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Category: World

Concerns remain over pro-CCP stance of U.K.-based Chinese community organizations

Editor010 mins

Hong Kong activists based in the U.K. have repeated warnings that community groups in the county may have been infiltrated by people loyal to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), posing potential threats to incoming migrants from Hong Kong under the British National Overseas (BNO) visa scheme. Former Hong Kong lawmaker Nathan Law said via his Twitter account on April 19 that most the of 100,000 people who have left the city following the imposition of the draconian national security law to make new lives in the  U.K. support the 2019 mass protest movement, which called for fully democratic elections and greater official accountability. “HKers are anxious and insecure. Most of them are in support of the pro-democracy movement, therefore they left Hong Kong with trauma and worries of persecution,” Law wrote. “They fear that Chinese agents in the UK would send their activity records back to Hong Kong, thus endangering them.” Law voiced his concerns as The Times reported that pro-CCP figures appeared to have infiltrated large Chinese community organizations in Southampton and Birmingham, both of which have received tens of thousands of pounds in government funding to help newly arrived Hongkongers integrate into British society. Law added: “The Chinese govt is a dictatorial regime that destroyed our home. Many Chinese community organizations in the UK support the political lines of CCP. More than 200 of them endorsed the National Security Law,” he said, adding that Hongkongers would feel “scared and unwelcome” if government funds were awarded to such groups. According to The Times, two of the Birmingham center’s directors worked with the British Chinese Project, a scheme founded by Christine Lee, a lawyer who MI5 warned was trying to influence parliamentarians on behalf of Beijing in January 2022. A patron of the center, James Wong, has visited China on a trip sponsored by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, part of the CCP’s outreach and influence operation known as the United Front Work Department. The Birmingham Chinese Community Center denied it was under CCP influence, saying it had no wish to be drawn into the politics of the Hong Kong protest movement, and had no wish to become involved with such “toxicity.” A screenshot of former Hong Kong lawmaker Nathan Law’s Twitter account where he raises concerns that Chinese agents in the UK have infiltrated large Chinese community organizations in British cities. Allegiances hard to trace Meanwhile, U.K.-based activist Ping Hua, who has termed reports of the mass incarceration of Uyghurs in Xinjiang “appalling lies and fabrication,” founded the Southampton group, which told the paper she is no longer part of the organization. Law tweeted a day after being quoted in the article: “We must know more about the infiltration activities of the Chinese govt and prevent these mistakes from happening. The best way is to engage with the UK-based Hong Kong community and conduct thorough background checks on the org’s connection to the Chinese embassy.” U.K. activist and former consular worker Simon Cheng said that while the links between Wong and Ping and the CCP were fairly clear, many other Chinese community organizations have made statements that suggest where their allegiances lie, even if connections with the CCP are harder to trace. “They want to carefully blunt our democratic consciousness and fighting spirit,” Cheng said. “For example, they could, once people have settled in, encourage them to move on from the past.” “If they really have a pro-CCP agenda, or are United Front, the most important concern is that they could report people’s personal information to the national security police [in Hong Kong],” he said. “Then, you could run into problems if you go back to Hong Kong, or to any country that has a current extradition treaty with either China or Hong Kong.” According to a 2017 report by New Zealand political science professor Anne-Marie Brady, Chinese leader Xi Jinping is leading an accelerated expansion of political influence activities worldwide, much of which rely on overseas community and business groups, under the aegis of the United Front Work Department. Some 100,000 Hongkongers have emigrated to the U.K. under a pathway-to-citizenship visa scheme aimed at around three million people eligible for the BNO passport. Overseas properties Community groups have sprung into action to offer career, job-hunting and taxation workshops to new arrivals, provide entertainment and social opportunities and to offer advice on education, mental health and starting a new business. Meanwhile, the U.K.-based rights group Hong Kong Watch said nine high-ranking Hong Kong officials and 12 lawmakers elected under Beijing’s approval to the city’s legislature hold property overseas, including in the U.K., Canada, the U.S., Australia, Japan, and France. In a new report, the group lists health secretary Sophia Chan as owning or co-owning three properties in London, civil service secretary Patrick Nip as owning a flat in Islington, and former University of Hong Kong senior leader Arthur Li as owning two west London properties. All are members of chief executive Carrie Lam’s cabinet, the Executive Council, and are collectively responsible for implementing the national security law, which bans public criticism of the government and criminalizes acts of political opposition, journalism and online dissent. All of the officials and lawmakers in question have pledged allegiance to Beijing and expressed their public support for the national security law, the report said. “The report recommends that like-minded countries consider auditing the assets of Hong Kong officials and introducing a Hong Kong specific sanctions list covering those named,” it said. The group’s senior policy adviser Sam Goodman said: “The Hong Kong officials and lawmakers who are complicit in the ongoing human rights crackdown in Hong Kong are more than happy to continue to use the West as a safe haven for their hidden wealth.” Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

