four victims between 13 and 15 years old and have also spoken with four witnesses. Kamarudin Suhaimi was arrested on Tuesday, denied the charges in a court appearance and was being detained as police continue their investigation, according to Fresh News. Suhaimi is the son of Sos Kamry, the chairman of the Highest Council for Islamic Religious Affairs in Cambodia. Kamry told the Khmer Times that the allegations were “a rumor” and that his son hasn’t committed any crimes. Suhaimi had been the manager of security, hygiene and health at the girls’ dorm for the An-Nikmah Al-Islamiyah Phnom Penh Institute, which lists itself as an elementary school on its Facebook page. He was relieved of those duties following complaints from students of inappropriate behavior and language directed toward students, the school said in an Oct. 12 statement. The aunt of one of the alleged victims told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday that Suhaimi sexually assaulted her niece “a few times.” “But my niece didn’t dare to tell because she was threatened,” she said. RFA was unable to contact Kamry for further comment on the charges against his son. National Police Chief Sar Thet was also unavailable for comment on Wednesday. Ny Sokha, president of human rights group Adhoc, praised the authorities’ actions and told RFA that he hopes police and prosecutors will give justice to the victims regardless of the suspect’s influential father. “We want to see justice for both sides. Authorities should be working on the case to show that it isn’t under the influences of powerful people,” he said. Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika

Myanmar junta extends census as fighting, floods slow election preparations

Editor2 years ago06 mins

Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. Myanmar’s military regime has been forced to extend its two-week census, an official told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday, after fighting and threats of retaliation against junta administrators, along with flooding in the wake of Typhoon Yagi, made it impossible to gather information in many parts of the country. The census, aimed at tallying potential voters ahead of the widely-criticized 2025 elections, has met strong opposition from the country’s ethnic armed groups who say preparations for a nationwide vote are impossible while they battle a regime that continues to arrest and kill its critics. Since the country’s coup over three years ago, the junta has been under pressure from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to hold elections. But the regime has continued to extend a state of emergency across the country and brought in tough new registration laws that disqualify many parties from standing, including the National League for Democracy, deposed after winning a landslide victory in the 2020 election. RELATED STORIES: As Myanmar’s census draws to a close, observers question its accuracy Myanmar census-takers and their protectors face rebel attacks Myanmar junta invites insurgents, ‘terrorists’ to join election After the official census period ended on Tuesday, the junta’s ministry of immigration and population said more time was needed to reach households in areas of armed conflict and regions whose roads had been cut off by recent storms and flooding. “Although we conducted the census from Oct. 1 to Oct. 15, there are still regions that are left out,” Vice Minister of Immigration and Population Htay Hlaing told RFA. “We’ll continue there, but I can’t say how long it will last.” The junta plans to add 40,000 more enumerators to the nearly 110,000 already working to collect census data, his ministry said, adding that there are an estimated 13 million households in the country, with a population of over 56 million. Htay Hlaing declined to comment on how many people had filled out the census over the past two weeks. Census takers take down information in Yangon. Oct. 9, 2024. (RFA) On Wednesday, state-owned media encouraged those in “relevant areas” who remained uncounted to contact the Central Census Commission, adding that they would publish preliminary results in December. Powerful ethnic armies continue to seize territory from junta forces in Rakhine state in Myanmar’s west, border regions like Kachin, Kayin and Kayah states, and central Mandalay region, casting doubt on how junta forces could do an accurate count there. Census takers and the troops and police guarding them have come under attack from rebel forces in Chin state and Sagaing, Yangon and Tanintharyi regions since early October. A junta soldier on guard during the census in Yangon, Oct. 9, 2024. (RFA) Junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing on Tuesday called on Myanmar’s ethnic armed groups to cooperate with the election plans, warning: “Only when the country forges peace and stability will the government initiate the strengthening of the multiparty democratic system and correct reform processes as quickly as possible.” But former election monitor San Aung, who has been observing the latest preparations, told RFA the junta will not be able to complete the census in areas controlled by armies opposed to Min Aung Hlaing’s regime “There are so many forces defending areas that they won’t allow a census to be done in. Even in Yangon, it’s not easy to count,” he said, referring to Myanmar’s largest city, where guerilla groups bombed administrative offices days before the census began. “There are also very few enumerators. Getting the data in phases will probably also be difficult. They’re definitely endangering their security and their lives.” Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by Mike Firn. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika

