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Papua New Guinea foreign minister faces backlash over primitive animals comment

Editor08 mins

UPDATED AT 03:46 a.m. ET on 2023-05-12 Papua New Guinea’s foreign minister is facing an intense public backlash and calls to resign after he labeled critics of his daughter’s ostentatious TikTok video from a taxpayer funded trip to the U.K. monarch’s coronation as “primitive animals.” The furor over Australian-born Justin Tkatchenko’s comments, which were made to Australia’s state broadcaster ABC, is happening less than two weeks ahead of U.S. President Joe Biden’s stopover in Papua New Guinea to meet leaders of Pacific island countries. Tkatchenko’s adult daughter Savannah accompanied him to the coronation of King Charles III in London last week. She posted a TikTok video of their luxury travel, since deleted, which triggered criticism in Papua New Guinea where poverty is widespread. In an interview with the ABC on Wednesday about the social media onslaught, Tkatchenko said his daughter was “absolutely traumatized by these primitive animals.” He added, “And I call them primitive animals because they are.” The comments were perceived as racist in the Melanesian nation of more than nine million people, where there was also anger at a local newspaper’s estimate of the expense of sending a large delegation to the coronation. On Friday, Tkatchenko said he would step aside as foreign minister while any investigations take place. He repeated his apology from the day before when he had said his comments were a reaction to “horrible threats of a sexual and violent nature” by internet trolls against his daughter and not directed at Papua New Guineans. Prime Minister James Marape on Thursday said he had been offended by the primitive animals comment, but also urged the county to accept the apology and move on. Papua New Guinea Foreign Affairs Minister Justin Tkatchenko speaks at a press conference in Port Moresby on Jan. 10, 2023. Credit: Harlyne Joku/BenarNews Savannah Tkatchenko’s video showed her enjoying luxury travel, accommodation and high-end shops such as Hermes at Singapore Airport and doing her skincare routine on a flight to London. “I’ve actually packed my whole life into these two big suitcases, I’m so proud of myself because I have so much stuff,” she said as she strolled through an airport. “So I’m traveling with my Dad and our first stop is Singapore and we checked into the first class lounge where we had some cosmos and some yummy food,” she said. “Then we did some shopping around Singapore Airport at Hermes and Louis Vuitton. Those of you that don’t know, Singapore Airport shopping is honestly so elite.” Calls for the foreign minister’s resignation have come from senior politicians such as the opposition leader and organizations including the country’s Trade Union Congress. “Justin deserves no mercy or forgiveness. He must be kicked out of this country. PM James Marape must act immediately,” said PNG Trade Union Congress Acting General Secretary Anton Sekum. Biden visit aims to counter Chinese influence The rancor over a senior minister’s comments comes ahead of landmark visits to Papua New Guinea later this month by Biden and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Papua New Guinea, the most populous Pacific Island country, is increasingly a focus of China-U.S. rivalry in the region and a U.S. push to counter Beijing’s influence. Like some other Pacific island nations, Papua New Guinea is trying to balance increased Chinese trade and investment and its traditional security relationships with countries such as Australia and the United States. Tkatchenko earlier this month said he hopes a defense cooperation agreement with the United States will be signed during Biden’s visit. Papua New Guinea is also working on completing a broad security agreement with Australia. China’s influence in the Pacific has burgeoned over several decades through increased trade, infrastructure investment and aid as it seeks to isolate Taiwan diplomatically and gain allies in international institutions. The Solomon Islands and Kiribati switched their diplomatic recognition to China from Taiwan in 2019. Beijing signed a security pact with the Solomon Islands last year, alarming the U.S. and allies such as Australia who fear it could pave the way for a Chinese military presence in the region. Marape’s statement about Tkatchenko said Papua New Guinea’s “national character” was being tested at a time when it would be in the spotlight because of Biden and Modi’s visits. “We must show the world that we can forgive those who offend us,” he said. “This will be a momentous and historic occasion, which should rally our nation together, and we should not let this issue stand in the way.” BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service. Story updated to note that Tkatchenko is stepping aside to allow an investigation.