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Analyst suspects China pressure as Philippines suspends oil exploration

Editor06 mins

The Philippines has suspended oil and gas exploration activities in the disputed South China Sea, a presidential spokesman said, under what an analyst described as “coercion” from China. Martin Andanar, spokesman for President Rodrigo Duterte, told reporters on Tuesday in Manila that the Security, Justice and Peace Coordinating Cluster (SJPCC), or the government’s security advisors, decided to suspend all exploration activities within the disputed areas in West Philippine Sea. West Philippine Sea is the name used by the Filipinos for the part of the South China Sea over which Manila claims sovereignty. Local companies in the Philippines have been test drilling two sites at Reed Bank, also known as Recto Bank, off Palawan province for survey purposes, but the Department of Energy (DOE) has now ordered them to stop. Andanar said that the DOE has requested the government to reconsider the suspension because “under international law, a geophysical survey is perfectly legitimate activity in any disputed area.” In 2018, Manila and Beijing signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for joint oil and gas development in contested areas and those two sites were identified by the DOE as possible sites for joint exploration with China. Jay Batongbacal, director of the University of the Philippines’ Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea, said Beijing has been pressuring Manila to accept its exploration terms or to stop drilling. “Through diplomacy and the actions of the China Coast Guard, Beijing has been trying to coerce Manila to stop conducting seabed exploration and research activities in the West Philippine Sea until the latter submits to China’s conditions for joint development,” Batongbacal said. The Philippines, China, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam all hold claims in the South China Sea but China’s claim is the most expansive, occupying nearly 90 percent of the sea. In 2016, the Philippines brought a case against China to an international tribunal and won but Beijing refused to accept the ruling. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte gestures as he meets cabinet officials at the Malacanang presidential palace in Manila, Philippines, March 7, 2022. Credit: Malacanang Presidential Photographers Division via AP Joint exploration in contested waters In 2014, under Duterte’s predecessor President Benigno Aquino, the Philippines imposed a ban on oil and gas exploration in the disputed areas of the South China Sea in protest against China’s aggression. Duterte lifted the moratorium in 2020, paving the way for joint development with China, hoping to attract new investment from the biggest player in the region. There were also fears that unilateral exploration activities might hurt the Sino-Philippines relationship. Yet until now, the MOU the two countries signed in 2018 has not resulted in any actual project. All efforts made to date by other countries in prospecting for oil and gas in the South China Sea have made little progress because of heavy opposition from China, said Fitch Solutions, a global market analysis agency. “China has formally claimed the rights to explore and exploit hydrocarbon resources in the disputed waters, but has not done so in practice and appears content to prevent others from exploring the area,” said Fitch Solutions. “There is limited scope for the current deadlock over the South China Sea to ease,” it added. Tensions have been high between the Philippines and China in the last few months of Duterte’s presidency. In the latest incident, the Philippines lodged a diplomatic protest against China after a Chinese coastguard ship maneuvered dangerously close to a Filipino vessel in the disputed Scarborough Shoal in March.

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1 in 100 displaced by conflict since Myanmar coup, UN says

