Day: October 10, 2022

Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen fired his agriculture minister over the weekend, following the loss of tens of thousands of hectares of rice paddies and other crops in torrential flooding — a move farm groups welcomed Monday as a sign of more government attention to their plight.

Agriculture Minister Veng Sakhon was replaced  on Saturday by Aun Pornmoniroth, deputy prime minister and minister of economy and finance, who is now also acting minister of agriculture. 

“I call for an urgent cooperation between the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and subnational authorities such as the National Disaster Management Committee to jointly make assessments on the scale of the damage and to prepare for transporting rice seeds and other plant seeds to be distributed to target areas,” Hun San said in a public audio message on Oct. 8. “It is a necessity, and we have to do it urgently.”

A royal decree dated Oct. 8 and signed by King Norodom Sihamoni formally terminated Veng Sakhon without providing a reason and said that Hun Sen was in charge of implementing the decree.

Farm groups and civil society activists welcomed the firing, and urged Hun Sen and the ruling Cambodian People’s Party to take similar actions with senior officials at other ministries who have been inactive and not responsive to the needs of the people.

Theng Savoeun, president of the Coalition of Cambodian Farmer Community, noted that Hun Sen warned Veng Sakhon about his inaction on several occasions. 

His sacking “could relate to several factors that some of our farmers are facing with issues of lacking access to market, while others have been affected by the floods without proper intervention, [and] the failure to help provide seeds to farmers in times of need,” he told RFAs. “It shows the lack of responsibility during his term.” 

Theng Savoeun urged the government to consider sacking other officials at the Agriculture Ministry who are not performing their duties. 

Devastating floods caused by torrential rains following a severe drought in the Southeast Asian nation have destroyed almost 24,700 hectares of rice fields nationwide, according to a report by the National Disaster Management Committee (NDMC). More than 770 communes in 22 provinces across Cambodia had been affected, especially in the northern part of the country.  

Additionally, the floods damaged more than 133,230 hectares of rice paddy fields and nearly 11,850 hectares of mixed crops, the NDMC said. At least 20 people have died, and over 1,700 families have had to be evacuated.

The NDMC said the rainy season, which usually ends in October, would continue until December this year due to the La Nina phenomenon that cools ocean surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean and results in heavy rains in Southeast Asia every three to five years.

The situation hasn’t boded well for farmers, hit hard first by the drought and now by heavy rains and flooding, given that agricultural activities are the main source of income for many Cambodians living in rural areas.

Hun Sen requested that Heng Samrin, president of the National Assembly, arrange a vote of confidence for Dith Tyna, the current secretary of state of the Ministry of Mines and Energy, to be the new agriculture minister. 

Yang Saing Koma, an agriculture expert-turned-politician and the current chairman of the board of directors of the Grassroots Democracy Party, told RFA that Veng Sakhon appeared to be out of touch and had difficulty working with civil society and political parties. 

“It reflects the reality not just inside the Ministry of Agriculture,” he said. “Likewise, it happens among other ministries. It is just the fact that the Agriculture Ministry plays a vital role in Cambodia given the fact that it relates to so many people who are farmers and to the country’s economy,” he said.

RFA could not reach Veng Sakhon for comment. 

Veng Sakhon faced criticism for irregularities during the bidding of licenses for importing pork to local markets and the seizure of thousands of acres of forest land by the wealthy around Lake Tonle Sap for their personal interest or ownership. 

The former minister also was involved in granting protected land near the Phnom Tamao Zoo to a private company for development, resulting in the clearance of several hectares of protected forest land. The project was later revoked by Hun Sen following public outcry on social media. 

Translated by Sovannarith Keo for RFA Khmer. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Vietnam’s human rights record is grim. There are now over 150 political prisoners, and the regime is showing even less tolerance of dissent than before. But a recent spate of arrests is revealing one thing: the political elite’s fear of public mockery, as it’s hard to rule an authoritarian system when people have no fear of laughing at the leadership. As Mark Twain said, “Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.”