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U.S. Sen. Rubio introduces bill to beef up air bases that would defend Taiwan

Editor04 mins

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio introduced a bill Thursday that seeks to strengthen American air bases in the Indo-Pacific region to better respond to mainland Chinese aggression against Taiwan. The Deterring Chinese Preemptive Strikes Act “direct[s] the U.S. Department of Defense to harden U.S. facilities in the Indo-Pacific to help further deter a preemptive strike against U.S. forces and assets in the region by China ahead of an invasion of Taiwan.” War games conducted by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies showed that Beijing’s strategy if it were to mount such an invasion would be to attack U.S. bases in the region with missiles, a statement by Rubio’s office said.  The bill calls for a survey of aviation assets in the region to determine if any that would be needed to respond to an invasion of Taiwan lack improvements that would “mitigate damage to aircraft in the event of a missile, aerial drone, or other form of attack by the People’s Republic of China.” When the survey is complete, the secretary of defense would then deliver the results of the survey to the appropriate congressional committees, which would then enact plans to make the improvements. “Senator Rubio has been clear on the importance of defending Taiwan,” a representative from Rubio’s office told RFA’s Mandarin Service, citing the Taiwan Protection and National Resilience Act, a bill that Rubio and colleagues introduced in March that seeks to create a plan for dealing with a potential invasion.  When asked if U.S. lawmakers were working with President Biden to prevent threats to U.S. airspace, Rubio’s office was critical of the administration, saying it “appears to be more concerned about not antagonizing China instead of taking the steps needed to protect American servicemembers from future attacks.” Mainland communist China considers democratic Taiwan to be a rogue province. Beijing insists that its diplomatic partners accept its claim on the island of Taiwan, which it calls the “one China” policy, effectively forcing them to cut ties with the democratic island.  Beijing last month conducted military exercises in waters around the island of Taiwan, prompting Taipei’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu to say, “They seem to be trying to get ready to launch a war against Taiwan.” In February, CIA Director William Burns said that Chinese President Xi Jinping wants to be able to invade Taiwan within the next four years. Additional reporting by Bing Xiao for RFA Mandarin. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

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Repeated raids force more than 3,500 villagers to flee Sagaing region township

Editor03 mins

Junta raids over the past five days have forced more than 3,500 villagers to flee their homes in Khin-U township, locals told RFA Thursday. They said troops started burning homes in eight villages, including Koke Tet, Yone Pin and Thin Paung, on May 7. A 60-year-old woman from Koke Tet village, who did not want to be named for security reasons, told RFA the displaced people no longer have enough food. “There is nothing at home. Villages were torched,” she said.  “Now people are hiding in the forest. And we are fleeing from place to place as the army is raiding villages and we were not able to take anything from home when we fled.” The number of houses burned by the military is not yet known as locals said they were too afraid to return home while troops were still in the township. Khin-U has come under repeated attack by junta forces since the 2021 coup. Around 70 villages have been attacked by the junta, who burned more than 20,000 homes in the township between Feb. 1, 2021 and April this year, according to the pro-democracy Khin-U Information Group. A 60-year-old man, who also requested anonymity, told RFA he was forced to flee his home in Khin-U township four times over the past two years and he and his fellow villagers are struggling to survive. The situation is similar across Sagaing region. Nearly 750,000 people have fled their homes due to fighting and insecurity since the coup, according to a May 6 statement by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. RFA’s calls to the junta spokesman for Sagaing region, Aye Hlaing, who is also the regional minister for social affairs, went unanswered Thursday. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.

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Cash for carbines: Myanmar’s junta offers reward to fighters who turn in weapons

