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More than 200,000 children displaced in three states since Myanmar coup

Editor010 mins

More than 200,000 children have been displaced by fighting in Myanmar’s war-torn states of Kayin, Kayah and Rakhine since the military took control of the country in a February 2021 coup, according to data compiled by rights groups, NGOs, and anti-junta forces. Beyond the psychological trauma they experience, children are vulnerable to military airstrikes and at risk of capture by junta troops, who press them into forced labor, use them as human shields and sell them as sex slaves to human trafficking rings, the Karen Human Rights Group, or KHRG, said in a report released Tuesday. Pregnant women and babies are also caught up in the conflict. “Pregnant women fleeing the war have no choice but to give birth in caves in the forest, unsheltered from the elements out in the open, or along riverbanks,” said Saw Nanda Soo, a spokesperson for the group. “Since they are on the run, they are entirely deprived of health care and supplies such as diapers, baby formula and medicine,” she said. All told, the fighting between junta military forces and various rebel groups has created more than 350,000 people who are internally displaced, more than half of them under the age of 18, the group said. And of those minors, more than half are girls. The vast majority of the displaced children, or about 175,000 of them, have fled their homes in Kayin state, which borders Thailand in southeastern Myanmar, the KHRG report said. Aid groups said that a combined 50,000 children have been displaced in Kayah, just north of Kayin state, and in Rakhine, in the west, near Bangladesh. No concrete numbers have been provided for the number of children displaced since the coup in Sagaing region in the northwest, which has seen some of the worst fighting between the military and anti-junta groups. The United Nations recently announced that at least 500,000 people have fled conflict in Sagaing in the past 20 months. ‘Running and Learning’ A member of the Kayah State Basic Education Teachers Union told RFA that more than 30,000 children have become displaced in the region since the military takeover, and are forced to study in makeshift camps or while sheltering in the jungle. “Artillery shells hit us every day and you never know when another one will come,” the union member said. “Our children were denied [proper] education for an entire year due to COVID-19 [school closures] and then another because of the [insecurity following the] coup. We can’t just stop learning, so we must teach them on the run.” The union member said that they are constantly on the move, and when they reach somewhere deemed temporarily safe, they resume teaching. “We’re stuck in a cycle of running and learning.” In the western state of Rakhine, the rebel group Arakan Army reports similar numbers. In just the past two months, at least 20,000 children have become displaced since fighting resumed with the military after a two-year lull. That’s on top of the 82,000 children who had already been driven from their homes. The rebel group said that the internally displaced people in Rakhine are housed in more than 150 different camps, where some 10,000 children attempt to continue their studies despite the regional violence. Two refugee children are seen in Taungoo, Bago region, Myanmar, on Sept. 25, 2022. Credit: RFA ‘Biggest loss in our children’s education’ Zaw Zaw Tun, a humanitarian volunteer in Rakhine, said the junta soldiers fire artillery into their villages and then sweep into the villages, arresting residents. “Many of us are constantly on the run due to regional insecurity, rather than any specific battle,” the volunteer said. “The biggest loss is our children’s education. Meanwhile, food is scarce and we are dealing with health issues such as the seasonal flu now that it is turning to winter.” Regional support groups say it has become increasingly difficult to gather accurate statistics for the number of people displaced by fighting throughout the country since the coup because the junta is actively blocking international humanitarian groups from assisting them. The junta has yet to respond to reports of the scale of displaced children and the risks they face while on the run. On Oct. 10, Kyaw Moe Tun, Myanmar’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, told the U.N. General Assembly that since the coup, the junta has killed at least 2,338 civilians, including 91 children under the age of 14 and 209 children between the ages of 15 and 18.  He said that children in Myanmar have been particularly affected by the conflict under military rule and are regularly deprived of their rights. According to data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR, there are 89 million refugees worldwide, 36 million of whom are children. In Myanmar, the refugee agency said, at least 1.3 million children have been displaced since the coup, compared to around 300,000 beforehand. Meanwhile, in the central Bago region, 2,000 people have fled the conflict between the military and Karen National Union (KNU) since this February. The physical and mental health of those who are displaced are rapidly deteriorating, said Saw Maung Maung, a volunteer in Taungoo, adding that aid groups are facing shortages as donations dry up. “The donors are running out of patience,” he said. “There is a scarcity of food and other necessities needed for the refugees. We are in a difficult situation and have had to find ways to connect with other organizations to meet our long-term needs,” he said. Saw Htoo Htoo, a displaced 9-year-old in Taungoo, said he was forced to flee his village in Kyaukkyi and take shelter in the jungle for about a week after “fighter jets roared overhead, shooting at us repeatedly.” “I was barefoot from the start… In the rain, I was nearly eaten alive by the mosquitoes … Soldiers were always hunting us as we ran and we were constantly shaking with fear,” he said. “We had to run for our lives, but at least now…

