Day: December 29, 2021

Thousands of people in Myawaddy township in Myanmar’s Kayin state have been displaced by fighting between the military and anti-junta forces over the past two weeks, officials and relief groups said Wednesday, with more than one-third having crossed the border to Thailand.

The exodus began on Dec. 15, according to sources, when government troops engaged with members of the local prodemocracy People’s Defense Force and the armed branch of the ethnic Karen National Union — known as the Karen National Liberation Army — in Myawaddy’s Lay Kay Kaw area.

Since then, more than 16,000 residents of Lay Kay Kaw and the surrounding villages of Phlu Gyi, Phlulay, Rathegu, Hyeemae Warkhi, Mae Htaw Thale and Pahikalaw have fled for safety. Of those, an estimated 6,000 people have crossed the border into neighboring Thailand’s Tak province to escape the violence.

Naw Say Say, the general secretary of the Women’s League of Burma, which helps refugees along the Thailand-Myanmar border, told RFA’s Myanmar Service that many of the people who have crossed into Thailand are sheltering at a cattle ranch near Mae Sot township’s Mae Kot Kin village.

“As far as we know, there are tens of thousands of people [displaced] from more than 10 villages on the Myanmar side,” she said. “They are moving from place to place, and it’s hard to get the exact numbers.”

Naw Say Say added that there is a shortage of necessities like clothes, medicine, food and shelter for the refugees.

Rescue workers told RFA the refugees suffered from an outbreak of cholera beginning on Dec. 20 due to lack of clean water but that the situation has since improved.

Ye Min of the Thailand-based Aid Alliance Committee said his group is trying to locate a site for a more permanent camp on the Thai side of the border but is facing difficulties due to the large number of refugees who have crossed over from Myanmar.

“There isn’t enough space for everyone because we received more than 5,000 people without any prior notice,” he said.

“Some are now taking shelter in a barn, but the place had to be cleared up first. And then we put new tents in the open field, and it was hot. It’s very hot at night as they must sleep on plastic sheets. The situation is very difficult.”

He said the refugees are enduring extremely unsanitary conditions with just a few toilets for thousands of people. The aid committee is working to expand facilities, he said.

Aid stretched thin

A woman who is sheltering in Thailand told RFA that she fled after the military began shelling her refugee camp on the Myanmar side of the Thaungyin River.

“Our camp was the first to get attacked. The first shell hit the kitchen hall at the rear of the camp, and we all fled,” she said.

“We had to cross the river as the shelling continued. It was very hard crossing the river with small children and elderly people. Even while we were crossing the river, the Burmese army was firing at us in the river from the other side.”

Aid groups said the refugees do not have to worry about food for the time being but expect that supplies will be difficult to secure over the long term.

Most of those who fled did so “barefoot [and] without any possessions,” Wanlop Malai, a Thai volunteer based in Tak province, told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.

“In the past, most of the donations were clothes. The government does not have the budget for it. We are short on food supplies,” he said on Tuesday. “There are about 5,000 refugees, and we need 15,000 boxes of food for three meals each day.”

The governor of Tak province told the international media that the number of refugees in Thailand who fled fighting in Myanmar had risen to 5,358 as of Dec. 26. He said Thai security officials are stepping up humanitarian assistance to the refugees and that medical care is being provided to the injured.

Asked if Thailand would allow the United Nations refugee agency to have full access to the refugees, Tanee Sangrat, a spokesman for the country’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, told Benarnews that his government had been working closely with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) “to share assessments and planning should the need arise where the Thai authorities are unable to manage the situation themselves.”

“At present, various protection and other needs are being met by our interagency task force, and we will continue to monitor the volatile situation along our border, to address a number of concerns there, from COVID-19 to trafficking to humanitarian concerns such as this one. And we will continue to work together with UNHCR and our NGO partners to do so.”

Thai Prime Minister Prayut has said he will not build more refugee camps on the Thai side of the border. He told reporters on Wednesday that the refugees will have to return home when conditions improve.

Fighting ongoing

Fighting has continued in the Lay Kay Kaw area of Myawaddy township, with Karen National Union (KNU) officials accusing the junta of using civilian vehicles to expand its military presence along local routes in the region.

Additionally, the KNU said Tuesday that hundreds of civilians have also fled ongoing military activity in the Muthe area of neighboring Bago region’s Nyaunglebin township.

KNU foreign affairs officer Padoh Saw Tawney told RFA on Wednesday it was not yet possible for the refugees in Thailand to return home because the military has so deployed “many units” in KNU-controlled areas.

