Day: October 19, 2022

A court in Cambodia sentenced exiled opposition leader Sam Rainsy to life in prison on the same day that it concluded two years of proceedings in the trial of his apparently estranged former ally Kem Sokha.

The two opposition politicians in 2012 co-founded the Cambodia National Rescue Party, or CNRP,  which had been the country’s main opposition to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party, or CPP, before it was legally dissolved in 2017.

Sam Rainsy has lived in self-exile in France since 2015. Kem Sokha, who was arrested in 2017, has been on a trial that started in January 2020 in what critics say is the government’s attempt to keep him out of politics.

Their time apart has apparently taken their toll on their relationship. Kem Sokha in June declared during a session of his trial that his alliance with Sam Rainsy was over, although Sam Rainsy was quick to dismiss the comments as the result of legal pressure.

Wednesday’s life sentence against Sam Rainsy, handed down in absentia, was a result of his conviction in August, also in absentia, for trying to cede four Cambodian provinces to a foreign state. In addition to adding life to the 47 years he has already racked up in prior convictions, the court also removed all his political rights. 

Sam Rainsy’s defense lawyer, Yong Phanith, said the latest verdict was based on insufficient evidence.

The conviction and sentence are in connection with Sam Rainsy’s meeting in the United States in 2013 with the Montagnard Foundation, an organization that works to protect the rights of indigineous minorities in Vietnam, the Bangkok Post reported. Sam Rainsy promised to defend the rights of Cambodian indiginous people during the meeting.

Speaking from France on Wednesday, Sam Rainsy told RFA that the sentence is an example of Hun Sen’s regime attempting to exact revenge on him for his acquittal earlier this month from defamation trials that Hun Sen and another Cambodian official filed in France. Both sides claimed victory in the defamation trials, with Hun Sen saying that they absolved him of crimes that Sam Rainsy alleged he committed.

Sam Rainsy dismissed the charges and sentence as bogus. “I have not ceded territory to any country. I only recognized the rights of the indigenous people we call Khmer Leu in the Northeast of Cambodia,” he said of his 2013 meeting.

“I just took the 2007 U.N. statement on the rights of indigenous people, and I said that in the future, when the country is a true democracy, we will respect the rights of indigenous people,” Sam Rainsy said.

RFA was unable to contact the president of the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, Sin Sovannaroth, for comment.

The sentence is politically motivated, social development monitor Seng Sary told RFA.

“Hun Sen has been doing all this because he wants to kick Sam Rainsy out of politics,” He said. “That court case in France was like pouring gasoline on a fire.”

The conviction and sentence were to be expected from the Cambodian legal system, veteran political analyst Lao Mong Hay told RFA. Authorities use the courts as tools for their political purposes.

End in sight

Kem Sokha on Wednesday asked the court during the 63rd session of his treason trial to issue a verdict and put an end to his suffering. He was previously under house arrest, but was released from that prior to this trial starting.

He was arrested in 2017 after the CNRP performed well in local commune elections, and charged with treason. Cambodia’s Supreme Court dissolved and outlawed the party, which paved the way for the CPP to snag every seat in the country’s National Assembly in the 2018 general election. 

The ban on the CNRP kicked off a five-year crackdown on political opposition, with many of those affiliated with the party arrested and detained on charges like conspiracy, incitement, and treason.

While the court finally decided to end questioning, it asked that any final submissions be made by Dec. 21.

Defense lawyer Chan Chen welcomed the end of the proceedings but expressed regret that the 2-year-long would drag on another two months – and five years since his client’s arrest. 

Now that the trial has a definite ending date, national reconciliation is necessary, Yi Soksan, a senior official of the local Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association (Adhoc) told RFA.

“Both sides should find a common ground to negotiate an end to this political matter,” he said.

Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

An anti-junta group claimed responsibility for bomb blasts at a colonial-era prison in Myanmar’s commercial hub Yangon on Wednesday morning that killed eight people and injured 18 others. 

The Special Task Agency of Burma, an urban rebel group fighting the military dictatorship, announced that it had carried out the attack in which two bombs in parcel packages exploded at Yangon’s notorious Insein Prison. The blasts occurred near an area for receiving packages delivered by the family members of political detainees and were followed by gunfire by junta soldiers.

The explosions killed three prison employees and five visitors, the ruling military junta’s State Administration Council said. Among the 18 injured were five prison staffers and 13 civilians, including two children aged 9 and 17.

The blasts were the latest attack by groups seeking to remove the junta from power following a February 2021 coup in which the military seized control of the democratically elected government. Security forces have fired on and used excessive force to disperse and harm protesters in their widespread assault on civilians who oppose the regime. Local People’s Defense Force, or PDF, militias have teamed up with ethnic armies to fight the junta forces.