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Cultivate compassion, Dalai Lama urges, and use technology to benefit humanity

Editor06 mins

Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama called for people to train their minds to cultivate compassion and cautioned that digital technology should be used only to benefit humanity, at a two-day gathering in northern India that ended Thursday. About 180 people attended the two-day Mind & Life Conversation on Interdependence, Ethics and Social Networks in the audience hall at the Dalai Lama’s residence in Dharamsala, a hillside city in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh that is home to the Tibetan government-in-exile. About 100 attendees were Western scientists and scholars and members of the Mind & Life Institute, an organization whose mission is to inform and advance the emerging field of contemplative science and its application to real-world challenges.   Among the other attendees were Tibetan monks and nuns who have participated in science programs at Emory University, students of science from the Tibetan Medical & Astro-Science Institute, the Library of Tibetan Works & Archives, and lamas and abbots from the centers of learning at monasteries in South India. Training the mind in cultivating compassion involves developing thoughts of even-mindedness, or equanimity, the Dalai Lama said.   “We’ve held a lot of Mind & Life dialogues, and I feel they’ve been very important,” he said on the first day of the event on Oct. 12, according to a report on the Dalai Lama’s official website. “In the world at large, a great deal of attention has been paid to physical things, but much less to the mind. And yet, when we talk about happiness and suffering, they are inner, mental experiences. If we have no peace of mind, we won’t be happy.” “Many of the conflicts we see in the world are about physical things, material resources and power,” the Dalai Lama went on to say. “Therefore, we need to look at what went on in the past and learn from it so that we can construct a future based on peace, happiness and togetherness.” “The root of peace of mind is compassion,” he said. “As soon as most of us are born, our mothers take care of us and give us our first lessons in compassion. Without this we would not survive. This is how our life begins. As children we grow up in an atmosphere of compassion.” The Tibetan spiritual leader also said that technology should be used to benefit humanity. “Generally speaking, whether or not technology can be thought of as good or bad depends on how it is used,” he said on the second day of the gathering, according to a report on his official website. “We human beings should not be slaves to technology or machines. We should be in charge.” When humans are too materialistic, they regard human values as being of secondary importance, he said. “We must remember that we are human beings and we need to apply human values, whatever we do,” the Dalai Lama said. “Principally, we need to be motivated by warmheartedness. Technology is supposed to serve human needs; therefore, it needs to be guided by human values.” It also needs to help protect the environment, he said. The Mind & Life Institute was founded more than three decades ago by Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th and current Dalai Lama, Chilean scientist and philosopher Francisco Varela, and American lawyer and social entrepreneur R. Adam Engel.  While science relies on empiricism, technology, observation, and analysis, the three believed that well-refined contemplative practices and introspective methods could be used as equal instruments of investigation.      Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

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Cambodian Supreme Court orders retrial for autistic teen son of opposition activists

Editor06 mins

Cambodia’s Supreme Court ordered the Court of Appeals to retry the case of Kak Sovanchhay, the autistic teenage son of opposition activists, who was last year sentenced to eight months in prison for incitement and insulting public officials. Kak Sovannchhay, 17, is the son of Kak Komphear, a jailed senior official of the banned opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP).  He was arrested at his home in Phnom Penh on June 24, 2021, over a Facebook post and voice messages in which he was critical of the government in response to someone calling his father a traitor. The Phnom Penh Municipal Court sentenced him on Nov. 1, but credited him four-and-a-half months for time served and commuted the remainder of his sentence, thereby allowing his release a little more than a week later. Additionally the court ordered he remain under judicial supervision for two years. He appealed the conviction but it was upheld on March 14, 2022. The Supreme Court on Wednesday accepted the facts from the appellate trial but rejected the conviction and six conditions set on Kak Sovannchhay while under judicial supervision. Prum Chantha, Kak Sovannchhay’s mother, told RFA’s Khmer Service that her son’s imprisonment was a threat from the government because her family continues to promote democracy. She said the Court of Appeals should drop the sentence because her son, who was only 16 at the time of his arrest, was a child. Additionally the sentence leaves a mark on his record that could seriously affect his future. “First, it affects his opportunities to learn, second he gets discrimination, and third, when he goes to find work, his name will be associated with the conviction, so it is a very serious punishment,” said Prum Chantha. “He is just a minor and he has a disability,” she said, referring to his autism. “He is very young.” Kak Sovannchhay’s lawyer Sam Sokong told RFA he believes the verdict is a violation of his client’s human rights. “I urge the authorities as well as the Royal Government to consider the case of this child and to consider the interests of the child as enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other rights related to children’s rights,” he said. Based on Cambodia’s Penal Code and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Cambodia is a party, judges should be highly considerate and refrain from convicting children, opting for rehabilitation or education instead of imprisonment, Sam Sokong said. Am Sam Ath of the local Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (Licadho), a local NGO, told RFA that he believes the Supreme Court handed the case back to the appellate court because it is skeptical about certain aspects of the law and how they were applied in Kak Sovannchhay’s case. He urged the Court of Appeals to retry the case as soon as possible and drop all charges. “We look at first the interests of the child,” he said. “Secondly, this child has a chronic disability called autism, and thirdly, if we look at the dialogue in social media used to convict him was a private conversation,” he said. Kak Sovannchhay had been previously arrested in October 2020, then in April 2021, two men attacked him with bricks while he was driving a motorbike, leaving him with a fractured skull. Police never found either attacker. The conviction and sentence of an autisitic child was neither necessary nor proportionate,  a May 2022 report on the trial by the American Bar Association said. “Sovannchhay’s conviction further shows the lengths to which the Cambodian government will go to silence dissenting voices as well as the urgent need to reform Cambodia’s ‘incitement’ law, which has been a crucial tool in the authorities’ crackdown on civil society,” the report said.  Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