Editor013 mins

Myanmar’s military is taking out its pocketbook to try to persuade rebels to stop fighting. The generals in Naypyidaw want to give members of the anti-junta People’s Defense Force and other “terrorist groups” who surrender their weapons and renounce their loyalty to resistance forces as much as 7.5 million kyats (U.S.$3,570) – a princely sum for most people in Myanmar. That’s according to an offer made Tuesday to those willing to “return to the legal fold,” as well as anyone “illegally armed for reasons of personal security” who agrees to “apply for a weapons license.” It’s the latest attempt by the Burmese army to defeat resistance forces, who have reported growing success against a depleted military two years after generals took control of the country in a February 2021 coup d’etat. Facing losses on the ground, the military has increasingly relied on airstrikes to win its battles – often at devastating cost to civilians. Based on the announcement, the regime is prepared to provide anywhere from 200,000 to 7.5 million kyats (U.S.$95 to $3,570) to rebel fighters who throw themselves at the mercy of a military tribunal, depending on the type of weapon and ammunition they hand over to authorities when they surrender.  Those who have committed murder, rape, and other crimes will have to face legal proceedings in court, the announcement said, but “relaxations will be made according to the law,” depending on the scale of the offense. Applicants for a license to carry firearms for the purpose of personal security “will not be questioned” about how they obtained the weapons and ammunition and can expect to be approved, provided they “comply with the principle of possession.” No thanks Rebel fighters responded to the proposition with disdain. “The junta inviting the PDFs to return to the ‘legal fold’ is just an example of how it manipulates the law as it sees fit,” said a 19-year-old with the Ye-U township PDF in Sagaing region, who asked to be identified as “Nway Oo,” and said he would not be accepting the offer. “Their statement is full of false intentions. As long as [the junta generals] are in power, the country will continue to suffer, so we must fight to root them out,” he said. “We’ll never give up – we will fight until they are brought to justice and made to answer to the will of the people.” Members of People’s Defense Force Kalay – Battalion 7 in Myanmar’s Kalay district train in February 2023. Credit: Screenshot from People’s Defense Forces Kalay – Battalion 7 video Nway Oo graduated from high school in 2020 and joined the anti-junta Civil Disobedience Movement branch of students who boycotted education under the military following the coup. In the Sagaing region, which has offered up some of the stiffest resistance to military rule since the takeover, it’s “obvious that the junta’s strength on the ground is decreasing,” he said, as the number of troop patrols is dwindling and airstrikes are on the uptick. Sayar Kyaung, the leader of the anti-junta Yangon UG Association, told RFA that the military has never stopped cracking down on the PDF and called the sudden announcement “an attempt to distort the revolution.” “The junta’s announcement is a bit funny – rule of law in Myanmar ceased to exist once they staged a coup,” he said. “Their offer to ‘relax legal procedures’ indicates that they are weakening.” Sign of desperation The junta’s offer is part of a genuine bid to resolve Myanmar’s armed conflict, said Thein Tun Oo, executive director of the Thayninga Institute for Strategic Studies, which is made up of former military officers. “[Anti-junta fighters] will not find it easy to continue on a path of armed resistance,” he said, adding that those directly involved in the fighting “understand the situation.”  “Some youths naively and impulsively joined the resistance groups,” he said. “This is a chance for them to come back.” But Nay Phone Latt, spokesman for the shadow National Unity Government’s Office of the Prime Minister, said the junta’s announcement showed its desperation. “It’s pretty obvious – they have invited the PDFs to return just because they finally came to realize that they cannot beat them on the ground,” he said. “That’s why they appear to be forgiving with this invitation. But we all know what [junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing] said earlier.” Just a month ago, in a March 27 speech to mark Armed Forces Day, Min Aung Hlaing called the NUG, PDF, and armed ethnic organizations “terrorists” who seek to destroy the nation, vowing to eradicate them. Tuesday’s announcement marks the second time the military has called on members of the PDF and other anti-junta groups to surrender their weapons and “rejoin Myanmar’s legal framework,” following an overture in June last year. International call for resolution It also came as observers suggested there was no political off-ramp from Myanmar’s conflict on the horizon, despite calls by state leaders, international diplomats and fellow Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, states in recent weeks for an immediate cessation of violence and dialogue between all stakeholders. Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing [right] meets with former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in Naypyidaw, April 24, 2023. Credit: AFP/Myanmar Military Information Team After the former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited Naypyidaw at the end of April to discuss an end to violence with the junta leaders, the military bombed a hospital, said NUG spokesman Kyaw Zaw.  And when the Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang was visiting in mid-April, the junta dropped bombs on a civilian population, he said. “By looking at incidents like that, you can see whether they’re complying with the international community’s pleas to stop the violence,” he said. The latest call to stop hostilities came on Monday from Indonesia, the current chair of ASEAN, after an attack over the weekend on a diplomatic convoy delivering humanitarian relief to displaced people in Myanmar. The convoy included members of the ASEAN disaster management agency and diplomats…

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More than 5,000 evacuees in Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady region prepare for cyclone to hit