The Envelope

It was there for everyone to see and to quickly spread like wildfire across Vietnam’s vibrant and 60-million strong FaceBook community. 

Projected onto a screen that served as a backdrop to the 17 September 2022 Ministry of Health-sponsored event at Hanoi Medical University was the ministry’s logo, the familiar snake wrapped around a lancet. 

But this logo was different, for in the snake’s mouth was an envelope. And no one in Vietnam needs to be told what the envelope symbolizes. Even the state-owned media covered it without comment. 

In the eyes of the public that is inured to government corruption, the Ministry of Health’s recent scandals have made them a poster child for government graft and a distinct object of derision.

Earlier this year, a major bribery scandal involving Covid-19 test kits, brought down two members of the Communist Party’s elite Central Committee, including a former Minister of Health. Over 20 other officials in the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and within the esteemed People’s Army’s medical establishment were felled in the $22 million bribery scandal. The current Minister of Health was formally reprimanded for his lax management.

While a $22 million bribery scandal is not unusual in Vietnam anymore, the fact that it touched the VCP General Secretary who awarded the firm a commendation, and so many other senior officials across the government and military, was. This scandal exposed rot across the government. 

Police were immediately dispatched to find who replaced the logo, and no doubt someone will be severely punished for this transgression because nothing threatens an authoritarian regime more than people laughing at them.

Onion Leaf Bae

Mockery is costly in Vietnam. Just ask “Onion Leaf Bae,” a noodle seller in Da Nang, who  recently ran afoul of the authorities for his satirical performance that poked fun at To Lam, the Minister of Public Security.

In November 2021, after placing a wreath at the tomb of Karl Marx in London, To Lam and his entourage were filmed being personally served gold-encrusted steaks by the flamboyant Turkish restauranteur Nusret Gökçe. “Salt Bae”, as Gökçe is known, is filmed with his trademark black sunglasses and black latex gloves theatrically cutting and spicing the $2,000 steaks, that he served Lam on a skewer. 

Bui Tuan Lam donned the ubiquitous black latex gloves and sunglasses and filmed himself imitating Salt Bae as he spiced his noodles, just days after the Minister’s expose. He posted the video on 11 November 2021, and after a police summons, took the video down from his TikTok account. But the video, which generated howls of laughter across the country, spread across FaceBook. 

Police arrested Lam, no relation to the minister, who called himself “Onion Leaf Bae”, in September 2022. He was charged under Article 117 of the Penal Code, for “creating, storing, and disseminating materials and items against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.” According to the state media, Lam had been actively posting seditious material online after the video incident. 

Without a doubt, the Minister of Public Security was taken to task within the corridors of power  not for eating a $2,000 steak in a country whose average per capita income in 2021 was a mere $3,694, but for being filmed doing so. 

Lam, who is serving on his second politburo and is eligible to succeed the current VCP General Secretary, may have taken himself out of contention with this lack of discretion. And after shining an unwelcome light on the entire senior party leadership, To Lam maintained a pretty low profile throughout much of 2022. 

While the government will point to Lam’s involvement in online discussions that “violated his democratic freedoms”, most people will conclude that the Minister of Public Security used all the coercive powers that he has at his disposal to target the noodle seller. While a private rebuke from the General Secretary was inevitable, what was intolerable was public mockery.

The Gamer

The ridicule doesn’t have to be well planned; authorities fear spontaneous acts of derision as well. In September 2022, a popular 22-year-old gamer, Nguyen Thi Thanh Loan, who goes by her handle Milon, made casual remarks during a live session on the FaceBook gaming platform, League of Legends.

“But I’m sure the Presidents don’t do anything all day at home, they watch 18+ movies, so they’re all bald,” she said in a clear reference to President Nguyen Xuan Phuc, who’s known for his comb-over. Perhaps catching herself, “The head still has hair, the head still has a few strands of hair, right??” But she continued: “Why don’t you do anything, just stay at home all day watching 18+ movies.”