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Hong Kong police say cartoonist’s art damages their image

Editor06 mins

Hong Kong police have expressed “strong concerns” to the city’s Ming Pao newspaper over what a spokesman called a “misleading” cartoon by political satirist Zun Zi that lampooned authoritarian education policies, media in the city reported. Zun Zi’s cartoon, published on Tuesday, shows a police officer fully-clad in riot gear at a school asking “What have the students done today, headteacher Chan?”  The teacher lists the students’ various offenses including losing erasers and talking back to teachers.  The cartoon was published in the wake of A widely-publicized case in which 14 secondary school students were suspended for three days for  failing to show up to a flag-raising ceremony at St Francis Xavier’s School in Tsuen Wan district. Under a national security law imposed by Beijing in mid-2020, authorities in Hong Kong have conducted a wide-ranging crackdown on pro-democracy activists, many of whom are students at universities and other educational institutions.  Students are among the dozens of activists arrested, campus activism has been banned, and schools are under pressure to adjust their curriculum to inculcate nationalism and fealty to the ruling Chinese Communist Party. Zun Zi’s cartoon could give readers the misleading impression that Hong Kong police would be deployed to handle small campus issues, police spokesman Joe Chan wrote to Lau Chung Yeung, Ming Pao’s executive chief editor, reports in the city said. “The false descriptions in [the cartoon] might make the public misunderstand police work. They not only damage the Force’s image, but also harm the cooperation between the police and the public, as well as our effectiveness on cracking down crimes,” said Chan’s letter, quoted in the Hong Kong Free Press. The cartoon  remained on Ming Pao’s website on Wednesday, while Ming Pao’s editorial board issued a statement saying that the paper would “continue to provide accurate and credible news content to readers in a professional spirit and support columnists in providing professional work.”  Hong Kong has plummeted in global press freedom rankings following a citywide crackdown on dissent under the national security law. Speaking to RFA Cantonese when Hong Kong’s national security law was first enacted in 2020, Zun Zi said that the local Hong Kong government cooperated with Beijing to pass the national security law, which had a chilling effect on society.  “Now we have to be careful when we laugh. We need to be skillful when laughing. We can’t draw fists or point fingers everyday,” he said. “Only when you integrate politics, incidents, with people’s life stories and the culture of the society, can you create top-rated and inspiring works of art,” Zun Zi said, vowing to keep drawing despite the crackdown. “As to when is the time to stop, if someone holds a knife, and puts my hand on the chopping board and tells me that he will cut off my hand if I continue to draw. If this happens, I will stop. This is the only way (to stop me).” Zun Zi is the pen name of Wong Kee-kwan, a 40-year veteran cartoonist who initially contributed to the pro-Beijing New Evening Post and Takungpao publications before moving to Ming Pao.  His cartoons have also appeared in the pro-democracy Apple Daily, which has been shut down by national security police since the passage of Hong Kong’s national security law. At least three Hong Kong cartoonists who published their work  in Ming Pao, Hong Kong Worker, vawongsir and Ah To, have announced their plans to leave the city amid the crackdown. Translated by RFA Mandarin. Written by Nawar Nemeh.