Editor09 mins

One out of every 100 citizens of Myanmar became displaced by conflict in the nearly 15 months since the junta seized power, according to the United Nations, pushing the total number of internal refugees to a staggering 912,700 and pushing the country ever closer to the brink of a humanitarian crisis.  In a statement on Tuesday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that 566,100 people — or more than 1% of Myanmar’s population of around 55 million — were made refugees since the Feb 1, 2021, coup, adding to some 346,000 people already identified as internally displaced persons (IDPs) prior to the takeover. The agency said that for the first time, displacement in the northwest, where the military is carrying out a scorched earth campaign in Chin state and the regions of Sagaing and Magway, exceeded 300,000 people. Eastern Myanmar, which includes the embattled states of Shan, Kayah, and Kayin, also saw substantial displacement since the coup. Junta troops killed at least 1,600 people, including some 100 children, since the coup, the U.N. office said. Many of the victims died in military airstrikes, artillery strikes or as the result of triggering landmines. “Hundreds of thousands of men, women, boys and girls have fled their homes for safety since the February military takeover, many of them forced to move multiple times exposing people to grave protection risks,” the statement said. The U.N. said in mid-January that the number of people displaced in Myanmar since the coup totaled 320,000, suggesting an increase of nearly 600,000 in the past three months alone. The displacement has placed a tremendous strain on resources and IDPs are in desperate need of assistance. “Overall, humanitarian actors, in close coordination with local partners, continue providing critical life-saving assistance to the most affected people but face ongoing challenges in addressing urgent needs due to access constraints and funding shortfalls,” the U.N.’s humanitarian office said. “To meet their obligations to people in need, humanitarian actors, including the U.N., international and national NGOs, need quicker, simpler and more predictable access processes.” Among the needs of IDPs identified by the agency were funding for educational activities, food security, health care, nutritional supplements, protection from violence, shelter, water, sanitation and hygiene. The smoking remains of homes destroyed by the military in Khin-U township’s Ngar Tin Gyi village, April 4, 2022. Credit: Citizen journalist Scarce supplies and food shortages Speaking to RFA’s Myanmar Service on Wednesday, a refugee in Sagaing’s Yinmabin township said that obtaining things like rice, cooking oil and salt must be done in the city but are subject to seizure by junta troops at checkpoints. “Many people are facing starvation. Our homes have been burned down. The fire has also destroyed our storage and all our supplies for the entire year. We are sharing what is left among the villagers,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal. “We went to Monywa to purchase some bags of rice, but [the soldiers] seized them on the way home. We are not allowed to transport large bags of rice or other food supplies.” He said those displaced are forced to scrape by trading their remaining rice supplies with nearby villages. In Kayah state, food transport routes have been cut off by fighting between the military and anti-junta People’s Defense Force paramilitaries, forcing people to ration what they have left. An IDP from Kayah’s Demoso township, which has been the center of intense clashes in recent weeks, told RFA that his group of refugees is at risk of running out of food. “We cannot find more foods. The roads are closed, so we must ration what we have,” said the IDP, who also declined to be named. “We can use cooking oil only once or twice a month. We prepare foods without cooking, often by grinding it into a powder. We skip some meals. We have only one meal instead of two meals a day. We adults try to adapt and give priority to the children.” A volunteer helping IDPs in Kayah’s Hpruso township said his aid group is working to obtain extra food supplies in anticipation of future scarcity. “It has become more difficult to transport food. We can’t carry as much as we need. For example, we order 100 rice bags, but we are allowed to transport only 50 — the authorities are controlling things very strictly,” he said. “I think we need to save up more food for the future because we expect things will become even more difficult. Whenever there is fighting, we face shortages.” In Chin state, a volunteer told RFA his group can’t transfer food because of fighting near the roads. Additionally, he said, troops require permits to transport food and other commodities along closed routes, leading to price hikes in local markets. Attempts by RFA to contact Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, the junta’s deputy information minister, for comment on the military closing roads in conflict regions went unanswered on Wednesday. Salai Za Oak Lein, the deputy executive director of the Chin Human Rights Organization, accused the military of closing roads to prevent aid from reaching IDPs. “This action shows that they lack humanitarian spirit. The military is trying to weaken the local resistance by cutting of food supplies, but they are impacting local civilians,” he said. “They intentionally create food shortages and force people to abandon their homes. These are horrible human rights violations.” Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

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Hun Sen’s call for fair local elections this June in Cambodia raises eyebrows

Editor06 mins

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Wednesday that he would not stump for his party in local elections in June and urged authorities to remain neutral during the campaign, an appeal that did little to comfort the beleaguered opposition. After a spate of violence and harassment directed against aspiring candidates, however, critics and political opponents told RFA that Hun Sen must allow real challenges to candidates from his ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) in the nationwide elections. Hun Sen’s comments came during a ceremony for a flood prevention and improvement project in Phnom Penh. He said local officials must work to ensure the June 5 elections are free and fair. “If CPP wins the election, all people can live together. Now we have 17 parties participating in the election,” he said. “I won’t … campaign, but I want to stress that we please don’t allow any types of violence during the election process.” Earlier this month, the Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia, an electoral watchdog, criticized Hun Sen for appealing for votes while on official duty, a violation of the country’s election laws. A CPP spokesman said the prime minister was simply promoting his administration’s accomplishments. Cambodian authorities also barred 100 candidates from the emerging Candlelight Party from participating in the elections. The party, has been gaining steam  despite a crackdown against it and other opposition parties. On Wednesday, Hun Sen said that all political parties should have equal rights during the election, including parties that oppose his government.  “I appeal to all places, to allow people to participate in the election so they can vote for their candidates freely,” he said. Hun Sen has made similar statements in the past, but the situation for his political opponents continues to worsen, Thach Setha, vice president of the Candlelight Party, told RFA’s Khmer Service. “If he talks without taking any measures against the perpetrators [of violence], it can’t guarantee a good election environment free from intimidation and assault,” Thach Setha said, noting that many political activists remain in prison. “This needs to end to ensure that the election will be free and fair. Please stop using the court to issue warrants and summons” to political opponents, he said. On Monday, RFA reported that Seam Pluk, president of the National Heart Party, is in hiding after an arrest warrant for forgery of documents for June local elections was issued. Critics said his charges were trumped up amid a government crackdown on the opposition. Hun Sen’s appeal Wednesday for fair elections will be ineffective without concrete action, Kang Savang, a monitor with the Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia, told RFA. Several NGOs have asked the government to ensure a safe election environment, but the government has so far not acted on their request, Kang Savang said. “If there is only a message without an order toward the local authorities it is not enough,” he said. Opponents of the CPP have been targeted in a 5-year-old crackdown that has sent leaders of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) into exile and landed scores of its supporters in prison. Cambodia’s Supreme Court dissolved the CNRP in November 2017 in a move that allowed the CPP to win all 125 seats in Parliament in a July 2018 election. The June 5 election will decide who serves in a total of 11,622 seats in local districts known as communes across Cambodia. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