To date, more than 2,370 civilians have been killed and 15,901 arrested since the coup took place, according to figures from the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners, a human rights group founded by Burmese former political prisoners living in exile in Thailand.

Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, the Yangon-based anti-junta protest group General Strike Committee and other activist groups condemned the attacks and called for those responsible to be held to account.

“Whoever did this must be held accountable,” said Kyaw Zaw, a spokesman for the NUG’s Presidential Office, told RFA. “It is completely unacceptable for the family members of political prisoners to set off bombs in the prison while they are in prison. Civilians should not be targeted for any attacks at all.” 

Rebels attack junta convoy

The explosions at the prison came two days after PDF militia members and Karen rebels attacked a military convoy on Monday that was providing security for junta chief Snr. General Min Aung Hlaing, killing 11 regime officials, militia officials and local residents said. The junta chief was visiting local businesses in Hpa-An, in Kayin state, and Mawlamyine, in Mon state.

“They were returning from Mawlamyine, [and] we attacked with landmines followed by a direct assault when they arrived in the Bilin area,” said a Thaton PDF battalion commander who declined to be identified for security reasons. 

San Myint, spokesman for Thaton KNLA Battalion No. 2, said the forces targeted the vehicles carrying high-ranking officers, killing nine junta soldiers at the scene and injuring two others who died at a hospital. 

But Aung Kyi Thein, the junta’s spokesman for Mon state and minister of natural resources and environmental conservation, said only two people died. He said rebels attacked the convoy by detonating handmade landmines and shot 40-millimeter missiles and small arms at the vehicles at the former Shwe Than Lwin toll gate.

RFA has not been able to independently establish the number of casualties. 

A resident who lives near the area where the attack took place told RFA that locals frequently hear battle sounds and fear for their safety. Other residents said battles break out often between the junta and Karen rebels in the Bilin area and that some civilian adults and children have died as a result. 

“I am praying that the battles will not move to our location because many of us work on rubber and betel nut plantations, and we have to go into the woods a lot,” said one resident who requested anonymity for safety reasons. “We are too scared to go there. It’s also dangerous to pass between Thaton and Bilin in the evening from 6 p.m. or 7 p.m. The situation is too risky even to go onto the betel plantation.”

Translated by Myo Min Aung for RFA Burmese. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

A man who was allegedly assaulted in China’s consulate in Manchester during a weekend protest on Wednesday denied claims from the Chinese mission that he had tried to rush into the consulate, as pressure mounted for a tougher response from London. 

China’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday that it had lodged representations with Britain over the incident in the northern English city on Sunday, the first day of the Chinese Communist Party’s 20th National Congress in Beijing, while some British lawmakers called for the expulsion of the diplomats involved.

Video of the incident posted to social media showed a verbal altercation between 30-40 people peacefully protesting outside the consulate in Manchester and a man believed to be a member of consulate staff, who kicked and ripped a protest banner placed on the sidewalk outside the compound gates.

A Hong Kong pro-democracy protester, whom local media identified as Bob Chan, was then dragged into the consulate grounds where he was held to the ground and beaten by four people for more than a minute before a policeman pulled him away from his attackers, he told RFA on Tuesday.

The Manchester Evening News quoted Chan on Wednesday as denying claims by the Chinese mission he was trying to enter the consulate grounds on Sunday and describing being assaulted by men outside the mission.

“I am shocked and hurt by this unprovoked attack. I am shocked because I never thought something like this could have happened in the UK,” he told a news conference in the British Parliament Wednesday.

“I then found myself being dragged into the grounds of the consulate. I held onto the gates where I was kicked and punched, I could not hold on for long, the Evening news quoted him as saying.

“I was eventually pulled onto the ground of the consulate. I felt punches and kicks from several men. Other protestors were trying to get me out of this situation, but to no avail.

“The attack only stopped when a man who turned out to be a uniformed officer from the Greater Manchester Police pulled me outside the gates. Let me say it again so I am clear: I was dragged into the consulate. I did not attempt to enter the consulate.”

Crude anti-Xi language

Chan’s media appearance came after Chinese consul general Zheng Xiyuan revealed to British newspapers The Guardian and the Manchester Evening News on Tuesday the contents of a letter he wrote to the Greater Manchester Police. 

The Guardian quoted Zheng’s letter as saying the protesters had displayed slogans that were “deliberately designed to provoke, harass, alarm and distress our consular staff.” He said the activists were “asked politely” to remove the imagery “but refused to do so”.

The banners included a picture of Chinese President Xi Jinping with a noose around his neck, along with slogans in Chinese saying “God kill CPC (Communist Party of China)” and “[expletive] your mother,” Zheng wrote.

“At one point the consulate grounds were stormed by a group of protesters and members of consular staff were required to physically fend off unauthorised entry and subsequent assaults,” he asserted.