Editor04 mins

More than 5,000 people have arrived in Labutta township over the past few days, amid warnings that a fierce tropical cyclone is bearing down on Myanmar’s western coast, aid groups helping the evacuees told RFA Wednesday. They said evacuees arrived from the nearby villages of Pyin Sa Lu, Sa Lu Seik and Kwin Pauk and have been put up in monasteries and friends’ homes. One local social assistance group official, who didn’t want to be named for security reasons, told RFA that although monasteries have been providing food it is not enough. “There are places where cyclone evacuees gather to get food [but] there are 400 to 500 evacuees in each monastery or monastic school,” the official said. RFA called the junta spokesperson and social affairs minister for Ayeyarwady region, Maung Maung Than, to ask what was being done to feed and house evacuees and minimize casualties if the cyclone is severe but no one answered. Junta Deputy Information Minister Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun told regime-controlled newspapers Monday that 118 disaster shelters have been built in Ayeyarwady region and 17 more were under construction. He said relief materials had been arranged for 6,000 people in six townships in the region. According to a report by Myanmar’s Department of Meteorology at 7 a.m. local time Wednesday, a Depression in the Bay of Bengal was likely to turn into a Very Severe Cyclonic Storm by Friday morning. The department forecast the storm would make landfall at Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, Kyaukpyu in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state and the northern Rakhine coast. It warned people to beware of strong winds, heavy rain, flash floods and landslides and issued a warning to flights and shipping near the Myanmar coast. A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm which has a diameter of between 200 and 1,000 kilometers (124 to 621 miles) and brings violent winds, torrential rains and high waves. Cyclones are named by the U.N. World Meteorological Organization in order to avoid confusion when there is more than one in the same region simultaneously. If winds reach a certain speed, this storm will be named Cyclone Mocha after a port city in Yemen. Myanmar has been hit hard by severe weather conditions in the past. More than 138,000 people died when Cyclone Nargis hit the country in May 2008.  It was the world’s third most deadly meteorological disaster of its time according to the WMO Atlas of Mortality and Economic Losses from Weather, Climate and Water Extremes (1970-2019). About 80,000 people died in Labutta township alone, according to local authorities. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.

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​​Newly published documents reveal how China skirts forced labor scrutiny in Xinjiang

Editor011 mins

Lazy persons, drunkards, and “other persons with insufficient inner motivation” must be subjected to “repeated … thought education” to ensure they take part in state-sponsored “poverty alleviation” campaigns to pick cotton in China’s Xinjiang region, a previously unpublished internal government document ordered local cadres. If such efforts fail to produce “obvious results,” coercive measures should be taken, the July 2019 document, issued by the Poverty Alleviation Work Group in Kashgar (in Chinese, Kashi) prefecture’s Yarkand (Shache) county, advises authorities. By late 2019, authorities in Yarkand were compiling lists of the “unmotivated,” including individuals as old as 77 years, and proposing solutions for their “laziness,” which included sending them to other counties to labor in cotton fields. The documents were released in a report Tuesday by Adrian Zenz, senior fellow and director in China studies at the Washington-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. They show that state efforts to compel Uyghurs into “poverty alleviation” measures – including labor transfers and seasonal labor – intensified in Xinjiang after 2018. In some cases, the documents mandated an increase of the “political status” of poverty alleviation work, and warned cadres of “severe” repercussions for not achieving outcomes. They also demonstrate that historical models, such as that used by the International Labor Organization, often fall short when used to evaluate state-sponsored coerced labor in areas including Xinjiang because they only account for commercial and not political exploitation, the report said. “If a government like a Western government wants to effectively combat Uyghur forced labor, these are the elements that they need to take into account and look at,” Zenz told RFA Uyghur in an interview. “State-sponsored forced labor is a whole-of-government, whole-of-society approach affecting an entire region, and not just … isolated pockets of forced labor that are detected here and there. It creates a whole regional systemic risk, a societal risk.” Linking forced labor to fighting terrorism By elevating poverty alleviation to a political task, rather than a purely economic one, Beijing has been able to tie forced labor to the eradication of terrorism, Zenz said. “You take them off the land where they might be free to do their own thing and they might have an idle season, so they may choose to work or to not work,” he said.  “But this perceived Uyghur idleness is seen as a national security risk and that’s why the drive in 2018 and 2019 to push Uyghurs into all kinds of work is seen as a matter of national security … and of course, this urgency creates a very strong level of coercion,” Zenz said. In Xinjiang, Beijing has leveraged a centralized authoritarian system to penalize noncompliance with its poverty alleviation campaign, said the report, entitled “Coercive Labor in the Cotton Harvest in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and Uzbekistan.” Those penalties included the threat of internment and the detection of deviance through automated systems of preventative policing. “The resulting environments of ‘structurally forced consent’ are not necessarily immediately observable to outsiders, and may be challenging to assess through conventional means such as the ILO’s forced labor indicator framework, which was not designed to evaluate state-sponsored forced labor,” the report said. Legislative teeth Zenz called on the European Union to develop “effective legislation” that targets state-sponsored forced labor affecting an entire region and for the United States to continue to enforce the December 2021 Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which requires American. companies that import goods from Xinjiang to prove that they have not been manufactured with Uyghur forced labor at any stage of production. Without the proper tools necessary for the international community to hold China accountable for such practices, “Beijing’s economic and long-term political aims in [Xinjiang] could mean that coercive labor transfers into cotton picking and related industries might persist for a long time to come,” the report warned. Andrew Bremberg, the president of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and former U.S. representative to the U.N., told RFA that steps taken by the United States and the international community to address forced labor in Xinjiang are “woefully insufficient” and have done little to change Beijing’s policies in the region. “The United States needs to help lead in this effort both on a bilateral basis, in terms of strengthening the enforcement of our own laws … [and] work[ing] with other countries to hold China accountable in multilateral settings like the International Labor Organization,” he said. “At the same time, we need to strengthen those organizations and entities with other countries to ensure that they better protect against state-sponsored forced labor.” The EU is currently reviewing proposed legislation that would allow for an import ban on products related to severe human rights violations such as forced labor. Bremberg welcomed the proposed legislation, but warned that such a rule must be constructed correctly if the EU wants it to have the desired effect. “If they try to only use forced labor indicators that the ILO has used in the past, it likely will not affect importations of products made by forced labor from Xinjiang, given the unique nature that state-sponsored forced labor poses,” he said. Bremberg said a strong response by the international community that includes boycotts of imports is needed to “make clear to China that their behavior, their actions violating individual rights, human rights … will not be allowed without consequence.” ‘Hidden from plain sight’ The Washington-based Campaign for Uyghurs issued a statement on Tuesday condemning the state-sponsored coercive labor practices outlined in Zenz’s report, which it said reveals the “sociocultural contexts and authoritarian systems that have created coercive labor environments in [Xinjiang], which are not easily captured through standard measures such as the ILO forced labor indicators.” The report “reveals the deeply embedded and systemic dynamics of coercion that have perpetuated environments of ‘structurally forced consent’ in [Xinjiang], leaving innocent Uyghurs powerless and at the mercy of China’s repressive state apparatus,” said CFU Executive Director Rushan Abbas. “These atrocities are hidden from plain sight, making them extremely difficult to detect and…