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Amnesty International blasts new proposed social media regulations in Vietnam

Editor010 mins

An international rights group condemned the Vietnamese government’s plan to adopt new regulations to tighten control over social media platforms in the communist one-party country where leaders already have little tolerance for public criticism or dissent. The planned amendments to existing law will require social media companies like Facebook and TikTok to remove content and services deemed illegal within 24 hours, block illegal livestreams within three hours of notice, and immediately remove content that endangers national security, Reuters reported Wednesday, citing people with knowledge of the matter. Companies that do not comply with the requirements risk having their social media platforms banned in Vietnam, the report said, adding that it is expected that Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh will sign the new regulations in May. The Vietnamese government is finalizing the amendments for June 2013 decree on the management, provision and use of internet services and online information for both domestic and foreign companies and individuals. The government has been using the decree to ask companies that run popular social media platforms in Vietnam to take down “anti-government” content. Human rights organizations expressed concern that the restrictive internet environment in Vietnam will become worse under the new regulations. “In Vietnam, social media, including Facebook, is one of very few places for local people to express their opposition,” said Ming Yu Hah, deputy regional director of campaigns in East and Southeast Asia for London-based Amnesty International. “They face the risk of being imprisoned for years if their posts are deemed to violate the law. “Such harsh laws are an existential threat to the freedom of expression in Vietnam,” she added. Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Twitter are popular foreign social media platforms in the Southeast Asian country, used by citizens to express their opinions of and dissatisfaction with the government and politics. However, many Vietnamese have been sent to prison for their expressing their opinions via social media. In March, for instance, RFA reported that a court in Hanoi sentenced independent journalist and activist Le Van Dung to five years in prison for discussing political and socioeconomic issues in livestreamed videos on social media. Reuters said that Vietnam’s communications and foreign ministries did not respond to requests for comment. Facebook-owner Meta Platforms Inc. and Alphabet Inc., which owns YouTube and Google, and Twitter Inc. declined to comment. TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance Ltd., said it will continue to comply with applicable local laws and would remove content that violates platform guidelines. For years, the Vietnamese government has demonstrated its desire to control foreign social media platforms via the decree passed in 2013 and a cybersecurity law that entered into effect in 2019. In November 2020, Facebook announced that it had been forced to increase content censorship as requested by the Vietnamese government, after being threatened with a ban if it did not comply. The move drew heavy criticism from rights groups that have accused social media companies of putting profits before human rights and the freedom of expression. Amnesty’s Ming Yu Hah called on social media companies to protest the forthcoming regulation and “put human rights above profits and market access rights.” About 60 million-70 million Vietnamese use Facebook, generating about U.S. $1 billion in annual revenue for its parent company, according to the Reuters report. YouTube has 60 million users in the country, while TikTok has 20 million. Open letter to Biden In a related development, more than 40 NGOs and 40 individuals signed an open online letter to U.S. President Joe Biden, calling for him to raise concern with Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chinh at a U.S.-ASEAN Summit in mid-May about the government’s antagonistic policies toward religions that do not submit to government control. “Of particular concern is the intensifying state-directed and state-supported propaganda that promotes hate speech and incites violence against religious and lay leaders with real and deeply disturbing consequences,” the letter says. The letter says organized mobs known as Red Flag Associations have used social media to slander Catholic priests, characterize respected monks of the Unified Buddhist Church’s Sangha as “bad forces” who “distorted the nature of religious freedom in Vietnam,” and call on the government to eliminate the Montagnard Evangelical Church of Christ in Dak Lak province. “So far, Red Flag members have enjoyed complete impunity,” the letter says. “Their messages promoting hatred and violence have rapidly multiplied throughout Vietnam’s society.” Certain government units also have incited hatred against ethno-religious minorities, including the Department of Public Security of Gia Lai Province, which characterizes Montagnards who have converted to Catholicism as a cult and in December 2020 declared that it had completed the heretical religion. The United Nations Human Rights Committee singled out the Red Flag Associations as a source of incitement to hatred and violence following a review of Vietnam’s implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in 2019. “In light of this worrying trend, we ask that you communicate directly to Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh of Vietnam and urge his government to comply fully with both Article 18 of the ICCPR, which guarantees the right to religious freedom or belief, as well as with the requirement of Article 20 that incitement to violence be prohibited by law,” the letter says. On Monday, a coalition of Vietnamese NGOs and individuals issued an open letter to U.N. member states, asking them not to elect Vietnam to the U.N. Human Rights Council for the 2023-2025 term. Among the organizations that signed the letter were the Vietnam Human Rights Network, Defend the Defenders, Assembly for Democracy of Vietnam, Humanistic Socialist Party, the Great Viet Party, Vietnam Democracy Federation, the Independent Journalists Association of Vietnam, and Vietnam Democracy Radio. They noted that Vietnam voted against a U.N. General Assembly resolution on April 7 to suspend Russia from the Human Rights Council over its invasion of Ukraine, which has killed thousands of people. “Before looking for membership of the council, the Vietnamese government must improve its human rights record, strictly enforce international human rights…