Her offhand remark went viral on Facebook.  And while police did not arrest her, Loan was fined and put on notice. So was everyone else who had a laugh at Phuc’s expense. 

Breaking the Barrier of Fear

The Vietnam People’s Army employs the 10,000-man Force-47, which is charged with both amplifying pro-government and party sites and postings, and trolling dissenters and critics. It is both an influencer and a cyber watchdog. Their most recent task has been to deal with a spate of public ridicule.

And it makes sense because humor works. Criticizing government policies will only get you so far; eyes glaze over legal or historical analyses, but humor goes viral. Vietnam’s netizens already have a rich satirical meme culture. If people can’t stop the corruption, they can laugh at it.

As former Serbian protestors, Srdja Popovic and Mladen Joksik, wrote in Foreign Policy back in 2013: “Today’s protestors understand that humor offers a low-cost point of entry for ordinary citizens who don’t consider themselves particularly political, but are sick and tired of dictatorship. Make a protest fun, and people don’t want to miss out on the action.”

Authoritarian regimes routinely use a range of coercive measures to deter dissent and sew fear amongst the public. Once the public loses that fear and starts to mock their leaders, it could be over faster than Salt Bae cuts up a gold-covered steak.

Zachary Abuza is a professor at the National War College in Washington and an adjunct at Georgetown University. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of the U.S. Department of Defense, the National War College, Georgetown University or RFA.

Lina Lenberg completed a Ph.D. program in May at the University of San Francisco, where she studied and wrote about genocide against the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region and the Uyghur diaspora’s resistance to Chinese state violence. Lenberg’s work is the first academic dissertation in the West that is solely dedicated to the Uyghur crisis. An educator for over 20 years and Northern California representative for the group Human Rights Educators USA, Lenberg recently spoke to reporter Kurban Niyaz of RFA Uyghur about her dissertation and activities on behalf of the Uyghurs. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

RFA: What inspired you to work on this topic?

Lenberg: I used to work at an international school in San Francisco, and we had lots of Chinese students and other students from different countries. There was a year when two Uyghur brothers came with Chinese passports. I had traveled to China, but at the time, I didn’t know anything about Uyghurs. So, I just started talking to them and asking [questions]. I didn’t know that there was this ethnic group in China. I was only familiar with Han [Chinese]. I had heard about Tibet by that point, but I had never heard of Uyghurs, and I didn’t know anything about Xinjiang. 

I started hearing more and more about some of the struggles that their families had experienced that they themselves as kids had experienced with their Han Chinese classmates. I became interested in wanting to learn more. As I met more Uyghur adults in the Bay Area who were connected to these students and to other people, I started to hear these stories of incredible discrimination and oppression. This was before anyone was talking about the genocide. I then went back to school in 2016 to do my doctorate in human rights education. As a human rights educator, I really teach all about social justice. All my students know about Uyghurs now. 

In 2017, all the news started to come out about the camps and everything else. I’ve been very closely following all of this news since 2017. [When] I decided that I had to write my dissertation, I felt like there was not enough attention being given to this issue. China continues to deny everything, so I felt an obligation to the Uyghur community here, who have become my friends, and to myself [as] a Jewish person born in Russia who came to the U.S. as a child because of my own family’s religious persecution. And [with] the Holocaust, I grew up hearing, “Never again!” and here we are, and it’s happening [again]. I hope my dissertation can be used as a piece of advocacy. 

RFA: When we talk about a genocide, most people tend to link it with mass murder similar to what occurred during World War II. But considering the lack of evidence of mass murder in the Uyghur region, some experts decline to call it a genocide. What do you think about this? 

Lenberg: That’s wrong. That is incorrect because [it fits] the internationally accepted definition of genocide, which is what the United Nations created after the Holocaust intentionally to prevent these things from happening again. The Genocide Convention [contains] the internationally accepted definition of genocide, to which China is a signatory. The Genocide Convention [has] a list of things that can be considered genocide, and we can see that all of the things on the list right now are being committed in China. I think people have a common misconception that genocide simply means the mass killing of people, but in fact, it’s any act or set of acts which are intended to destroy an ethnic group. 