“There will be no peace if their troops continue to enter instead of withdrawing. So, what we want to call for is a withdrawal of the troops and an end to all acts of violence against civilians,” he said.

“The people are not running away for no reason. They were forced to flee their homes because shells and bullets were raining on their villages. [The military] cannot hide this fact from the world.”

Residents told RFA that fires were seen burning as recently as Tuesday evening in Lay Kay Kaw, where the military is stationed. The KNU said recently that the military began using airstrikes against Karen National Liberation Army forces on Dec. 23.

Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service and by Nontarat Phaicharoen in Bangkok for BenarNews. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

Indonesia agreed to allow about 120 Rohingya stranded on a boat near Aceh province to come ashore, officials said Wednesday, after two days of pressure from locals, human rights groups and the United Nations refugee agency.

Spotted by local fishermen on Sunday, the Rohingya were being allowed in because it was an emergency situation, officials said, after the UNHCR said their boat had engine trouble.

“The Indonesian government has decided today, Wednesday, Dec. 29, 2021, on humanitarian grounds, to accommodate the Rohingya refugees who are currently drifting on a ship in the sea near Bireuen regency, Aceh,” said Armed Wijaya, chairman of the government’s Task Force for Handling Refugees from Overseas.

“This decision was made after considering the emergency situation experienced by the refugees on the ship,” he said in a statement. 

The vessel was drifting about 50 nautical miles off the coast of Bireuen and will be towed ashore, Armed said. Its passengers were mostly women and children but the exact number was not immediately known.

All on the boat will undergo health screening for data collection and implementation of health protocols amid the pandemic, he said.

On Tuesday, an Indonesian official had said the Rohingya would be provided with food and fuel so they could continue their journey to Malaysia, their original destination. Local officials said they had limited resources to care for the refugees as the country grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Armed said the migrants should have been brought to land when their boat was stranded on Sunday.

“They should have been allowed [to come ashore] from the start because all the elements of an emergency are fulfilled. After this, the government must not be late in taking action and must be responsive,” he said.

Reza Maulana, chairman of the humanitarian organization Geutanyoe Foundation, said representatives of the fishing community were pushing for the Rohingya to be taken to shore on Wednesday.

“As we speak the boat has not been towed, but it will likely be pulled to the coast today. Maybe tonight if possible,” he told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.

Reza said contrary to previous reports, the boat did not have a leak, but its engine stalled. Bad weather including thunderstorms had caused the boat to take on water, creating a danger of capsizing.

The Rohingya will be under the care of the UNHCR pending verification of their refugee status, according to Reza.

Meanwhile, the Maritime Security Agency (Bakamla) said aid supplies including food, fuel, clothing and medicines had been delivered to the boat.

“The assistance was delivered directly to the Lhokseumawe naval base commander and the police,” Bakamla said in a written statement.

‘Matter of life and death’

Amnesty International welcomed the government’s decision to take in the Rohingya, saying it was in line with the country’s international obligations.

“We really hope that the refugees will immediately get basic services after going through dangerous and exhausting conditions while at sea, including health, food and psychological counseling,” Usman Hamid, Amnesty’s executive director in Indonesia, told BenarNews.

Based on a 2016 presidential regulation, the Indonesian government has an obligation to rescue refugees who are in distress, Armed said.

 Usman said the government should have taken swifter action.

“Every hour is a matter of life and death at sea,” he said.

Since a brutal crackdown by security forces in Myanmar’s Rakhine state against the Rohingya in 2017, hundreds have paid traffickers to transport them to Thailand and Malaysia. The Rohingya hope to find work away from Myanmar or crowded refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh.

Since the 2017 crackdown, about 740,000 Rohingya who fled Myanmar settled in camps in and around Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar, now home to about 1 million of the refugees.

Over the years, groups of Rohingya have packed into boats and sailed off in search of asylum in other countries, but have often been refused entry.

As of October, at least 665 Rohingya ended up stranded in Indonesia on their way to third countries including Malaysia and Australia, according to UNHCR.

Indonesia is not a party to the U.N.’s 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. It prohibits refugees from obtaining jobs and attending formal schools.

Reported by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.

Authorities harassed about 60 followers of the Montagnard Evangelical Church of Christ as they prepared to celebrate Christmas in Phu Yen province on Vietnam’s south-central coast, confiscating a banner and beating the pastor, members of the church in Ea Lam village said.

The authorities have accused the church of wanting to overthrow the government. though church members deny the allegation.

Police first assaulted and detained Y Cuon Nie, the church’s pastor and a missionary, on Dec. 22 while he was at a printing shop to make the celebratory banners.