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As of deadline, 18 parties apply to compete in Cambodia’s July election

Editor04 mins

Cambodia’s  National Election Committee said Monday that 18 parties have officially declared their intent to participate in the country’s July 23 general elections, when more than 9.7 million voters will decide who will represent them in the national assembly. Monday was the deadline for applications, and the committee said that 11 of the 18 applications have been approved, while some of the other applications are still under review. Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party is expected to dominate in the election, but the upstart main opposition Candlelight Party performed relatively well in last year’s commune elections and could make some noise in July.  The ruling party, however, controls all 125 seats in the assembly because Hun Sen had the Supreme Court dissolve the previous opposition party in the runup to the 2018 election. Deadline registration The Grassroot Democrat Party submitted its application on the last day, nominating 166 full and reserve candidates in 12 constituencies including the capital. Of these candidates, 36 are women and 20 are relatively young, the party’s president Yeng Virak told RFA’s Khmer Service.  Yeng Virak, who is himself vying for a seat representing Phnom Penh, said that the reason why the party is contesting few constituencies is because the party maintains a position of not wanting to split the ballot.  The party is still waiting for National Election Commission approval. RFA could not reach commission spokesman Hang Puthea for comment as of May 8. Fairness required Sam Kuntheamy, the executive director of the Neutral & Impartial Committee for Free and Fair  Elections in Cambodia, an elections watchdog, told RFA that some political parties failed to list candidates for the seventh term because they face budget constraints and a restrictive political environment. However, he believes that the exercise of civil and political rights is key to ensuring that the election process is free, fair and just, so that stakeholders must compete fairly and in accordance with the law. “For all stakeholders, especially political parties, we want them to organize the operation of their political parties appropriately and smoothly, because it is close to the election campaign period,” he said. “We in the civil society also want to observe.” The National Election Committee announced that the official number of eligible voters in the upcoming elections is 9,710,655 and there will be 23,789 polling places nationwide. Translated by Sok Ry Sum. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.