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Biden nails down a date for ASEAN summit but not a full invite list

Editor09 mins

President Joe Biden, keen to showcase American interest in Southeast Asia, has secured a date to celebrate 45 years of U.S. ties with the far-away region, but not all of ASEAN’s leaders are coming to the party. Myanmar’s junta chief, Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, won’t be welcome because of the military coup he launched a year ago. And Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who leaves office in June, is also expected to be a no-show. He has not visited Washington during his six years in office that have been characterized by turbulent relations with the United States. The May 12-13 summit between the U.S. and leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations is an opportunity for Biden to forge a closer bilateral partnership with ASEAN and counter China’s influence in the region. The White House is keen to advance its vision of a “free and open” Indo-Pacific. The summit will mark U.S.-ASEAN relations, which began in 1977. It will be only the second such summit with Southeast Asian leaders hosted by an American president in the United States. Barack Obama welcomed ASEAN leaders to Sunnylands estate in Rancho Mirage, Calif., in February 2016. While next month’s meeting will therefore carry heavy symbolic value, it will make for some unusual diplomatic bedfellows for Biden. Cambodia’s foreign ministry says that Prime Minister Hun Sen – whose government has faced U.S. sanctions for its suppression of democracy – will be there. Cambodia is the current rotating chair of the 10-nation bloc. “Of course, Samdech Techo Prime Minister Hun Sen, as the ASEAN rotating chair, will co-chair this summit with the president of the United States,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ spokesman Chum Sounry told Radio Free Asia (RFA), the parent company of BenarNews. He was using the honorific adopted by Hun Sen, who has ruled for 37 years. It translates roughly as “glorious, supreme prime minister and powerful commander.” But officials indicated that Min Aung Hlaing – who recently awarded himself two of Myanmar’s highest honors for services to his country despite the current, violent chaos there – won’t be invited to Washington. “The consensus among ASEAN is (that) Myanmar should be represented by a non-political representative,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah of Indonesia, which is the bloc’s coordinator for U.S.-ASEAN ties. He told BenarNews on Tuesday that Indonesian President Joko Widodo plans to attend.  In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah confirmed that Prime Minister Ismail Sabri will also join the summit. He further noted: “I don’t think Myanmar should be represented. I am not so sure if Washington invited Myanmar.” However in Bangkok, the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Prayuth Chan-o-cha, the prime minister and ex-junta chief, was “considering the journey” to Washington. ASEAN has been grappling with a 14-month-old crisis in Myanmar, where the Burmese junta’s forces have bombed and burned swathes of the country to quell resistance to the military’s overthrow of an elected government in February 2021. In late March, the junta blocked ASEAN envoy Prak Sokhonn, who is Cambodia’s foreign minister, from meeting with deposed Myanmar civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, setting back efforts to forge a political resolution – and backtracking on a commitment the junta chief made to ASEAN to allow access to all stakeholders in the country. ASEAN itself has excluded Min Aung Hlaing from its own summits. The Myanmar military council’s spokesman said on Tuesday that Myanmar has not been invited so far to the Washington summit, and they would only attend anyway if they had equal representation. “If, as in the past, we could only attend with someone who does not hold political office, we absolutely would not attend any meeting. Our position is to engage only at equal rank,” the spokesman, Maj Gen Zaw Min Tun, told RFA. Myanmar has been subject to U.S. asset seizures and sanctions since the coup – including restrictions levied against Min Aung Hlaing himself. No such restrictions are faced by Duterte. The Philippines is a U.S. treaty ally, meaning the two nations are committed to each other’s defense if they come under attack. The U.S. is bound to Thailand by a similar treaty. But Duterte, who has sought closer relations with China despite recurring disputes in the South China Sea, has sworn repeatedly that “he will never go to the U.S.” At one time he even called America “lousy.”  BenarNews asked an aide to Duterte whether that position has changed in view of the upcoming summit, and was told it had not. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment to media about it. There’s another reason for the Philippine leader to skip the Washington summit: The two-day meeting falls just three days after May 9 elections in the Philippines. It is customary for any Filipino leader to avoid foreign travel during an election season, particularly when the election is for the position they will be vacating. Jason Gutierrez in Manila, Tria Dianti in Jakarta, Nontarat Phaicharoen in Bangkok, Nisha David in Kuala Lumpur, and RFA’s Cambodian and Myanmar Services contributed to this report by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated news service.