“When I was at Viet Long Printers to make a Christmas banner costing 240,000 dong [U.S. $11], they came, confiscated it, and hit me on my back. They took me to the headquarters of Tan Lap town’s police, saying it was not permitted,” he told RFA on Monday.

Authorities, who arrested Nie at 2:30 p.m. that day, did not release him until five hours later, he said.

On Christmas Eve, when Nie and church members were holding a Christmas ceremony in his home, police led by Lieutenant Colonel Dinh Ngoc Dan entered and demanded that they stop.

“At around 10 p.m. Lieutenant Colonel Dinh Ngoc Dan came to my place and said, ‘Stop it all! What are you doing? Who allowed you to do this?’” Nie said. “He shouted. He did not respect the host, and he noisily disrupted our ceremony.”

The police official threatened Nie and took him to the Song Hinh district station for questioning.

When contacted by RFA, the Song Hinh district police denied harassing the members of the church.

“You’d better contact the People’s Committee,” said an officer who did not give his name, referring to the provincial subordinate of the Communist Party of Vietnam.

“We police did not carry out any crackdown at all,” he said. “Not only in Song Hinh district but also in the whole country, our religious policy is very clear and favorable for religious practitioners. If they want to make complaints or petitions, they should write to the [relevant] agencies.”

RFA contacted To Van Giang, chief of staff of Song Hinh district’s Fatherland Front Committee, an umbrella group of mass movements in Vietnam aligned with the country’s Communist Party, but he said he was busy with a meeting. He could not be reached again later in the day.

Vietnam’s constitution mandates protection for religious freedom and states that citizens can follow any religion or none. But it also permits authorities to override rights including religious freedom for purposes of national security, social order, social morality and community well-being.

The country’s Law on Belief and Religion, which went into effect in early 2018, requires religious communities to formally register their organizations and places of worship, though only organizations that have operated for at least five years can apply for registration. Once registered, the organizations are granted status as legal entities.

Nie said that his religious group tried to meet the requirements for registering under the law, but that he had not received any responses from authorities during the past few years.

In the meantime, police had pressured church members to renounce their religion, he said.

RFA reported in January that local authorities from the Ea Lam commune and Song Hinh district forced members of the church to publicly denounce their faith in front of other villagers.

A Dao, a former pastor of the Montagnard Evangelical Church of Christ, was arrested in August 2016 when returning from a conference on East Timorese religious freedom. He was tried and sentenced to five years in prison in neighboring Gia Lai province for helping individuals to escape abroad illegally. In September 2020, he was released to exile in the United States after serving nearly four years in prison.

“Authorities continued to actively persecute independent religious minority communities, including Protestant Hmong and Montagnard Christians, Hoa Hao Buddhists, the Unified Buddhists, Cao Dai followers, Catholics, and Falun Gong practitioners,” said the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom about Vietnam in its annual report issued in April.

“Ethnic minority communities faced especially egregious persecution for the peaceful practice of their faith, including physical assault, banishment, detention, imprisonment, and forced renunciation of faith,” the report said.

By the end of 2020, the Vietnamese government officially recognized 16 religions and 43 religious organizations, although many groups refused to register out of fear of persecution or concern for their independence, the commission said.

Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

The Lao government has stepped up its crackdown on corruption by expelling state employees in Bokeo province from the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party, the country’s sole political party.

A state inspector’s office review of investment projects this year in the northern province found that some projects were paid for by money embezzled from the state fund. One project uncovered by the review involved 17 employees and nearly 2 trillion kip (U.S. $176 million) in government money.

Eight of the employees were disciplined, demoted and prohibited from working for the party. The other nine were expelled from the party, a Bokeo official said.

“Projects valued at less than 20 billion kip [U.S. $1.8 million] are approved by the National Assembly, and they are to promote or train village authorities or villagers in the target areas of agriculture and animal raising,” the official said.

The effort to weed out corruption in Bokeo, the smallest and least populous province in the country, is part of a larger campaign to crack down on graft in Laos.

Prime Minister Phankham Viphavanh pledged to stamp out corruption, bribery, fraud and other malfeasance by state officials in a speech to the Lao National Assembly in August. He asked lawmakers and members of the public to monitor officials’ performance and to report wrongdoings.

The country’s National Assembly is largely a rubber-stamp parliament that approves the party’s decisions. The party has a constitutionally guaranteed monopoly on state power and maintains centralized control over the economy and military.

Corruption is believed to exist at every level of government in Laos. It is difficult to uproot because it has become part of the country’s culture. In the past, employees who have taken bribes or siphoned off money from government projects have been demoted or transferred to other positions, not kicked out of the party.