Here again it’s the same pattern of dispossession, oppression, and destruction of an ethnic group. China is doing it not only by separating children and families and controlling the population, but also the destruction of Uyghur culture. This is something I feel like people don’t talk about. There’s a lot of discussion about forced labor and things having to do with economic issues. But if we look at what is going on and what has been going on for years, there’s a clear intentional destruction of Uyghur culture and identity [with] the destruction of mosques and cemeteries, the limiting of the naming of children, the prohibition of doing anything related to Islam, and not being able to grow a beard — all these things are what I suggest are mechanisms of control of the Uyghur population, social control, and destruction of Uyghur identity, and so that’s also part of genocide.

RFA: What similarities and differences do you see between the Holocaust that occurred 70 years ago and the Uyghur genocide?  

Lenberg: A major difference was that when the Holocaust was happening, a lot of people didn’t know that it was happening and until it was too late. But now the world knows what is happening. There is so much information from scholars, from journalists, from witnesses, from survivors of the camps. There are so many consistent testimonies — hundreds of consistent testimonies — so, I feel like the world has no excuse right now. I feel like there is enough evidence to show that there is genocide [that’s] been ongoing since at least 2017. 

People are denying this because of economic relations with China, particularly connected to the Belt and Road [Initiative]. All the countries in which China has already built infrastructure are now indebted to China. It’s really an issue of denial in favor of economic interests over human rights. It is a very dangerous way for the international community to deal with these kinds of issues.

We can see now that other countries that are allied with China are doing things also with impunity that are causing mass suffering, and I fear that this enables other authoritarian regimes around the world to feel like they can do whatever they want without consequence and with impunity. 

RFA: In your dissertation, you wrote that diaspora Uyghurs believe that China’s genocidal crimes began a relatively long time ago. Why do they believe this?

Lenberg: I completely trust what the Uyghurs in the diaspora are saying, I don’t think that there’s any reason for them to be lying. They are very concerned about their family members, many of whom are still in China, most of whom they cannot communicate with anymore. There’s enough evidence both historically and from the present day that shows that this is China’s goal. It appears that all of these actions that they’re taking within Chinese society indicate that there’s no regard for Uyghur life, culture or identity. 

RFA: Given China’s power and the world’s silence, what can members of the Uyghur diaspora do to try to stop the atrocities?

Lenberg: This brings up a whole other issue, which is the fear of persecution of people’s relatives that are still in East Turkestan. What I’ve heard widely from Uyghurs of the diaspora is that they recognize that their activism, that their resistance to Chinese state violence, is limited by these fears of reprisals against their relatives, and people have been threatened directly, [so that] they stop their political activism. Uyghurs from the diaspora over the world and organizations like the World Uyghurs Congress, Uyghur Human Rights Project and Campaign for 

Uyghurs have been very active in doing what they can by speaking out and organizing protests. We need to really remember that they’re doing it at great risk to themselves and their family members. Diaspora members have been very active in different ways, especially through organizations, to try to raise awareness, to publish reports, to work with the United Nations, to work with different world governments, such as organizing a Uyghur tribunal. All these things have been happening, [but] still, there’s been very little response on the part of the international community.

Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

The rebel Arakan Army fighting Myanmar’s military junta on Monday captured an outpost on the country’s border with Bangladesh, killing 30 soldiers and capturing three more, sources told Radio Free Asia.

The capture of Lake Ya Border Patrol Base in Maungdaw township in northwestern Rakhine state is the second such outpost the rebel group has overrun since fighting between the two sides resumed in July. 

The skirmish is the latest in the on-again, off-again conflict that has been going on for more than a decade, driven by the ethnic Rakhine rebel group’s desire for autonomy.