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North Korea orders wartime readiness during joint U.S.-South Korean military drills

Editor07 mins

North Korea put its military in a wartime posture–mobilizing troops and stepping up army political indoctrination– in response to the semi-annual U.S.-South Korean joint military exercises that began this week, sources in the country told RFA. The exercises are mostly computer simulations and involve cooperation between alliance command posts. But North Korea still views the exercises as a threat to its sovereignty, and its General Political Bureau has ordered the military to be ready for war. “Artillery and other important mission units were instructed to maintain a high state of readiness and conduct frequent inspections on their combat equipment so they could enter battle immediately in the event of a crisis,” a military source in the northwestern province of North Pyongan told RFA’s Korean Service Tuesday on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “During the South Korea-U.S. joint military exercises, commanders must not leave the areas under their jurisdiction. Soldiers in the units are prepared to mobilize in a ready state, day or night,” he said. But soldiers are exhausted, having just finished their grueling “winter training” sessions, where they toil as essentially free labor for the government on the premise of training, and coming off a major holiday full of political events, the source said. “They are angered by the authorities’ orders to immediately mobilize at a time when they lack fuel and materials, and they say the situation is not realistic,” he said. Authorities want soldiers not only to be ready on the physical battlefield, but also on the ideological battlefield, a military source in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “From the 19th, political departments in all units were urged to use ideological education classes for high-ranking officials this coming Saturday, and daily mental education hours for soldiers, so that they can propagandize the tension of the current political situation, and confirm their determination to defend our supreme leader,” he said, referring to the country’s leader Kim Jong Un. “The General Political Bureau has ordered the Korean People’s Army newspapers, telecommunications, and the third broadcast within the military to put out intensive propaganda that shows the party and the military’s resolve, and our principled and ruthlessly super-hardline stance,” the second soruce said. Third broadcast refers to government-controlled loudspeakers that transmit messages or instructions to everyone they can reach. “The propaganda must emphasize the need to show the will of tens of millions of people to respond to the U.S.-South Korean war provocations with military action and not just words,” the second source said. “In response to the orders … high-ranking officials and the soldiers below them complain that they are already tired from winter training and the various different political events concentrated in April. They wonder whether it makes sense to ‘arm soldiers with the 1950 spirit of defending the motherland…’  when what they want the most right now is adequate rest and enough food to eat,” he said. The source said the propaganda is essentially meaningless. “If you listen to the third broadcast inside the Korean People’s Army, you will only hear songs on the theme of defending our leader. All day long,” he said. “These songs include ‘I will defend Gen. Kim Jong Un with my life,’ ‘Our weapons don’t forgive,’ and ‘Leader, just give us an order.’ I don’t understand why the authorities are obsessed with ideological education when the joint military exercises between South Korea and the United States happen every year.” The joint exercises will run through Friday, then break for the weekend, resuming April 25 and ending April 28, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. Hostilities in the 1950-1953 Korean War ended with an armistice agreement, but North and South Korea are technically still at war as no peace treaty has ever been signed. Translated by Claire Lee and Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

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2 children among 6 Rohingya killed after escaping Malaysian detention center

