Day: March 14, 2023

Activists and refugees are doubting that a pilot project to repatriate about 1,000 Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh to Myanmar will be successful.

The project, a result of negotiations between Myanmar’s military junta, Bangladesh and China, would bring returnees through two reentry centers in Ngar Khu Ya and Hla Pho Khaung in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state. 

But the military junta is really just responding to China’s diplomatic coercion in promoting the pilot project, said Nay San Lwin, an activist and co-founder of the Free Rohingya Coalition. The returnees will likely end up staying in the centers for years, he said.

“The junta is implementing the repatriation program just to look good in the international community, as there was some China-pressure as well,” he said.

Other activists pointed to a lack of political stability in Myanmar, where a military junta has ruled since a coup d’etat in February 2021.

Rohingyas will only return if they can go back to their original locations and are guaranteed the right to citizenship, freedom of travel and equal rights with other ethnicities, a Rohingya living in Cox’s Bazar refugee camp said on condition of anonymity.

“We must get back the farms that we originally had. We must be placed back in our original location,” the source said. “We are ready to return if these requirements are met and if we are treated as equal citizens.”

‘True good will’

The camps in Cox’s Bazar, a southeastern district in Bangladesh that borders Myanmar, house about 1 million of Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya minority, including about 740,000 who fled following a military crackdown in Rakhine state since August 2017. Myanmar has in the past denied Rohingya freedom of movement, citizenship and access to jobs, health care and education.

Rohingyas sheltering in the camp told Radio Free Asia that they haven’t been notified of the pilot project.

The military junta needs to say how many weeks or months returnees would have to stay in one of the two centers, and where they would be sent afterward, said Khin Maung, director of the Rohingya Youth Association who lives in Cox’s Bazar. 

“We are not sure if the military junta is implementing the repatriation program out of its true good will,” he said. “A lot of things depend on that answer.”

When contacted about the program, the junta’s minister of immigration and manpower, Myint Kyaing, referred RFA to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The junta’s permanent secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Chan Aye, didn’t answer a phone call from RFA. 

Military officials gave a tour of the centers to the heads of embassies from ASEAN countries on March 8. Heads of embassies from China, India and Bangladesh also joined the tour.

The returnees would receive assistance through education, livelihood and health programs at the two centers, said Hla Thein, the junta’s attorney general and spokesman for Rakhine state.

Returnees will be accepted based on five points: He or she must have lived in Myanmar. He or she must be a returnee of his or her own volition. Family members who were forced to be separated must be certified by a Bangladeshi court. If a child is born in Bangladesh, both parents must prove that they have lived in Myanmar. The parents also must provide confirmation of this from a Bangladeshi court.

‘Not a sustainable initiative’

A junta readmission team will visit Bangladesh for more talks within a few days, Hla Thein told RFA on Tuesday. The Bangladesh Embassy in Yangon didn’t immediately respond to an email asking about the country’s role in the readmission program.

Bangladesh Foreign Minister A. K. Abdul Momen said the Chinese government has built new houses in some protected areas in Rakhine for the returnees. 

“But uncertainties loom, too,” he told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated news service. “They want to go to their original homes. But the Myanmar authorities say their homesteads have been occupied by the Arakan Army. The places are unsafe.”

Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, Bangladesh’s refugee relief and repatriation commissioner, on Monday said the pilot project likely won’t happen for a while. 

“We have been in the process of verification of the Myanmar people. There are more stages of repatriation,” he said.

There were two attempts to re-admit the Rohingyas in 2018 and 2019, with 2,260 candidates designated to return in the first batch and 3,450 in the second batch. But no one returned under the agreement at the time with Bangladesh.

Former Bangladesh foreign secretary Md. Touhid Hossain told BenarNews on Monday that the pilot project wasn’t a workable idea.

“Repatriation through a pilot project is not a sustainable initiative,” he said. “A sustainable repatriation can only be achieved when the 1.1 million refugees would voluntarily return to Myanmar.”