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French court acquits Cambodian opposition leader in defamation cases

Editor011 mins

A court in France has dismissed two defamation cases brought against Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy by Prime Minister Hun Sen and a senior police official, but both sides were quick to claim victory in the proceedings, citing elements that advanced their own narrative. The Paris tribunal judiciaire ruled on Monday that Sam Rainsy – a dual citizen of France and head of the banned Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) – was guilty of defamation against Hun Sen when he posted a message to social media in 2019 claiming that the prime minister had ordered the assassination of Cambodia’s former National Police Chief Hok Lundy. However, the court found that Sam Rainsy’s right to freedom of expression trumped the ruling and granted him clemency. Hok Lundy died in 2008 when his helicopter crashed in Svay Rieng province during bad weather, but Sam Rainsy maintains that the aircraft was downed in an explosion. “The correlative factual basis for this imputation [that Hun Sen is responsible for Hok Lundy’s death] is tenuous,” the court said, adding that Sam Rainsy’s statements were made “in a context of denunciation of violations of human rights by a political opponent who … cannot go to Cambodia in order to continue its investigations” of the incident. “Under these conditions, it appears that a criminal conviction would undermine manifestly disproportionate to the right to freedom of expression protected by Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.” The court also ruled that an allegation in Sam Rainsy’s social media post that Hok Lundy’s son, Deputy Commissioner General of the National Police Dy Vichea, was aware of Hun Sen’s involvement in his father’s death and planned to take “revenge” on the prime minister, did not meet the legal definition of defamation. Dy Vichea is also Hun Sen’s son-in-law. “The reference to a political opponent who could have other reasons to dismiss Hun Sen from power does not necessarily refer to recourse to violence but may as well refer to an alliance of a political nature,” the ruling said, noting that Sam Rainsy provided no details in his comments about the details of the alleged revenge plot and its status. “Therefore, in the absence of precision on the projects thus imputed to Dy Vichea making it possible to establish their illegal nature and even to discern their exact content, the remarks do not undermine his honor and his consideration.” In addition to granting clemency to Sam Rainsy, the court dismissed a countersuit by the opposition leader that Hun Sen pay for his expenses related to the proceedings. In a June 2019 Facebook post that prompted the lawsuits against him, Sam Rainsy wrote that “Hun Sen killed Hok Lundy using a bomb placed inside his helicopter … because he knew too much about Hun Sen’s misdeeds.” He also claimed that Dy Vichea “knows well the cause of his father’s assassination” and is “hatching a plan to avenge his father’s death.” The Paris tribunal judiciaire heard both defamation cases against Sam Rainsy in a five-hour session on Sept. 1 before delivering its verdict Monday. Ruling reactions In a statement that followed the verdict, Sam Rainsy’s legal team welcomed the two acquittals, saying that “the French justice system has solemnly confirmed the legitimacy of his actions and defended his freedom of expression.” “For our client, this judgment is much more than a personal victory, but is a ray of hope for defenders of freedom and justice in Cambodia and elsewhere.” Sam Rainsy said Monday that he had won the case, despite the court’s ruling that he was guilty of defamation and then spared. “[The] French court rules that Sam Rainsy wins the case against Prime Minister Hun Sen and his son-in-law,” he said in a post to the Telegram social media network, referring to Dy Vichea. On Facebook, Sam Rainsy characterized the court’s decision as “good news.”. Hun Sen also jumped on the ruling as proof of his “innocence” in Hok Lundy’s death during a speech he made to a university graduation ceremony in the capital Phnom Penh on Tuesday, saying the court found Sam Rainsy’s accusations “baseless and unwarranted” because they lacked evidence to support them. He said Sam Rainsy had failed to provide direct evidence or any testimony through witness affidavits to prove the crash was due to an explosion, and no autopsy report was available to provide the court. “It means that [Sam Rainsy] just made these accusations without having any evidence to submit to court. So the court said that this had nothing to do with Hun Sen,” he said, referring to himself in the third-person, according to a report by the Phnom Penh Post. “What did Hun Sen want from this that prompted him to trouble Rainsy at his home? Hun Sen wants innocence and nothing else. [Rainsy] claimed that they won the case somehow and I don’t know how they can possibly say this.” Hun Sen said he has no intention of appealing the court decision, but would follow along if Sam Rainsy does. Hun Sen’s comments follow those of his lawyer, Ky Tech, who told local media in France on Monday that the court’s ruling showed Sam Rainsy had provided “no clear evidence or confirmation” of the prime minister’s involvement in Hok Lundy’s death. Ky Tech also claimed that the court “also gave another reason to confirm that Sam Rainsy did indeed defame [Hun Sen], which cannot be denied,” without providing further details. Cambodia case The French court’s ruling follows Sam Rainsy’s December 2021 trial in absentia by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court for “falsifying information” regarding the death of Hok Lundy. Sam Rainsy has lived in France since 2015 to avoid what he says are a string of politically motivated charges and convictions against him. The acting CNRP leader tried to return on Nov. 9, 2019 to lead nonviolent protests against Hun Sen, urging Cambodian migrant workers abroad and members of the military to join him. However, his plan to enter Cambodia from…