Those who control the funds at the provincial level pocket about 10-20% of the money they receive from the Finance Ministry. They file false reports showing the money went to other projects in an effort to account for the discrepancies, the official said.

Villagers who lose out when officials steal money from program funds want authorities to crackdown on corrupt government workers. One villager in Bokeo province told RFA that he would like bad actors to serve jail time, whereas typically they receive little more than a slap on the wrist.

Another villager agreed that stronger disciplinary measures must be taken.

“For the problem to be resolved, corruption must come down, but it isn’t,” he told RFA.
A third villager agreed that the government should be stricter in punishing state employees found to be corrupt.

“If the government intends to crack down on corruption as it said it would, then it’s good thing, but as we see now there are a lot of state employees who take bribes from concessions under the table,” said the man, who declined to be named for safety reasons.

In September, the Finance Ministry disciplined two state employees from the Tax Department in Hua Phanh province for corruption. The workers — the head of the department and the deputy — were demoted but did not serve any jail time.

In 2020, the Office of the Inspector General and a central government anti-corruption unit investigated 650 state projects throughout Laos and found that many did not comply with government rules and regulation, resulting in nearly 1.6 trillion kip (U.S. $141 million) in lost revenue. The investigators determined that two dozen people were involved in corruption, 16 of whom were state employees.

Berlin-based Transparency International’s 2020 Corruption Perceptions Index ranked Laos 134 of 180 countries it evaluated in fighting corruption.

Reported by RFA’s Lao Service. Translated by Sidney Khotpanya. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Authorities in the northeastern Chinese city of Hegang have announced a hiring freeze as the city faces massive debt, amid an inability to fully pay those already on its payroll.

“Due to the Hegang municipal government’s fiscal readjustment in the face of major changes in the fiscal situation … [we are] canceling grass-roots recruitment of employees for government departments,” the city government’s human resources department said in a social media post last week.

The post was deleted over the weekend after it prompted massive comment and speculation on Chinese social media platforms,

Hegang’s finances have been in severe difficulty for some time, with spending cuts introduced in June 2021 in a bid to contain the problem, which has been exacerbated by the recent closures of coal mines, the city’s former industrial base.

The news comes amid growing interest in civil service jobs in China, with an increase of nearly a quarter in national civil service examination registrations in 2021, compared with last year.

And Hegang isn’t the only local government in potential trouble. Every province except Shaanxi had seen a rise in its debt-to-GDP ratio by June 2020, the South China Morning Post cited official figures as saying.

Last September, a Goldman Sachs report said local government debt had risen to some 52 percent of GDP, with 53 trillion yuan owed via local government financing vehicles at the end of 2020.

Chinese current affairs commentator Li Li said Hegang has also had to contend with falling property prices and high unemployment in the past year, while the government has already cut civil service salaries in a bid to keep existing staff.

“Civil servant salary cuts are happening everywhere this year,” Li said. “Hegang is remote and the economy underdeveloped, and property is going for a song; you can barely give it away.”

‘Tip of the iceberg’

Li warned: “Hegang is just the tip of the iceberg; the economy is doing so badly across the whole country right now; it’s unbelievable.”

Current affairs commentator Xiang Wei said Hegang is likely on the verge of bankruptcy.

“There’s been the decline in housing prices, the civil servant hiring freeze, and even cuts in the number of existing civil servants,” Xiang told RFA. “This all indicates financial difficulties.”

“Hegang is on the verge of bankruptcy right now.”

Hegang currently has a population of 980,000, with debts amounting to more than 13.1 billion yuan last year, an increase of more than 1.5 billion yuan over the previous year, making a per capita debt of 13,000 yuan.

Wang Jing, a resident of the northeastern province of Jilin, said the region’s retail and service industries have been decimated by the COVID-19 pandemic, causing local government tax revenues to plummet.

“The economy has been in recession since the pandemic, as everything started to shut down, and employers have been unable to pay wages,” Wang said. “The real estate market is collapsing, and local governments are in deficit, hence the layoffs.”

Hegang’s difficulties come amid civil servant wage cuts in Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Guangdong, and Shanghai. with the salary of a Shanghai police station chief slashed from 350,000 yuan per annum to 200,000 yuan this year.

Social media posts have reported that Shanghai, Jiangxi, Henan, Shandong, Chongqing, Hubei and Guangdong have all suspended civil servant bonuses or asked employees to repay them, while housing subsidies and performance bonuses were rolled back in Guangdong’s Chaozhou and Shanwei cities.

Tight finances after pandemic

Writer and researcher Tan Zuoren said he could confirm the reports.

“Civil servant performance bonuses have been canceled or even reclaimed in around seven, eight or 10 provinces, with some officials ordered to return bonuses already paid out,” Tan said.