“Settling the Rohingya crisis lies in Myanmar. The responsibility to improve the situation in Rakhine also goes on them. If they do so, the Rohingya would voluntarily return to their homeland,” he said.

Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Matt Reed. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.

Local authorities in Laos last week met with villagers who will be affected by the Pak Beng Dam project to discuss compensation, but the villagers worry that the government’s offer will be too low, sources in the country told Radio Free Asia.

The dam, located in northwestern Laos’ Bokeo province on the Mekong River, is an integral part of Laos’ ambitious, controversial goal to become the “battery of Southeast Asia” by using the river to generate electricity and selling it to neighboring countries.

The Pak Beng Dam is one of three Mekong River mainstream dam projects that have completed review processes and are eligible to begin construction. Two others, the Xayaburi Dam and the Don Sahong Dam, are currently operational. Four more proposed projects are in various stages of planning.

Critics of Laos’ hydroelectric pursuits point to the environmental and social impacts associated with the large-scale mainstream dams, and a chief complaint is that the dams will displace people and ruin the livelihoods of river-based communities. 

The authorities of Bokeo province’s Pak Tha district last week talked with villagers about compensation rates for land, homes, fruit trees and other crops, an official of the province’s Energy and Mines Department, who like all other unnamed sources in this report requested anonymity for safety reasons, told RFA’s Lao Service.

“At the meeting, we discussed doing some more surveys, collecting information about property and the location of resettlement villages,” the official said. “We haven’t paid any compensation yet because we don’t have all the information.”

The official explained that residents of 17 Bokeo province villages will lose their land, fruit trees and other crops; and some villagers will be relocated to new villages. 

“As for compensation, we’ll base it on the actual social and economic situation in the area and on the same policy that was used for the Xayaburi dam project.”

The compensation process for Laos’ first completed Mekong mainstream dam was not smooth. Though the Xayaburi dam was completed and went into operation in 2019, RFA reported two years later that displaced villagers still lacked farmland and access to water.

Will it be enough?

Villagers living near the site where Pak Beng will be built have demanded 150 million kip ($8,844) per hectare (2.47 acres), a resident told RFA.

“I don’t know whether we’ll get that much or not,” the villager said. “Until now, the dam developer and the Lao authorities haven’t responded to our demands. The company and the Lao government should take into account the loss of our rice fields and our fruit trees.” 

He said that proper compensation is necessary for people who are about to lose everything.

“In other words, the compensation should be fair for us,” he said. “The government offers are usually too low, and  we shouldn’t be the losers here.”

The government was not specific enough during the discussions, another villager said.

“They said they were going to build new homes for us, but they haven’t said anything about other kinds of compensation,” the second villager said. “We haven’t yet been informed of any details of the new place and the compensation by the dam developer or by the Lao authorities.”

In a different village, discussions on compensation haven’t happened in months. 

“We don’t know where we’re going to move or even how we’re going to move,” the third villager said. “We were told that we were going to lose our land and homes, meaning that we were to be relocated, but they haven’t told us anything about the compensation or the location of the new villages. Of course, we’re concerned.

Impact

According to the project’s environmental impact assessment report, the Pak Beng Dam will impact a total of 26 villages in three provinces, 17 of which are in Bokeo province. A total of 923 families, or about 4,700 people will have to be relocated.

Deuanephet Vongchanh, the deputy governor of Bokeo Province, told local media this month that the provincial relocation committee has to review the rate of compensation for the properties that will be lost to the project.

The power purchase agreement, or PPA, a necessity for the dam to make economic sense, has not been signed yet, but the dam developer has already started building infrastructure like access roads to get ready for the dam’s construction.

An employee of the Thai developer on the project, Gulf Energy, explained to RFA last week that even though they have not signed the PPA, they have drafted an agreement on the dam’s construction with the Lao government. 

The employee said that the Gulf Energy Development of Thailand owns 49 percent of shares in the Pak Beng Dam Project and China’s Datang Overseas Investment owns 51%. 

The Pak Beng Dam will produce 912 MW of electricity and will cost $1.88 billion. The project plans to sell 90% of the generated power to neighboring Thailand.