Editor09 mins

Hundreds of Rohingya detained for two years in northern Malaysia escaped Wednesday following a pre-dawn riot, but six were killed by vehicles as they tried to cross a highway, in a tragic turn of events highlighting conditions at the country’s secretive immigrant detention centers. Close to 400 people had been recaptured by evening, officials said, while human rights groups called for a probe into what had provoked the unrest. They also demanded to know how many detention centers, where immigrants are held indefinitely and incommunicado, were operating across the country. “I have instructed the Royal Malaysia Police and the Immigration Department to conduct a detailed investigation of what caused them to act in such a way,” Home Minister Hamzah Zainudin said of the escapees late Wednesday. Multiple agencies from two states were working to track down more than 100 people still at large, he said. “All 528 detainees who escaped were ethnic Rohingya refugees transferred from a camp in Langkawi after being arrested for trespassing in Malaysian waters and violating the Immigration Act in 2020,” he said. Langkawi is an island group in the Strait of Malacca, off the coast of the northern Kedah state. Police in Bandar Baharu, Kedah were alerted to a riot and escape at the Sungai Bakap Temporary Immigration Depot at around 4 a.m., according to the state police chief, Wan Hassan Wan Ahmad. Prior to the riot, 664 people were housed there – 430 men, 97 women, and 137 children, he said. He told reporters that no serious injuries were reported during the riot and that its cause was under investigation. Detainees smashed a door and fence at the depot before making a run for it, he said, adding that the 23 security personnel on duty were quickly overwhelmed. “Because there were so many of detainees in a cramped space, things got out of control and the detainees took the opportunity to break out,” he told a press conference in Kedah. “The fatal accident involving the escapees happened about six to seven kilometers from the depot. Two men, two women, and two children (a boy, and a girl) were killed after being hit by vehicles when they tried to cross a highway while fleeing,” he said. Villagers living near the immigration facility said they were afraid to leave their homes with escapees still at large. “The detainees were everywhere, running out from the depot, and they headed to our village before they went into the bush,” a man who gave his name as Hashim told BenarNews. Another villager, Ahmad Husin, said they could be hiding in nearby palm oil plantations. Earlier, “some of them came to us looking for water because they were thirsty but no one dare to give them any because they were afraid of any untoward incident,” he told BenarNews. The Kedah police chief warned residents of nearby villages against helping the escapees, saying to do so was an offense punishable by law. ‘Traumatizing’ Tens of thousands of Rohingya have fled to Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and other countries to escape persecution in Myanmar, their home country, and dire living conditions in cramped refugee camps in Bangladesh. Malaysia, however, does not recognize refugee status. Since 2020, the country has rounded up thousands of refugees and housed them in crowded detention centers, in what the authorities say are measures to contain the spread of coronavirus. An estimated 180,000 UNHCR cardholders currently live in Malaysia, much higher than the estimated 38,000 in 2013. Jerald Joseph, a member of the Malaysia’s Human Rights Commission (Suhakam), called on the country’s immigration authorities to allow representative from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to meet with the detainees. “The Immigration Department has to give access to UNHCR so they can determine whether the ones detained were really Rohingyas. If so, they should be freed like the 150,000 Rohingyas who are here in the country,” he said. For its part, Amnesty International Malaysia demanded the government fully and transparently investigate the events “including the desperate circumstances within Sungai Bakap immigration detention center that led to detainees trying to escape, resulting in the loss of six lives.” Suhakam should investigate how many temporary immigration detention centers are in existence across the country, Katrina Jorene Maliamauv, executive director of Amnesty International Malaysia, said in a statement. “Conditions at these immigration detention centers should be documented, given past incidences of human rights violations in immigration depots in Malaysia,” she said. She called indefinite detention “traumatizing.” “The government therefore needs to answer not only on the deaths of the six individuals but also why so many refugees, including children, are being detained,” she said. Yusof Ali, chairman of Kedah Rohingya Association, also appealed to the Malaysian government “to look into the Rohingya issue detained at the Immigration Depots in the country.” Asked why the breakout occurred, he said, “Maybe because they have been in there far too long. Some of them have temporary documents and UNHCR cards, but when they showed it to the authorities, the office in charge will arrest them and allege that the document or the card are fake. No other countries want to accept our ethnic group. It is now up to the Malaysian government’s discretion,” he said. Zul Suffian in Penang, Malaysia and Iskandar Zulkarnain in Kedah, Malaysia contributed to this report by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated news service..

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Landless Lao farmers are caught growing crops in state parks and forests