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Indonesia’s president condemns Myanmar attack, says push for peace will continue

Editor07 mins

Indonesia’s president says an attack on humanitarian workers in Myanmar’s eastern Shan state won’t deter his country in its efforts as this year’s ASEAN chair to try to bring peace to Myanmar. Joko Widodo, commonly known as Jokowi, was speaking in the Indonesian town of Labuan Bajo ahead of a three-day summit of the 10-member grouping which starts Tuesday. He confirmed that members of the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (AHA Centre) came under fire from an unknown group as they were “delivering humanitarian assistance” on Sunday but said “the shooting got in the way.” “This will not diminish ASEAN’s and Indonesia’s determination to call for an end to the use of force and violence. Stop the violence because civilians have become victims. Let us sit together and start a dialogue,” Jokowi said. Locals told RFA the convoy was also carrying officials from the Indonesia and Singapore embassies in Yangon.  It came under fire on Sunday morning on a road through Hsihseng township, according to residents who didn’t want to be named for safety reasons. They said the convoy was heading to the Hsihseng-based Pa-O National Liberation Army (PNLO) Liaison Office to discuss assistance for internally displaced persons (IDPs) but was forced to turn back. Along with two officers from the Embassy of Singapore and two from the Embassy of Indonesia, there were three AHA Centre officials and several junta administrative workers, the locals said. The Pa-O National Organization (PNO), which is allied to Myanmar’s military regime, and the junta both have checkpoints near the  scene of the shooting. A PNO military affairs official who did not want to be named for security reasons, told RFA the shooting was carried out by five members of the Pa-O National Liberation Army, which is fighting for a democratic federal union system in Myanmar. “They were caught by the army when they fired and tried to run away,” said the official. “The incident happened in our PNO-controlled area. They invaded it and started shooting although there was no problem. I don’t know why they shot.” He said no one was injured although vehicle windows were smashed by bullets. RFA’s calls to the PNLO went unanswered Monday, however an official close to the organization who also declined to be named told RFA the PNLO would not have carried out the shooting. “The PNLO is working to help IDPs,” he said.  “Now they are calling for foreign diplomats and officials from the aid group to meet up to [discuss] that issue. It is impossible that the PNLO shot [the convoy].” Calls to the junta spokesperson for Shan state, Khun Thein Maung, went unanswered. RFA also called and emailed the embassies of Singapore and Indonesia in Yangon regarding the incident but received no reply The conflict in Myanmar is likely to be one of the main topics of the ASEAN Summit but junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing has not been invited to attend. However, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said Friday her country has been quietly engaging with the State Administration Council – as the junta regime is formally known –  along with Myanmar’s parallel  National Unity Government and Ethnic Armed Organizations in its role as ASEAN chair this year. She said the more than 60 engagements this year, which also included talks with the European Union, Japan, the United Nations and the United States, aimed to build trust “with non-megaphone diplomacy.” Referring to ASEAN’s five-point plan – agreed to by the junta in April 2021 and subsequently ignored by the country’s military leaders – President Widodo said Monday the 10-member group may struggle to get buy-in from the junta but he wasn’t giving up hope. “The situation in Myanmar is complex and Indonesia continues to push for the implementation of the five-point consensus. Various efforts have been made,” Jokowi said. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn. Ahmad Syamsudin in Labuan Bajo contributed to this report. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.

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Myanmar junta targets health, education facilities to undermine shadow government