“We’d been hearing repeated attacks since 2 a.m. – medium and heavy artillery – until dawn. The Arakan Army was attacking Lake Ya base, which isn’t very large,” a local source told RFA’s Burmese Service, asking for anonymity for fear of persecution, adding that the rebel group had captured the outpost‘s commander and some police.

Arakan Army spokesperson Khine Thukha confirmed the base’s capture with local media, saying 30 junta soldiers were killed, including the deputy commander. A press statement from the group released Monday evening said three soldiers had been taken prisoner, and added that the base was for soldiers who manned artillery.

The junta has yet to issue a statement on the attack.

Fighting between the two sides resumed after a two-year lull on July 18 in Maungdaw township, and has since spread to Buthidaung, Rathedaung, Minbyar, Mrauk-U and Taungoke townships in Rakhine State and Paletwa township in Chin State. 

The rebel group said in a news release on Oct. 7 that they confronted the military junta in Buthidaung and Minbyar townships during the first week of October in more than 20 battles, killing more than 40 junta soldiers. RFA is still trying to confirm the list of the military junta’s casualties as released by the Arakan Army. 

Sources told RFA that the military is currently attacking areas in the region with artillery.

Also on Monday, Sira Zaw Dein, a 37-year-old Rohingya civilian, died when an artillery strike from the junta’s Maungdaw region Base No. 4 hit his village, according to the Arakan Express News, a local online news agency in Maungdaw.

Translated by Myo Min Aung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

A North Korean order that citizens fly the national flag at their homes for the ruling party’s 77th anniversary on Monday has triggered complaints about the financial burden of buying flags when people can’t afford food, sources in the country told RFA.

North Korea has flown the blue-and-red-striped flag with the red star emblem since its establishment in 1948, and Monday marks the 77th anniversary of the 1945 formation of the precursor to the ruling Korean Workers’ Party.

Ahead of the anniversary, citizens who do not own flags had to buy one to comply with the order, a resident of the capital Pyongyang told RFA’s Korean Service last week on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

“The residents of Pyongyang were told to put up the national flag in their homes on the upcoming Party Foundation Day [on October 10],” she said. “The order was delivered by a party official during a lecture where the theme was “putting our nation first means putting our great leader [Kim Jong Un] first.”

Flying the flag at government buildings, law enforcement agencies and state-run factories has been standard procedure in North Korea, but sources told RFA that this is the first time that the authorities are making the citizens join them in the act of forced patriotism.

“From now on, Pyongyang citizens will have to raise the flag on their homes whenever there is a national holiday or major anniversary. The citizens will have to buy the flags themselves,” said the source.

The flags are available only at state-run stores and department stores. Small paper flags can cost 1,000 won (U.S.$0.12) and large cloth flags can cost about 10,000 won ($1.20). The average North Korean monthly salary is between 5,000 and 10,000 won, according to a report by South Korea-based NK News.

Citizens must raise the flags at their homes two days ahead of Party Foundation Day, a resident of South Pyongan province, north of Pyongyang, told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely.

“Not only for Party Foundation Day, but also when national holidays and anniversaries approach, residents are urged to display the national flag at their homes in recognition for their love of the nation, the flag, and the Highest Dignity,” she said, using an honorific term for Kim Jong Un.

 “When they heard that they would have to go purchase the flags themselves they began to complain, saying ‘Does rice or money fall out of the national flag? It’s hard to make a living right now, so why are the authorities forcing us to buy flags?’” the second source said.

Once the order went public, shops at the Pyongsong marketplace began selling flags, according to the second source.

There are about 10 national holidays each year in North Korea, and these include the birthdays of previous leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, the grandfather and father of Kim Jong Un. 

Authorities will begin asking neighborhood watch unit leaders to report which homes did not raise the flag on each holiday, so they can be punished, according to the source.

Punishment can be as mild as public criticism, but it can also be devastating. In the case of the relatively privileged citizens of Pyongyang, a failure to raise the flag at home can result in banishment from the capital and forced relocation to a rural part of the country.

Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen on Monday called for talks with Beijing on an equal footing and warned the mainland not to misjudge the self-governing island’s willingness to defend itself.

In a speech to mark Taiwan’s National Day, Tsai offered to work with Beijing to ensure peace in the Taiwan Strait, but on the basis of “equality and mutual respect” as a sovereign government, terms that are highly unlikely to be accepted by Beijing.

“Russia continues its war against Ukraine, while China’s military activity in the South China Sea, East China Sea and the Taiwan Strait undermines peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region,” Tsai said in her Oct. 10 holiday address marking the start of a 1911 uprising that led to the establishment of the Republic of China the following year.

“We absolutely cannot ignore the challenge that these military expansions pose to the free and democratic world order. These developments are inextricably connected with Taiwan,” she said.

“We cannot leave things to chance,” Tsai warned. “Instead, we must stand up for our democracy, and prepare prudently and sufficiently to respond to any possible contingency.”

To that end, the Taiwanese president said her government was ramping up production of precision missiles and high-performance naval vessels, as well as acquiring “small, highly mobile precision weapons” to develop asymmetric warfare capabilities.

“The Beijing authorities should not make any misjudgment on account of Taiwan’s vigorous democratic system,” she said.

“They must not mistake that there is room for compromise in the Taiwanese people’s commitment to democracy and freedom, and thus attempt to divide Taiwanese society by exploiting the fierce competition between our political parties.”

Democratic values

Tsai said Taiwan’s protection was key to upholding regional stability and democratic values.

“The destruction of Taiwan’s democracy and freedom would be a grave defeat for the world’s democracies,” Tsai told the island of 23 million who opinion polls show have no wish to be ruled by Beijing.

Tsai’s speech came as Chinese President Xi Jinping gears up to hold his party’s five-yearly national congress, following years of increasingly hard-line rhetoric and military exercises and incursions targeting Taiwan.

Last week, Taiwan’s representative to the United States, Bi-khim Hsiao, told a National Day reception that China’s military exercises are becoming an increasing danger to the people of Taiwan.

“The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has recently begun more dangerous activities around Taiwan that are a threat both to us and to regional security,” she said, adding that the ratcheting up of tensions was in addition to ongoing cyber attacks and political interference from Beijing.

“Taiwan will resolutely defend our sovereignty and security,” Hsiao said. “We won’t provoke, but we will not succumb to coercion.”

Speaking at an Asia Society event in Los Angeles on Friday, former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd also said cross-strait tensions had been exacerbated by the Biden administration’s moves to scrap the longstanding U.S. policy of “strategic ambiguity” over whether it would come to the defense of Taiwan in the case of an attack by Beijing.

Reopening exchanges

Rudd said the “assumption that Uncle Sam is simply there with a universal, unqualified strategic guarantee” to defend Taiwan may lead to a “no-holds-barred primary” in Tsai’s ruling party next year, with candidates tussling to be more anti-Beijing ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

“It’s time for Taiwan to begin thinking about opening up lines of political dialogue with the mainland again,” he said, calling for the United States to take a more background role.

“At present, this relationship is so raw, it is so non-insulated, it is so volatile that whenever there is a problem or a crisis it immediately defaults to the U.S-China relationship, and immediately defaults to the military channel, because there’s no political channel anymore,” he said.

China Studies associate professor Chang Wu-ueh, of Taiwan’s Tamkang University, said now that Taiwan has eased quarantine restrictions on inbound passengers, there could be a growing number of non-government exchanges and contact between the mainland and Taiwan, which could help to ease tensions.

But he said Tsai’s offer of negotiations was unlikely to be well-received in Beijing.

“Non-governmental exchanges, once the border controls are relaxed, are a more feasible option at this stage,” Chang told RFA. “It also demonstrates goodwill to the other side.”

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. Additional reporting by Alex Willemyns.