“Government finances are pretty tight, for a number of reasons … especially the pandemic, which has caused a fall in tax revenues and increased expenditure at the same time,” he said.

Commentator Rao Yiming said that will leave more than 80 percent of civil servants on a basic wage of 3,000-5,000 a month, shorn of the many bonuses and housing subsidies that made their lives more comfortable.

“Performance and subsidies account for more than 60 percent of civil servants’ income, so this will widens the income gap between coastal and inland civil servants,” Rao said.

“The southeast coast has ample financial resources, and it’s not uncommon for civil servants in that region to receive year-end performance awards of 100,000-200,000 yuan, while some counties and cities in the [poorer] central and western regions in financial difficulties will only pay out between 3,000 and 50,000 yuan, and some nothing at all,” he wrote in a recent commentary for RFA’s Mandarin Service.

Scholar Li Ang said the current belt-tightening will mean that the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will prioritize paying military and police salaries, while the income of other civil servants could drop at any time.

“They give priority to the army and the police,” Li said. “If they don’t, then they may not be able to maintain social stability.”

“Ordinary civil servants protesting or criticizing them won’t do them any harm.”

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

U.S. President Joe Biden has signed a defense policy bill for fiscal year 2022 that would help boost Taiwan’s defense capabilities and permit the island to be invited to the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) military exercise this summer.

Both chambers of the U.S. Congress earlier voted in support of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which defines the country’s defense policy and budget. Biden signed the US$768.2 billion-act into law on Monday.

The bill contains specific sections on defense relations with Taiwan and suggests “conducting practical training and military exercises with Taiwan, including, as appropriate, inviting Taiwan to participate in the Rim of the Pacific exercise conducted in 2022.”

RIMPAC is the world’s largest multi-national maritime warfare exercise held every two years since 1974. Before that it was held annually. The exercise is hosted by the U.S. Navy’s Indo-Pacific Command and joined by navies from about two dozen countries.

A number of Southeast Asian countries have been invited. China took part in 2014 and 2016, when U.S.-China relations were more cordial.

Taiwan has yet to comment on the prospect of joining RIMPAC – a step that would rile China. Earlier in December, before the NDAA became law, Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng indicated that Taiwan needed to have an internal discussion on the applicability of the bill to Taiwan. He said Taiwan would utilize and evaluate what it could benefit from.

Collin Koh, a research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) in Singapore, said an invitation to Taiwan to attend RIMPAC would bear a great significance, and not only in the defense terms.

“Unlike visits to Taiwan by U.S. policymakers, and vice versa, as well as the defense exchanges that take place much behind the scenes, RIMPAC is a high-profile international naval exercise that’ll significantly raise Taiwan’s profile,” Koh said.

“If it’s allowed to send not just observers but take part as a full participant – meaning sending ships, and this will become a major show of flag opportunity for Taiwan,” he added.

But Koh warned that if Taiwan is invited as a full participant, “some other countries may decide not to participate out of fear of offending Beijing. So the talk about having Taiwan in RIMPAC is more complicated than we imagine.”

Bolstering Taiwan self-defense

China considers Taiwan a breakaway province and vows to reunite it with the mainland, by force if necessary. Chinese military activity in the Taiwan Strait has intensified in recent months, with hundreds of military aircraft sorties into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) in what observers see as an intimidation campaign.

Ely Ratner, U.S. assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs, told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing earlier this month that “bolstering Taiwan’s self-defenses is an urgent task and an essential feature of deterrence.”

Some other sections in the newly signed bill recommend building up Taiwan’s asymmetric defenses, including “coastal defense missiles, naval mines, anti-aircraft capabilities, cyber defenses, and special operations forces.” Asymmetric defense refers to the ability to defend against a more powerful adversary.

The bill says “it shall be the policy of the United States to maintain the capacity of the United States to resist a fait accompli that would jeopardize the security of the people on Taiwan.”

The term “fait accompli” refers to the resort to force by China to “invade and seize control of Taiwan before the United States can respond effectively.”

The U.S. secretary of defense is requested to submit a report by Feb. 15, 2022, on the “feasibility and advisability” of enhanced cooperation between the U.S. National Guard and Taiwan.

Until now, the U.S. military hasn’t conducted any bilateral and joint exercise with Taiwan but it was reported in October that a number of U.S. military trainers have been deployed in the island for at least a year.

U.S. troops have not been permanently based on the island since Washington established diplomatic relations with Beijing in 1979.

The U.S. is Taiwan’s largest arms supplier with agreed deals worth more than $23 billion since 2010.