The Evening News quoted Zheng as acknowledging he was involved in the fracas.

Greater Manchester Police as saying no arrests had been made as of Wednesday, the newspaper said.

“Our investigation into the assault of a man after a protest outside the Chinese Consulate in Manchester on Sunday is ongoing with detectives still working meticulously to establish the full circumstances,” quoted a police statement as saying.

“Investigators from our Major Incident Team have been obtaining statements from as many of those involved as possible and continue to review a range of CCTV, police body-worn video and mobile phone footage to assist in capturing a comprehensive understanding of what happened,” it said.

During a regular media briefing in Beijing Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said representations were made over what he described as lawless harassment.

In a sign of how sensitive the issue is for China, the questions and answers on the Manchester incident at foreign ministry press conferences have not appeared in transcripts on the website of the ministry for several days.

Calls for tougher response

In Britain, where the incident sparked a House of Commons hearing, lawmakers have called for the British government to take tougher action, including prosecution or expulsion of any Chinese officials found by investigators to be involved in the attack.

“We cannot allow the Chinese Communist Party to import their beating of protesters and their silencing of free speech … to British soil,” said Alicia Kearns, chair of Parliament’s foreign affairs committee.

Senior British officials at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office summoned China’s charge d’affaires to London, Yang Xiaoguang, about the alleged assault.

Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative party leader, said this was “totally inadequate” and said ministers should tell the Chinese diplomats that “if they do not follow our rules, they get expelled,” according to the Guardian.

The Hong Kong Indigenous Defense Force, an organization of Hong Kongers in the UK,  said it plans to stage a rally in the city center of Manchester on October 23 to show support for the protesters who were attacked and press for British government follow-up on the incident.

A citywide crackdown on dissent in the wake of the 2019 protest movement in Hong Kong, followed by Beijing’s imposition in 2020 of a tough national security law, has led to an exodus of journalists, activists and others from the former British colony.

Chan said the incident wouldn’t stop him from raising his voice about Hong Kong.

“After this incident, I’m now worried about my safety, but it doesn’t mean I won’t stand up and speak my mind. Like I said before, the more you beat me, the more I will come out (and speak), because this is my right, I shouldn’t be punished.”

Written by Paul Eckert.

Pregnancy-related deaths of women and infant mortality still plague some impoverished, rural provinces of Laos, mainly due to a lack of nutrition and access to health care, despite declines in these figures for the entire country, according to Lao health officials and a United Nations agency.

The rate of women who die while giving birth and newborns is pervasive among ethnic citizens who live in rural areas where medical care is scarce, especially in Sekong, Borikhamxay and Luang Prabang provinces, they said. 

The country had an infant mortality rate of 35 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2020, a decline from 52 deaths per 1,000 live births reported a decade earlier, according to data from The United Nations Children’s Fund, or UNICEF.

The country’s maternal mortality ratio — the number of maternal deaths per 100,000 live births — stood at 185 as of 2017, the latest year for which data is available from UNICEF. This figure has also seen a steady drop from 360 deaths per 100,000 live births a decade ago, and 544 in 2000.

Poverty is widespread in Laos, and is especially severe for children from the dozens of ethnic minority groups who live in rural areas, where most families depend on agriculture to make a living and lack access to basic services, including health care, sanitation and food, according to Save The Children. 

As a result, Laos has one of the highest child mortality rates in Southeast Asia, with one child in 22 dying before their fifth birthday — seven times the child mortality rate in the United States, the NGO says.

In the last nine months, five pregnant women died while giving birth, and there were nine infant deaths per 1,000 births, mostly ethnic minority children, in Lanam district, Sekong Province, said a health official there who declined to be identified so as to speak freely.

Pregnant women in the district continue to work long hours in the fields, making them prone to death when it comes time to give birth, she said. Some of the deaths occurred when the women gave birth alone in their huts next to the family rice fields. Others occurred because the women were malnourished.

“Pregnant women work harder than men every day in the fields without rest, and some work requires carrying heavy loads,” the health official said. “Health care workers advise them not to do it, but they still do. [Yet], we try to ask the families not to let pregnant women work in the fields.”

The infant deaths were due to birth defects, from babies not fully developing in their mothers’ wombs and from premature births, sometimes at seven months into the pregnancy, she said. 

“Some were not strong enough when they were born, and they couldn’t drink milk when their mothers breastfed them,” she said.

The high mortality rates for pregnant women and infants mean that Sekong province will not achieve the government’s target of reducing the death rates to zero, said the health official. 

In Borikhamxay district of Borikhamxay province, there were about three infant deaths per 1,000 newborns and one death of a pregnant woman while giving birth in the past nine months, said a health official from the district. 

“The infant deaths were due to premature births, and the woman died after giving birth at a hospital because she worked too hard in the fields while pregnant,” the official said.