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Laos put on edge by two recent brutal killings of Chinese nationals

Editor08 mins

The grisly killings of two Chinese nationals, whose bodies were found stuffed into bags and floating in rivers within two weeks of each other, have put residents of Laos on edge. No connection between the two killings has been confirmed, but authorities say both may have been involved in business deals gone sour, sources in Laos told Radio Free Asia.  On Sept. 15, villagers from Vientiane Province’s Phon Hong district found a body floating near a dam that was identified as belonging to Chinese businessman Yang Youhai, 37, who had operated an iron bar manufacturer. The body was found in a plastic bag with his hands and feet bound, a police official said. “They are still investigating and the cause is unknown,” a police official from Vientiane’s Naxaythong district told RFA’s Lao Service. “There is no closed-circuit camera at the location where they dumped the body. They don’t know where it came from, what direction. They know only that this body is of the person from the iron bar company.” Yang was a “big boss” at his company, and had come to Laos three months prior, another police official from the capital said. The body was cremated in Vientiane, and some of the bones are to be sent to China for further investigation. The suspected motive is a business-related conflict, the second police official said. Dismembered body Two weeks later, Thai police on Sept. 29 discovered a suitcase floating in the Mekong River containing the dismembered body of Viphaphone Kongsy, 36, chairwoman of the Lao VIP investment company. A dual citizen of Laos and China, the woman also went by the name Lì Jūn Vp. She had been missing since Sept. 10. The Lao Ministry of Public Security set up a special committee to investigate, but hasn’t released any statements or information about evidence.  An official from the rescue team in Thailand’s That Phnom district, where the body was found, told RFA he went to pick up the body bag and found evidence that suggested murder.  “Her face was beaten by something strong like an iron bar,” he said. “The right side of her stomach has been torn out. She might have been beaten hard with an iron bar before she died.” A couple days later, residents in Vientiane spotted what turned out to be her car floating in the Mekong River. Her decomposing body parts are being kept at the Nakhon Phanom hospital in Thailand, a Thai police official said. “They have to test her relatives’ DNA before they can return her body to Laos,” the official said.  The two killings are the latest in a string of similar incidents involving Chinese nationals engaged in business in Laos, where China has invested heavily in infrastructure and manufacturing projects. ‘Very Afraid’  With the news of each case, the Lao public has grown ever more fearful, sources told RFA, sparking fears of growing lawlessness. “News of the murder is making villagers very afraid. They want local officials, police and soldiers to patrol all the time, and the villagers want to take part to be the eyes and ears helping them as well,” said a villager from Phon Hong, where Yang’s body was found. Soldiers patrol the dam where the body was found 24 hours a day, he said. “This was a murder with the intent to kill this guy without mercy,” a police official said, asking not to be identified.  “There have been killings in many provinces in Laos in the past mostly from drug trafficking and drug trades or robbery and stealing, conflict in the family, or among friends, but not as harsh as this one.”  Reports of such killings have increased in recent years of growing resentment in Laos over Chinese business presence in the country, over Chinese casinos and special economic zones which have been linked to human trafficking and crime.  Viphaphone’s investigation should be handled in a transparent way to ease the fears of the people, a Lao source who has been following the case told RFA. “They should announce what they know to the public, what’s going on, right now,” he said.  Another Lao source who is following the case said that it was likely a business-related killing. “Based on observation, this case of murder looks like it stems from business conflict. But the police have not revealed anything yet,” the second source said. “We never dreamed that anything like this would happen in Laos.” A former Lao government official with knowledge of cases like these also believes the deaths are a result of business conflicts, “perhaps with Laotian, Vietnamese or Chinese who invested money and had a conflict with her and lost,” he said. A Lao expert on criminal law declined to express an opinion on the case or speculate on its outcome. “But I believe that related sectors must urgently solve this case because it is a horrible case for the public to think about,” the expert said. Translated by Sidney Khotpanya and Ounkeo Souksavanh. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