Editor012 mins

In the past six months, in addition to their increased targeting of civilians as part of its “four-cuts” strategy–denying the opposition access to food, finances, intelligence and recruits–the Myanmar military has made a concerted effort to target the shadow National Unity Government’s nascent civil administration and the provision of health and education. The April 11 air strike on a gathering for the opening of a NUG government office in Sagaing’s Pa Zi Gyi village, which coincided with the distribution of food for the Lunar New Year’s celebration, led to the death of at least 186 people.  A single plane dropped two 500-pound (227-kilogram). bombs, followed by attacks by helicopter gunships. Almost all the casualties were civilians or civil administrators, and included 40 children; the youngest was six months old.  While most of the shadow government’s limited fundraising is going towards its military efforts, it’s providing basic social services in some liberated zones. Of the 330 townships in the country, 23 have a NUG prosecutor’s office and 118 judges have been appointed to date.  The shadow government claims to have established 154 “Pakafwe” township governments and to be providing some degree of education in 95 townships, and limited health services in 198.  The room of a hospital in Hsaung Phway village, Pekon township, Myanmar, is seen after an airstrike by junta forces on April 25, 2023. Credit: Mobye PDF, KNDF The National Unity Government has long had popular legitimacy, evidenced in the daily flash mobs, acts of civil disobedience, or nationwide stay at home strikes, as seen during the anniversary of the coup or the Lunar New Year. The NUG has bolstered its legitimacy through the battlefield courage and tenacity of their People’s Defense Forces (PDFs).  But increasingly, the NUG will have to base their legitimacy on performance and the provision of social services. This is all the more important as the military’s government’s effective control is diminishing.  And for that reason the military has stepped up their attacks on the NUG’s and the various Ethnic Resistance Organizations’ (EROs) civil administration. Since the bombing of the NUG office in Pa Zi Gyi, the military has destroyed two NUG offices in Magway. It had only targeted one other NUG office in the past six months. Of the four, two were destroyed by air attacks. Targeting health care and public services The NUG’s provision of health care seems to be a case in point. In the six-month period from November 2022 to April 2023, I have documented 35 separate attacks on health care facilities, either directly controlled by the NUG or EROs, or in areas under their influence. Health care providers were amongst the first and staunchest supporters of the civil disobedience movement.  These attacks have led to the death of four, with 13 people wounded. In 17 attacks, the health care facilities were completely destroyed, while eight suffered major damage; the remainder had minimal damage. Fifteen of those attacks were from either air-dropped bombs, or rocket fire and machine gun attacks from helicopter gunships. Four health care facilities were damaged by artillery fire. The rest of the attacks on health care facilities were caused by ground forces or pro-regime militias.   A school bag lies next to dried blood stains on the floor of a school in Let Yet Kone village in Tabayin township in the Sagaing region of Myanmar on Sept. 17, 2022, the day after a junta airstrike hit the school. Credit: Associated Press Fourteen of the 35 attacks, or 40 percent, were in Sagaing, which has seen a disproportionate amount of violence, and four were  in neighboring Magway. Four occurred in Kayin, while the remainder were spread in Shan, Kachin, Tanintharyi, Kachin, and Kayah.  In the latest attack, a helicopter dropped a 500-pound (227 kilogram) bomb on a health clinic in Shan State, though the bomb failed to detonate. Only three people were wounded.  The military has also routinely targeted both the NUG’s education system and rural schools that are technically part of the state system but which are actively supporting and staffed by members of the Civil Disobedience Movement.  Since November 2022, it has either bombed, struck by artillery or destroyed by ground forces some 20 schools. Six were destroyed in Kayin and Sagaing states, each, with two in Kachin and Kayah, and one each in Mandalay, Magway, Tanintharyi, and Chin.  Unapologetic military The military has refused to concede that the targeting of health, educational and other social services represents a war crime. It often justifies the attacks by alleging that the PDFs were using the facilities for military purposes or that the militia members were receiving health care treatment. The military has been unapologetic in targeting those facilities. The executive director of the the pro-military ThayNinGa Institute for Strategic Studies in Yangon, Thein Tun Oo, justified the attack on Pa Zi Gyi and others like it, calling it “ordinary … from an anti-terrorism standpoint” and said, “No government of a country can accept a declaration of autonomy within its sovereign territory.” The attacks on the NUG’s civil administration also comes when the military has increased their own budget for the 2023-24 fiscal year by 51 percent, from $1.8 billion to $2.7 billion, to deal with the escalating war. Although the economy is no longer in freefall, the two percent growth in 2022 and three  percent growth predicted in 2023 has not made up for the 18 percent decline in 2021. Revenue collection remains down. Increased military spending is coming at the expense of public health and education, where enrollment and matriculation numbers are plummeting. A young waste collector paddles a polystyrene boat looking for plastic and glass to sell in Pazundaung Creek in Yangon, Myanmar, Jan. 14, 2023. Dozens of Myanmar citizens are taking to the murky creek waters after being unable to find work amid the post-coup economic crisis. Credit: AFP The NUG’s provision of health, education, and civil administration pose a threat as the regime acknowledges its own loss of control.  Senior Gen. Min Aung…

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For China’s ‘young refuseniks,’ finding love comes at too high a price