In Phonthong district of Luang Prabang province, one ethnic Hmong woman died while giving birth and two infants passed away since the beginning of the year until October, said a district health official. 

“This is the first case that a pregnant woman has died while giving birth, and it is very sad that she arrived at the hospital too late,” the official said. “We used to advise them [pregnant women] to come early, but they didn’t do it because they live in remote areas.”

The provincial Health Department’s target is to get the death rate down to zero, but “we are short of the target,” said the official.

About 70 percent of the population in Luang Prabang province comes from ethnic minority groups, many of whom live in remote mountainous areas without access to local health services or trained midwives, according to Save The Children. 

Families in these communities are less aware of what pregnant women, newborns and young children need to stay healthy and grow well, says the NGO, which equips remote health centers with essential medical equipment and supports mobile health clinics so they can reach isolated communities.

Save the Children also raises awareness about how pregnant mothers and babies can stay healthy through nutrition, better sanitation and regular health checks.  

Translated by Sidney Khotpanya for RFA Lao. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

A rare public protest on the eve of the Chinese Communist Party Congress calling for Chinese President Xi Jinping to step down tapped into the government’s deepest fears of dissent and public opposition. The jab at Xi and his harsh zero-COVID policies, displayed on two banners hung on the Sitong traffic overpass in Beijing, resonated with many Chinese and was swiftly scrubbed from the country’s internet. Xi’s keynote speech to the congress set a record for the number of mentions of “security.”

Myanmar’s shadow government and rights groups are voicing alarm over reports that military defectors were among 150 Myanmar nationals deported this month from Malaysia.

Malaysian authorities arrested six former Myanmar navy officers in September and deported them Oct. 6, Reuters reported Wednesday. At least four of those deported sought U.N. refugee status in Malaysia, and one officer and his wife were detained upon arrival in Yangon, it said.

Two sources in Malaysia confirmed the deportation of military defectors to RFA-affiliated media outlet BenarNews, speaking on condition of anonymity out of concern they could face retribution from the Malaysian government.

“Yes, it’s true,” they said, while declining to offer further details.

Myanmar’s embassy in Kuala Lumpur had announced that 150 Myanmar nationals “detained under Malaysian immigrant law for a long period of time” were brought back to Myanmar on Oct. 6 on a chartered flight. It did not mention former naval officers.

Another 149 Myanmar nationals were deported on Sept. 22, 2022, according to another notice on the embassy’s Facebook page.

Responding to Wednesday’s reports, Aung Myo Min, human rights minister for Myanmar’s parallel, civilian National Unity Government, called on Malaysia to immediately cease its deportation of those at risk of imprisonment upon their return.

“One branch of Malaysia’s government should not be urging the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to act against Myanmar’s junta while another refuses to assist its people,” he told RFA Burmese.

“The government should be acting in unity to support democracy in Myanmar,” he said. “We will continue to engage with Malaysia’s government and call on Kuala Lumpur to stop putting Myanmar’s activists in danger,”

The regular deportations and sending back of military defectors appear sharply at odds with Malaysia’s public stance condemning the 2021 military coup, and the violence Myanmar’s junta has perpetrated on civilians who oppose it.

Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah has been seen as the region’s most outspoken critic of Myanmar and the biggest ally of the National Unity Government.

Saifuddin was the first ASEAN foreign minister to contact Myanmar’s shadow government, publicly meet with its foreign minister and push for the regional bloc to actively engage with it.

BenarNews contacted multiple government sources about whether former Myanmar military officers were deported on Oct. 6. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it could not verify the report.

The director general of Malaysia’s immigration department replied “no comment,” while Saifuddin and his aide did not reply when BenarNews attempted to contact them.

‘Double standard’ on Myanmar

Speaking to RFA Burmese, Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of New York-based Human Rights Watch, called Malaysia’s deportation of refugees and asylum seekers to Myanmar “outrageous and unacceptable,” noting that they are likely to be immediately jailed by the junta upon their return.

“The fact that a number of these Navy defectors were sent back, you know, really puts them in serious danger,” he said.

“Our concern is that there is a double standard going on here that on one hand the Malaysian government claims that it cares about the Myanmar people and that it cares about democracy and human rights in Myanmar,” he said. “But then on the other hand other parts of the Malaysian government are working very closely with the military junta.”

He urged the Malaysian government to end its deportation of Myanmar nationals and to allow the U.N. Refugee Office, or UNHCR, access to immigration detention centers so that they can identify those in need of protection.

“The Malaysian government has denied access to UNHCR to go into those areas since August 2019 and that’s unacceptable,” he said.

Robertson also called for third countries to negotiate agreements that would allow some refugees and asylum seekers from Myanmar to seek protection elsewhere, if Malaysia is unwilling to take them in.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news outlet.