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France exit from NATO

France wants exit from NATO and Frexit

Editor02 mins

A giant crowd of protesters paraded through the center of Paris demanding that France radically alter its stance on NATO and the EU.The march was organized by the Les Patriotes (The Patriots) party led by Florian Philippot, (the former deputy head of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally and ex member of the European Parliament between 2014 and 2019). Anointed “the national meeting of resistance,” the rally attracted thousands of people, according to Philippot. The demonstrators were holding a large banner reading ‘RESISTANCE’ and more miniature placards that read ‘FREXIT’ – a reference to a demand that France leaves the EU. Many protesters were also waving the national flag. Media sources also reported that people protested in the streets primarily against the recession, the sharp increase in the cost of living, and chaos in the world. A group of French intellectuals including Nobel literature prize winner Annie Ernaux on Sunday urged people to join protests next week against President Emmanuel Macron of not doing enough to support the impoverished cope with high prices while some private companies make windfall profits. “Emmanuel Macron is using inflation to widen the wealth gap, to boost capital income at the expense of the rest”, the group of 69 signatories, including writers, film directors, and university teachers, said in a text published in the Journal Du Dimanche. A major power like France leaving NATO will create a void in it and will change the world order significantly.!!

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Fighting in Myanmar’s Sagaing region kills 16 anti-junta fighters

Editor07 mins

Fighting over the weekend in northwestern Myanmar’s restive Sagaing region between the military junta’s soldiers and People’s Defense Force (PDF)  militias left 16 rebels dead, with some corpses showing signs of severe torture, local sources told RFA. “They had tortured them inhumanely. They cut the skins everywhere severely to keep them from being distinguished from each other,” Tauk Te, a member of the PDF Myanmar Defense Force, said of the seven bodies they found. “Some had their insides spilling out through open holes in their stomachs and some had their brains coming out of their heads.” Sagaing, an agricultural region where resistance against the junta is strong, has seen some of the most intense fighting in Myanmar since the military took control in the February 2021 coup. More than half a million people in Sagaing have been displaced by the fighting, according to a U.N. report released last month.  The fighting took place in two separate battles, in Wetlet township, just north of Mandalay, and in Taze township, farther north. In Taze, two rebel units attacked junta soldiers with artillery near Tat Thit village around noon on Friday, local sources told RFA, reportedly killing six junta soldiers. The next day, fighting continued, forcing about 4,000 civilians to flee their homes in eight villages, including Ka La Zin, Dei Yauk and Chaung Yoer, the PDF press department in Taze said.  Farther south, in Wetlet township, junta soldiers attacked a small rebel camp near Pha Yar Lay Kone and Nay Pu Kone villages,  local PDF sources said. The attack included an hour-long air raid by 2 fighter jets and a Mi-35 military helicopter that were followed by two Mi-17 supply choppers that dropped off around 100 junta soldiers, they said. Both the Mi-35 and Mi-17 helicopters are made by Russia, which has resisted international pressure not to arm Myanmar’s junta amid its crackdown on civilians that began after the military took control in a February 2021 coup. Six rebel fighters were killed in the airstrikes, a PDF source said, and three were captured and tortured to death. “They cut their skin and faces, and hit their heads with gun butts until they were killed, the source said.  The rebel unit lost hand-made guns, 40MM grenades and over 450 million kyat worth of military hardware. The soldiers also reportedly burned down their camp buildings in the area.  Undated photo of Taze People’s Defense Force. Credit: Taze PDF Locals told RFA that four people in their 20’s and five people in their 30’s were among the deceased, and their names have not been released yet. So far, RFA has received no response from junta spokesperson and minister for social affairs Aye Hlaing about the hostilities in Sagaing.  Area residents also said that junta troops stationed at a monastery on Du Thin hill near Nay Pu Kone village captured 15 local civilians in the process.  One civilian fleeing Nay Pu Kone said there have been more frequent air attacks by the junta in their region lately. “We had to be really cautious at the sound of airplanes. No fighter jets flew over us before. Now that they are here on us, you can imagine the danger we are in. We had nowhere to run when they came.” Local residents said that more than 1,000 villagers from Nay Pu Kone and are too afraid to go back to their homes with junta soldiers still stationed there. Myint Oo, the ousted parliamentary representative of Wetlet, said that the junta has used more air strikes because they have been faced with landmines in ground assaults. “They dare not come by trucks. Lately, they have to leave their trucks somewhere safe and walk as our PDF forces have set up landmines in several locations. But even then, they still face landmine attacks. So they now rely mainly on air strikes,” Myint Oo said.  “Their acts of human rights abuse go beyond any words. They don’t care about any local or international law. They just do whatever they want,” Myint Oo said. “They have given full authority to even juniors who, as a result, kill indiscriminately without moral conscience for civilians, including children.” Reported by RFA Burmese. Written in English by Nawar Nemeh.