Editor09 mins

National parkland and protected forests have been shrinking slightly in southern Laos, not the work of the usual culprit — illegal loggers — but because residents are encroaching upon the land to grow cassava and other crops. In the provinces of Sekong, one of the most impoverished areas of Laos, and neighboring Saravan, farmers desperate for land are turning up soil in national parks and forests despite laws and campaigns to protect the tracts in a country suffering rapid deforestation. The surface areas of national parks and national protected forests in Sekong province’s Tha Teng district have diminished to 36.8% from more than 40% in 2016 partially due to encroachment by local residents, Viengsamone Chanbengseng, deputy director of the district’s Agriculture and Forestry Department, said at a meeting on deforestation on April 5. Since 2016, about 75 families, including retired state employees in 12 villages in the district, have been encroaching on about 37 hectares of state land, especially in Sayphouluang National Protected Forest, Phouchoum National Protected Forest and Houei Ped National Protected Forest, according a Tha Teng district official. The province’s Agriculture and Forestry Department has ordered them to stop occupying state land and stop cultivating land in protected forests after the November harvest. An official at the Sekong Provincial Administration Office, who like other sources in this report requested anonymity for safety reasons or to be able to speak freely, told RFA on Monday that authorities have taken action against those caught encroaching upon protected land. “We’ve reeducated them,” he said. “Most of them have been booked, many others have been disciplined, and some have been detained from three days to one week for grabbing state land.” A Tha Teng district police officer said that the rising price of cassava, now 2,200 kip (U.S. $0.18) a kilogram, has prompted poor villagers to grab land to plant the starchy root vegetables. “Many villagers who are poor and landless grow cassava and coffee to make ends meet,” he said. “However, we, the authorities, insist they stop encroaching upon state land. They should grow crops on their own land for which they have title. The government doesn’t allow people to use state land.” The Tha Teng district official provided a similar explanation. “These people don’t have land to farm,” he said. “They don’t have money to do anything. They grow cassava, so that they can have some income or some money to buy food.” District officials are discussing a plan to provide villagers with capital, about 10 million kip (U.S. $826) per family, so they can invest in growing vegetables in their own gardens instead of on state land, he said. “The Lao government wants to protect and preserve these forests for future generation,” said the Tha Teng district official. “The district authorities will be monitoring these people closely. If they encroach upon the state land again, they’ll be charged according to the law.” The satellite image shows an area of Phou Xieng Thong National Protected Forest in Lakhonepheng district, southern Laos’ Saravan province, where villagers have encroached upon state land. Credit: Google Earth ‘I don’t have land’ A Tha Teng district resident who grows cassava said locals feel unfairly targeted by the government. “All land is occupied, so we’re going to where there is land,” he said. “A lot of land is occupied by Chinese and Vietnamese investors from here in Sekong province all the way to Saravan province. Why are the authorities cracking down only on us but not on the foreigners?” Another farmer who lives in the district voiced a similar complaint: “We clear the forest to grow crops for our survival, not for commercial purposes. If the government wants to protect the forest, the government shouldn’t give land concessions to foreigners and shouldn’t limit land for its own people.” In Saravan province, more than 100 families have grown cassava and mango on up to 600 hectares of land in Xebang Nouane National Protected Forest and Phou Xieng Thong National Projected Forest, a provincial National Park Service official told RFA in March. “Just this year, 16 more families have occupied 10 more hectares in these two protected forests to grow cassava,” he said. “We’re beginning to seriously protect the forests because some villagers just disregard the law. Our [Lao People’s Revolutionary] Party and government want to protect the forests.” Authorities had allowed farmers to grow crops on state land because they only occupied a small part of the protected forests, about 600 hectares of land, or about 2-3% of the total area, a Lakhonepheng district official in Saravan said. “However, we, the provincial authorities, now want to stop it and to prevent people from expanding their cultivation,” he said. A cassava grower from the Phoukasy village in Lakhonepheng said he is growing more of the tuber this year because of the higher prices. “The problem is that I don’t have land,” he said. “I grow cassava in the protected forest and pay taxes to the district. We’re still allowed to grow cassava this year, but I don’t know about next year.” Reported by RFA’s Lao Service. Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

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Vietnam court jails 12 on subversion charges in trial described by lawyer as ‘flawed’

Editor05 mins

A court in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City on Monday sentenced 12 Vietnamese to prison terms of from three to 13 years on charges of supporting an exile group accused of attempting to overthrow the government in a trial described by defense attorneys as violating legal principles. Nine of the cases were drawn from separate parts of the country, jeopardizing standards of fairness in the trial, defense attorney Nguyen Van Mieng told RFA in an interview after the sentences were handed down. “This trial violated legal procedures, as it gathered nine cases from different provinces and cities and then combined them in a single trial,” Mieng said. “These 12 people had no relationships or links with each other,” he added. Defendant Tran Thi Ngoc Xuan, who received a 13-year prison term and was described by prosecutors as the most active member of the alleged plot, was acquainted with only two of the others brought to trial, Mieng said. “However, she had no close ties with either of them. They simply knew each other and did not work together as members of a team,” he said. Prosecutors had charged the group with “carrying out activities aimed at overthrowing the government” under Article 109 of Vietnam’s Penal Code and with recruiting others to join the Provisional Government of Vietnam, a U.S.-based opposition group described by Vietnamese authorities as a terrorist organization. Speaking to RFA, Mieng said however that the defendants had only thought they were joining projects aimed at helping the country’s poor. “In general, these 12 defendants are all poor and not well-educated,” Mieng said. “Therefore, when hearing from an online source about 18 programs providing land and houses carried out by the U.N. in cooperation with an ‘interim government,’ they registered their names and encouraged others to participate.” “And then they were arrested,” he said. Only Xuan declared her innocence at trial, with the others pleading guilty and asking for leniency from the court, Mieng said. Only Xuan had been able to hire a lawyer, while the other defendants were represented by lawyers assigned by the court, he added. Xuan, who has already spent two years in pre-trial detention, will now consider filing an appeal of her sentence, which must be filed within 15 days, Mieng said. Based in Orange County, California, the Provisional Government of Vietnam was founded in 1991 by former soldiers and refugees loyal to the South Vietnamese government that existed before the country’s takeover by North Vietnam in 1975. The group was designated a terrorist organization by Vietnamese authorities in January 2018 after group members in Vietnam were charged with a plot to attack Tan Son Nhat International Airport with petrol bombs ahead of a major holiday the year before. At least 18 Vietnamese have been jailed in recent years for alleged involvement with the group. Repeated attempts by RFA to contact representatives of the Provisional Government of Vietnam for comment have gone unanswered. Translated by Anna Vu for RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.

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