Earlier this year, members of the Thai rights groups advocating for people who live along Mekong River sent a petition calling on the Thai prime minister and Thai minister of energy to postpone the signing of all the PPAs of four Mekong River dams planned by Laos, namely the Pak Beng Dam, Luang Prabang Dam, Pak Lay Dam and Sanakham Dam.

Santiphab Phomvihan, Laos’ minister of finance, met with Amorn Iamsriphong, the vice chairman of the Gulf management, and revealed that Laos has signed a tariff agreement with the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand on the Pak Beng Dam and Pak Lay Dam, both Gulf projects, and the PPAs will be signed soon.

Translated by Max Avary. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.

North Korea’s economic hardship has been miserable for most people, but it’s been a boon for the lowly shoe repairman, who is earning more in a day than local government officials earn in a month, sources in the country told Radio Free Asia.

Times are so tough that new shoes are an expense that most people cannot afford. So instead, they flock to the local marketplaces to repair their old, worn out ones. 

“The person making the most money in the Unsan county marketplace is the shoe repairman. He is easily making at least 10,000 won (U.S.$1.19) every day,” a resident of the county in South Pyongan province said on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

Another source, in the northwestern province of North Hamgyong, said a cobbler can sometimes make as much as 50,000 won, or nearly U.S.$6.00.

That’s far higher than the local party secretary’s official monthly salary of about 4,500 won, or about 54 U.S. cents.

Most North Koreans have not been able to survive on the monthly salary from their government-assigned jobs since the country’s economy collapsed in the 1990s after the fall of the Soviet Union. 

Instead, families have gone into business for themselves, and a large portion of those businesses involve buying and selling products imported from China in the local marketplaces. 

The closing of the border with China at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic dealt a devastating blow to North Korea’s already fragile economy, and sapped the livelihoods of people who relied on the constant flow of Chinese imports. 

Although freight trade has resumed, the economy is still reeling from the chaos caused by the more than two-year shutdown, and many people are still struggling.

Fewer Chinese imports

Government officials are in a different situation though. Even though their salaries are only nominally higher than the average worker, they are able to use the power and influence associated with their position to support themselves, either by taking bribes from businesses or running businesses themselves.

Since the onset of the pandemic meant fewer Chinese-made clothes and shoes were coming into North Korea, citizens have been repairing what they can over the past three years. 

For clothes, a simple needle and thread is enough to mend torn shirts or darn holey socks. But shoes require more expertise and tools, the source said.

“Worn out shoes must be taken to a shoe repair ship for more complicated things like sole soldering,” the source said.

“The shoe repair shop is located at the entrance of the marketplace, and has a constant flow of customers from morning to evening,” he said. “People who want to repair their shoes keep rushing in with worn uppers or sneakers with holes in the soles.”

Factories hurting too

The border shutdown hasn’t only hurt small businesses, state-owned factories saw disruptions in their supply chain of raw materials, meaning they too could not produce as high as demand.

“After more than three years of this COVID-19 lockdown, the Sinuiju Shoe Factory is still experiencing production delays because materials still cannot come in,” the second source from North Hamgyong province said.

“Sneakers and shoes are produced in little batches using recycled materials brought in through a state-run junk shop,” he said.

The few shoes that the factory produces are not affordable to most North Koreans, according to the second source. The cheapest ones sell for over 30,000 won ($3.57) in the market.

“Buying a new pair of shoes has now become a dream for residents who can barely make a living,” the second source said. “Most residents wear old shoes that have been repaired several times at repair shops.”

The new school year is about to begin in North Korea, so students are flocking to the repair shops to fix their shoes before it starts, the second source said. 

People are noticing the crowds of customers and are considering a career change. 

“Since shoe repairers make good money,” he said, “many residents now want to open new repair shops.” 

Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.

Chinese authorities have maintained their interrogations of Tibetans living in Lhasa to determine if they have contacted people outside Tibet and stepped up surveillance measures to prevent such communication for another politically sensitive anniversary in March, according to sources inside the vast western region.