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Vietnam promotes ‘problematic’ bid for UN Human Rights Council membership

Editor013 mins

Vietnam is mounting an assertive campaign to win a seat on the United National Human Rights Council in an Oct. 11 vote, but critics say Hanoi’s poor record at home and diplomatic support for major rights violators abroad disqualify the one-party state. Fourteen seats on the 47-member Council will be filled by the U.N. General Assembly full-member vote. The highest human rights body has long faced criticism that countries seen as major rights abusers are members who team up to shield each other from scrutiny. Critics say Hanoi’s record of cracking down on journalists, activists and social media commentators makes it a poor choice for the Council. And they say Vietnam would join the bloc of countries that block Council action on major crises, as it did in its previous  2014-16 term. “There is little doubt that Vietnam will be a problematic, highly negative influence on the Human Rights Council if it is elected to the 2023-2025 term,” said Phil Robertson, deputy director of the Asia division at Human Rights Watch (HRW).  “In fact, at every opportunity, Vietnam does not hesitate to show its contempt for international human rights law, and if they get a seat, it’s highly likely they will seek to undermine meaningful actions by the Council,” he told RFA. Tuesday’s vote in New York comes days after China and its allies on the 47-member Council defeated a U.S. proposal that the Council hold a debate on a recent report by the body’s rights chief on abuses in China’s Xinjiang region. Vietnam has conducted an intense propaganda and lobbying drive to support its effort to be elected to the Council. On Sept. 30, Deputy Prime Minister Phạm Binh Minh approved a huge public relations campaign intended to boost the country’s reputation in the human rights field. Under the project, all Vietnamese state agencies will regularly provide human rights information to the media by 2028, while state officials working in the field will receive communications training. Over the past month, state media have touted what they say are Vietnam’s human rights achievements and criticized the international community’s accusations of rights violations in the Southeast Asian country. Vietnamplus, an online newspaper, recently ran two stories titled “Vietnam attaches importance to international cooperation in human rights protection” and “Vietnam ready to contribute further to UN affairs.”  The Voice of Vietnam online newspaper, meanwhile, ran a story titled “Vietnam pledges to make active contributions when becoming member of the UN Human Rights Council.”  ‘Unworthy’ candidate Human rights lawyer Nguyen Van Dai, a former political prisoner who now lives in Germany, said Vietnam was seeking Council membership for the 2023-25 term to boost its standing. “Authoritarian governments often try their best to join the United Nations agencies, including the Human Rights Council, so that they can use it to tell people inside their country that accusations of their human rights violations are inaccurate,” he told RFA. “The fact that the Vietnamese Communist government has made every effort to become a member of the Human Rights Council is for political purposes only,” he told RFA. “They will not make any contributions to protect the human rights of their own people as well as of other peoples in the world.” In April, a coalition of eight organizations from inside and outside Vietnam, including the Vietnam Human Rights Network, Human Rights Defenders, Dai Viet Quoc Dang and the Vietnam Independent Journalists Association, sent an open letter to the U.N. calling on it to reject Vietnam as a Council member for the next term.  They said the country was “unworthy” because of its poor human rights record and support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. On Oct. 3, three NGOs — UN Watch, Human Rights Foundation and the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights — jointly issued a report on rights abuses by the 14 candidate countries, including Vietnam, to circulate to U.N. diplomats.  The report says that the rights situation inside Vietnam has not improved. It noted that when Vietnam served on Council from 2014-16, it opposed resolutions supporting rights victims in Belarus and Iran and failed to support resolutions on behalf of rights victims in Burundi and Syria.   Another coalition of rights NGOs groups from Europe, the U.S. and Canada has called on U.N. member states to oppose the election of Vietnam, Afghanistan, Algeria, Sudan and Venezuela, countries deemed “unqualified” because of their grim human rights records and voting records on U.N. resolutions concerning human rights. London-based Amnesty International said Vietnam’s efforts to be elected to the Council flew in the face of the facts on the ground. “Vietnamese authorities should show that they are willing to uphold international human rights standards, but nothing could be further from the reality on the ground, where the government continues to pass laws that restrict freedom of expression and association while promoting a climate of fear among people who dare to speak out,” an Amnesty spokesperson told RFA. Getting worse in Vietnam Nguyen Dinh Thang said human rights in Vietnam had worsened since the country’s nomination as a Council member in April 2021. A further stain on the country’s human rights record was its vote against a resolution to dismiss Russia from the Council for invading Ukraine, he said. Vietnam does not deserve membership after years of rounding up its critics, said attorney Nguyen Van Dai.   “Over the past four years, Vietnam has arrested many political dissidents who only had exercised their freedom of expression and press freedom,” he said. There are more than 100 political dissidents in jail, most of whom openly criticized the government for wrongdoings, including corruption and rights violations, though none of them opposed the state, Dai said. “They only raised social issues which were completely true,” he said. “Almost all of them only commented on and analyzed the issues raised by state media. They did not collect the information from somewhere or provide inaccurate information about the Communist government of Vietnam.” Vietnam is currently detaining 253 prisoners of conscience, according to the rights group Defend…

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ANALYSIS: How long will Xi Jinping’s third term in office last?