Cambodians conjure up US bogeyman behind Vietnam canal concerns

Editor2 years ago012 mins

I was recently offered documents purporting to show that U.S. intelligence agencies have “been guiding Vietnam to sabotage” the Funan Techo Canal, Cambodia’s controversial megaproject that critics say poses a serious ecological threat to Vietnam’s southern rice-growing heartland. The Vietnamese-language documents offered by an official in Phnom Penh reveal nothing about alleged secret meetings or misinformation campaigns, merely restating Vietnam’s concerns about what its neighbor was doing based on publicly available reports. It isn’t entirely surprising if Phnom Penh is now pushing the line that complaints about the canal are mostly American propaganda that Washington is helping direct Vietnam to regurgitate. A Cambodian national flag is displayed during a groundbreaking ceremony of China-funded Funan Techo canal in Prek Takeo village, Cambodia, Aug. 5, 2024. (Heng Sinith/AP) It may make some psychological sense for Phnom Penh to pretend all the noise is a result of U.S.-China geopolitics and to think that Vietnam, its closest neighbor and increasingly important economic partner, isn’t actually angry at all about Funan Techo. And Phnom Penh, somewhat justifiably, feels hemmed in by the uproar that followed Prime Minister Hun Manet’s announcement in May that construction of the canal will go ahead. Although China has been funding almost every other megaproject in Cambodia, it refused to pony up most of the money for this one, leaving the Cambodian state to cover the costs that will likely end up being much higher than the $1.7 billion estimate. Vietnam has made it known in private conversations with Cambodia’s leaders that it is unhappy about how Phnom Penh went about its assessments of the canal’s impact on the Mekong Delta. Reticent Vietnam The people of Southeast Asia would “benefit from transparency on any major undertaking with potential implications for regional water management, agricultural sustainability, and security,” a U.S. embassy spokesperson in Phnom Penh said recently. Yet it’s fanciful for Phnom Penh to think Vietnam doesn’t have concerns of its own about a neighbor’s construction of a 180-km (110-mile) canal near their shared border, or to think that Vietnam needs prodding from America to express these concerns to Cambodia’s government. More often than not, in fact, it has been Washington that does the ventriloquizing for Hanoi. One struggles to remember any Vietnamese minister giving a press conference or an official going on the record about Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base. Washington has alleged for years that Phnom Penh will allow China direct access to the base, which Phnom Penh denies. Workers use excavators during the construction of the Funan Techo canal in Kandal province, July 9, 2024. (Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP) A Chinese naval presence in Cambodia wouldn’t be ideal for America’s security interests in the region, but the biggest threat would be to Vietnam, which lies just 30 km (18 miles) from the site. A Chinese naval base to its southwest would leave Vietnam pretty much encircled by Chinese forces at sea. Yet most of what we know of Vietnam’s concerns comes from what the U.S. government has said about the matter. Likewise, what we know about Vietnam’s concerns over the Funan Techo Canal comes either from its officials speaking anonymously to Vietnam’s state-run media, from the Cambodian government responding publicly to Vietnam’s concerns, or what one can infer from U.S. government statements. Blaming foreigners The fact that American statements about the canal focus on the potential ecological and economic impact on Vietnam — hardly a top-line U.S. national security concern — suggests these fears originated in Hanoi. It’s illogical to maintain that Hanoi would need U.S. intelligence services to warn it of the potential economic and ecological impacts of the canal. Perhaps this has been discussed between Vietnamese and U.S. officials, but to imagine it’s all an American conspiracy to hammer Cambodia is rather desperate. But it has worked for Cambodia before. In 2017, the Cambodian government instructed the Supreme Court to forcibly dissolve the country’s largest opposition party, the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), which might have given the ruling party a tough run at a general election the following year. A supporter of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party wears a poster of party leader Kem Sokha as she stands outside the Supreme Court in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Oct. 31, 2017. (Heng Sinith/AP) The false narrative Phnom Penh constructed was that the CNRP was plotting a “color revolution” with U.S. support. The party’s dissolution came months after Phnom Penh shut down newspapers and civil society groups it has accused of being part of a U.S. plot. Not a shred of evidence was offered to prove any of this, yet it jibed with the ruling Cambodian People’s Party’s parochial and paternalistic view of Cambodian society: Everyone is peaceful until foreigners start whipping up our locals; its foreigners who convince Cambodians to demand their rights and liberty. The claim that America is now dripping poisonous misinformation into Hanoi’s ears over the Funan Techo Canal has a similar ring to it. As it implies, Asia would be entirely peaceful if it wasn’t for a captious U.S. pressuring countries in the region to do its bidding. RELATED STORIES Cambodia’s Funan Techo canal exposes cracks in Vietnam ties Will Cambodia’s Funan Techo canal be a success? Cambodian anti-Vietnamese sentiment will stalk Hun Manet beyond trade zone spat Cambodia launches ambitious Funan Techo canal project Chinese whispers Read between the lines, and what one can also infer is an argument that the region would be entirely happy with China’s behavior if it weren’t for U.S. interference. Indeed, the Cambodian official who contacted me claimed that “the U.S., in collaboration with Vietnam, is obstructing the Canal Project…to eliminate Chinese influence in Southeast Asia.” These claims echo Chinese propaganda that asserts that it’s not really Vietnam or the Philippines who wants to assert their sovereignty in the South China Sea in the face of Chinese aggression, but the Americans who are forcing them to challenge China. Beijing’s line that Vietnam is a proxy of U.S. geopolitical interests now appears to have seeped into…

Category: South Asia