March 14 marks the 15th anniversary of a 2008 riot in Lhasa during which Chinese police suppressed peaceful Tibetan protests and led to the destruction of Han Chinese shops in the city and deadly attacks on Han Chinese residents.

The event sparked a wave of demonstrations against Chinese rule that spread into Tibetan-populated regions of western Chinese provinces. Security forces quelled the protests and detained, beat or shot hundreds of Tibetans.

“Today, March 14, is a very sensitive date, and there are more restrictions in place than usual, so it’s better not to contact us,” one Tibetan source said in a written message to Radio Free Asia. 

“There are ‘interrogation posts’ stationed near all the streets that lead to Jhokang Temple, Potala Palace and the Sera and Drepung monasteries,” he wrote. “They are searching the cell phones and the backpacks of tourists and anyone who is walking around these places.” 

China maintains a tight grip on Tibet, restricting Tibetans’ political activities and peaceful expression of cultural and religious identity as Buddhists. Tibetans frequently complain of discrimination and human rights abuses by Chinese authorities and policies they say are aimed at wiping out their national and cultural identity.

So far, police have interrogated two Tibetans from Lhasa for allegedly contacting people outside Tibet, and it has become very difficult for Tibetans to communicate by phone with others who live in exile outside the region, according to two people who know about the situation.

Summoned by police

Police have continued tight scrutiny of residents of the capital and random searches of their cell phone and online communications, they said. 

“Two friends of mine and I received a call from the local police station a few days ago and were summoned to the police station,” a second Tibetan source said.

“They asked us to share all the details of people that we have contacted and the information we have shared with them,” he said. 

The police officers made photocopies of their identity cards and a record of everything on their devices, he said. They also warned the trio not to contact anyone outside the region. 

RFA reported earlier that police in Lhasa, the region’s administrative capital with a population of about 560,000 people, increased security measures ahead of the March 10 anniversary of a 1959 uprising against Chinese troops that had invaded the region a decade earlier.

Beginning Feb. 25, security personnel began randomly checking public spaces, guesthouses and hotels, and areas where Tibetan Buddhists perform religious activities and do businesses. They also stopped people to check their cell phones to ensure they had not been in contact with anyone living outside the region – considered a crime. 

Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

A Chinese talent show host has been banned from the popular Weibo social media platform after he criticized online support for Russian President Vladimir Putin as internet censors launched a “strike hard” campaign against bloggers and live streamers who post unauthorized content.

“Due to violations of the relevant rules, this user has been banned,” a notice on Weibo read where comments by comedian Zhou Libo had once been found.

Zhou’s post had hit out at online support for “Putin the Great,” criticizing his “band of fighters” among Chinese social media accounts and making reference to territory ruled by Russia that he said should belong to China.

“Why are there always some Chinese who inexplicably send such kind words to Russia?” the post said. 

“Do you still see him as a father? Friendship is okay, but flattery is not,” read the post, which was deleted when Radio Free Asia attempted to view it on Monday.

The move came ahead of a visit by Chinese leader Xi Jinping to Russia, according to a Reuters report citing people familiar with the matter.

Plans for a visit come as China has been offering to broker peace in Ukraine, an effort that has been met with skepticism in the West given Beijing’s diplomatic support for Russia, the agency said.

Neither Beijing nor Moscow have confirmed the report, with foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin telling reporters on Tuesday: “I have nothing to share at the moment.”

Xi needs ‘stable international environment’

Tao Yi-fen, an associate professor of politics at National Taiwan University, said the economy and regime security are currently Xi’s highest priorities as leader.

“Xi Jinping is most concerned with the economy and security matters right now, and he needs a more stable international environment,” he said.

“The United States has been putting a lot of pressure on China, economically and militarily speaking, and the rest of the world is seeing that Xi Jinping has become more and more totalitarian in the wake of the 20th party congress” held in October 2022, Tao said.

“My guess is that China is actively trying to project itself to the rest of the world as a defender of the international order, not its destroyer,” he said.