Editor09 mins

Ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping is widely expected to seek a third term in office at the party congress, which opens in Beijing on Oct. 16. What is less predictable is how long that term will be, and how much support he will need from rival factions in the party to achieve it, analysts told RFA. “No major leaks have occurred so far,” Li Cheng, director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution, told RFA in a recent interview, adding that the closed-doors nature of internal negotiations wasn’t unusual, but the lack of leaks ahead of the congress was “a rare phenomenon.” Currently, analysts are unsure of who will make it into the 25-member Politburo, still less of the makeup of the next Politburo standing committee, current a seven-member body at the heart of political power in China. They do agree that Xi is likely to be replacing incumbent premier Li Keqiang — who has spoken off message recently regarding the direction of economic policy — with a strong political ally. “There are different points of view within the CCP Central Committee, and different factions have formed,” political scholar Li Ting told RFA, referring to Li Keqiang’s vocal public support for the “reform and opening up” policies of Deng Xiaoping, which Xi has been moving away from in recent years. “Li Keqiang speaks and acts on behalf of a different faction [from Xi’s ‘princelings’ faction],” he said. The relative clout of these different factions will affect Xi’s success in achieving a third term, along with the Politburo standing committee line-up that suits him best, analysts said. “In the first two terms of Xi Jinping’s tenure, especially the first term, he governed through cooperation with political partners, but in the third term he will run the country with his henchmen,” Li Cheng said. While Xi’s anti-corruption campaign won him widespread public support earlier in his tenure, public anger has grown over the economy-slowing lockdowns brought by his zero-COVID policy and among the urban middle-classes, where many are paying back mortgages on homes yet to be completed by developers, Li said. Shanghai party chief Li Qiang takes part in a group discussion held on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, March 6, 2018. Credit: Associated Press Scenarios Li said there are no guarantees, however, that Xi will only seek another five-year term in office, now that term limits have been abolished through amendments to the constitution in 2018. He could seek an indefinite term, or present himself once more for a fourth term in five years’ time, he said. In a recent analysis, the Asia Society suggested five potential scenarios resulting from the party congress. In one, current Shanghai party chief Li Qiang or a “similarly loyal dark horse” Xi ally, takes over as premier from Li Keqiang. “Li [Qiang]’s competitiveness has been undermined by Shanghai’s serious and embarrassing difficulties in containing outbreaks of COVID-19 earlier this year,” the report said. “Should Li nonetheless take the position, it would therefore indicate that Xi remains in a very powerful political position.” In another, Wang Yang, loosely allied with the CCP Youth League faction, gets the job, with Li Qiang as executive vice premier. If Xi manages to achieve a Politburo standing committee packed with his allies, this would suggest he now enjoys “unbounded” power within the party, it said. “This scenario appears to remain relatively unlikely, but it is hardly impossible,” it said. But if Xi’s influence is more limited than that, he may be forced to expand the standing committee to nine seats to make room for enough of his allies alongside compromise candidates, it said. Intense bargaining Political commentator Wu Gang said the behind-the-scenes negotiations are likely to be intense. “There will be a lot of bargaining,” Wu said. “I think the most likely [outcome] is that he serves another five years at least.” There have also been rumors that vice premier Hu Chunhua, aligned with the Youth League faction, and CCP general office director Ding Xuexiang, are likely to be in the new Politburo standing committee line-up. According to the Asia Society report current convention sets the resignation age at 68. Among current Politburo standing committee members, Xi is 69, Li Zhanshu is 72 and Han Zheng is 68, while Li Keqiang, Wang Yang and Wang Huning are all over 67. The reports expects Xi to focus on promoting younger allies to replace them. Wu said the ideal outcome for Xi would be to be voted in for a lifelong third term in office. “They want him to get lifelong tenure,” he said. “Otherwise, there would be no guarantee of a stable future for his supporters.” Political scholar Xu Guang said it was hard for Chinese leaders to remain relevant for all time,  however. “When all’s said and done, it’s a logical impossibility for [Xi] to go from victory to victory [indefinitely],” Xu told RFA. “Victories always come to an end.” “Dialectical materialism teaches us that … any extreme will be reversed, and that this is inescapable,” he said. “Just as a person can’t stay young forever, revolutionaries can’t last forever within the party.” “The trajectory of human life is a parabola,” he said. “We’ve had the second generation revolutionaries; next it’ll be the third generation — can the revolution last forever?” Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

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