Editor025 mins

Linghu Changbing will be 23 this year. Even before the pandemic hit China, he was already starting to feel that the traditional goals of marriage, a mortgage and kids were beyond his reach.  “I had no time to find a girlfriend back in China, because I was working from eight in the morning to 10 at night, sometimes even till 11.00 p.m. or midnight, with very little time off,” said Linghu,  who joined the “run” movement of people leaving China in 2022. “I didn’t earn very much, so I couldn’t really afford to go out and spend money having fun with friends, or stuff like that,” he says of his life before he left for the United States.  “I had very little social interaction, because I didn’t have any friends, which meant that I couldn’t really pursue a relationship,” he said. “As for an apartment, I had no desire to buy one at all.” The situation he describes is common to many young people in China, yet not all are in a position to leave. They are part of an emerging social phenomenon and social media buzzword: the “young refuseniks” – people who reject the traditional four-fold path to adulthood: finding a mate, marriage, mortgages and raising a family.  They are also known as the “People Who Say No to the Four Things.” Three years of stringently enforced zero-COVID restrictions left China’s economic growth at its lowest level in nearly half a century, with record rates of unemployment among urban youth.  Refusing to pursue marriage, mortgages and kids emerged from that era as a form of silent protest, with more and more people taking this way out in recent years. ‘Far too high a price’ Several young people who responded to a brief survey by RFA Mandarin on Twitter admitted to being refuseniks. “I’m a young refusenik: I won’t be looking for a partner or getting married, I won’t be buying a property and I don’t want kids,” reads one comment on social media. People use mobile phones in front of a fenced residential area under lockdown due to Covid-19 restrictions in Beijing, May 22, 2022. Credit: Noel Celis/AFP “Finding love comes at far too high a price,” says another, while another user comments: “It’s all very well having values, or being sincere, but all of that has to be backed up with money.”  “It’s not that I’m lazy,” says another. “Even if I were to make the effort, I still wouldn’t see any result.”  Others say they no longer have the bandwidth to try to achieve such milestones.  “I’ve been forced back in on myself to the point where I feel pretty helpless,” comments one person. For another, it’s more of a moral decision: “I think the best expression I can make of paternal love is not to bring children into this world in the first place.” Similar comments have appeared across Chinese social media platforms lately, and have been widely liked and reposted. Marriage rates have been falling in China for the past eight years, with marriages numbering less than eight million by 2021, the lowest point since records began 36 years ago, according to recent figures from the Civil Affairs Ministry.  People are also marrying much later, with more than half of newly contracted marriages among the over-30s, the figures show. According to Linghu Changbing, who dropped out of high school at 14 and moved through a number of cities where he supported himself with various jobs, refuseniks are mostly found in the bigger cities with large migrant populations. Young people in smaller cities like his hometown are more likely to be able to afford a home, and will often marry and start families as young as 18. “In my experience, refuseniks seem to cluster mostly in the busier cities,” he says. “The more competitive a city, the more you will see this phenomenon.” Curling up, lying flat, running away and venting Shengya, a migrant worker in Beijing, has a similarly depressing view.  He spent two years doing nothing at his parents’ house, a phenomenon that has been dubbed “lying flat” on social media.  “I basically lay around at home the whole time,” he said. “I couldn’t get motivated to do anything. My dad asked me why I didn’t go out and get a job, and I told him: ‘The only point of a job would be to prevent starvation, but I already get enough to eat here, so what difference would it make?’” An employment agency in Shanghai. Credit: Reuters Linghu Changbing went through a very similar phase, until someone got him a job working overseas.  Looking back on that time, he says that China’s young refuseniks are similar to the rats in the Universe 25 experiments by ethologist John B. Calhoun in the 1960s, in which rats given everything they needed eventually stopped bearing young, leading the population to collapse.  “The marginalized rats gradually gave up competing at all, and suppressed their natural desires, leading to constant personality distortions,” he says.  “Lying flat” has entered the online lexicon as a way of describing the passive approach adopted by many young people in China, while “curling up,” also known as “turning inwards,” describes a personality turned in on itself from a lack of external opportunity for change.  While those who can join the “run” movement, leaving China to seek better lives overseas, others act out their frustrations in indiscriminate attacks on others, known on social media as “giving it your all,” or “venting.” For late millennials and Generation Z in China, curling up, lying flat and running away are the main available options, as not many young people have the wherewithal to leave the country and start a new life elsewhere. ‘A very heavy burden’ A Chengdu-based employee of an architectural firm, who gave only the nickname Mr. J, said he first came to the realization that he would be a refusenik during the rolling lockdowns, mass incarceration in quarantine camps and compulsory daily testing…

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