Spokesman Wang’s comments appeared to back up this view.

“When viewing and addressing international and regional hotspot issues, China always upholds our foreign policy goals of safeguarding world peace and promoting common development,” he said. “We are committed to the peaceful settlement of conflicts including through diplomatic negotiations.”

‘Rumor-mongering’

Zhou’s Weibo ban also came as China’s Cyberspace Administration launched a two-month crackdown on “rumor-mongering” by citizen journalists and bloggers targeting social media platforms, video platforms and webcasts.

“We must effectively improve our political standing and fully understand the significance of rectifying the chaos that is citizen media,” the agency said in an announcement on its website dated March 12.

“It is inevitable if we are to win the online ideological struggle and maintain national security and political security,” it said, citing a recent meeting on the subject.

“We must severely punish citizen media that spread rumors and interfere with and destroy the online environment, and keep up the purification of cyberspace,” it said. 

It said designated content managers should be chosen to spearhead that campaign at all major internet platforms, and that content creators who put out undesirable content to attract followers should have their fan-bases deleted.

Bloggers commenting on government policy, the economy or those who report on major disasters and current events by themselves should be the targets of the “strike hard” campaign, the agency said.

A veteran leftist blogger who requested anonymity said that there have been similar purges before, but that the authorities are aiming to let nobody slip through the net on this campaign.

He said the allegations of rumor-mongering were just an excuse to limit what people can say on social media.

“It’s just one giant category that contains anyone and everyone,” he said. “As long as you are online you can be deemed guilty.”

“They just don’t want anyone saying anything much during this transition of power,” he said in a reference to Xi Jinping’s third and likely indefinite term as president and supreme party leader.

“They can pin anything on you at any time — running an illegal business, picking quarrels and stirring up trouble,” he said. “Anyone can be said to have committed a crime.”

“If they want to go after you, they’ll just find an excuse … and do it,” he said.

Cyberspace policing

An official who answered the phone at the Tianjin municipal branch of the Cyberspace Administration said they had received the directive and will be ensuring that the main burden of the crackdown falls on internet service providers.

“This document is very clear, which is to say that our reporting center will get tip-offs, and if it’s a case of market supervision, it will be transferred to that department,” the official said.

“If some greater harm has been done, it may be transferred to the police for them to deal with, so you should contact whichever department is involved in the case,” they said, but declined to give further details about how the crackdown would be implemented.

Repeated calls and email requests for comment to the Cyberspace Administration of China went unanswered by the time of publication.

An internet user in the northeastern city of Shenyang who gave only the surname Zhang said her Weibo and WeChat accounts have been suspended many times.

She said even complaints relating to people’s daily lives, such as recent reforms to medical insurance payouts that sparked mass protests in recent weeks, could get someone banned.

“I don’t know what kind of socialism this is,” she said. “It’s the socialism of corrupt officials.”

“This is a dictatorship, and a hellish country for ordinary people,” Zhang said. “They talk about the rule of law every day, and yet they have no confidence.”

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

Authorities in Beijing have placed tight restrictions on the funeral arrangements for Jiang Yanyong, a retired military doctor who blew the whistle on the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s cover-up of the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, outbreak, and who criticized the Tiananmen massacre as a “crime” in a letter to supreme leader Xi Jinping.

Jiang, a former professor of surgery at the People’s Liberation Army General Hospital, died of illness in the Chinese capital at 3.39 p.m. local time on March 11, at the age of 87, people close to his family told Radio Free Asia.

Officials put heavy pressure on his family to take a “low-key approach” to his funeral, denying them a cremation slot at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery, where high-ranking officials and political figures are usually laid to rest, they said.

“No [public] funeral ceremony will be allowed; only relatives may take part,” a directive sent to Jiang’s family last week said, adding: “There will be no floral tributes allowed from the general public, and no media interviews given.”

The private funeral will take place instead in a purpose-built room in the west wing of the People’s Liberation Army General Hospital on Wednesday, a person close to the matter told Radio Free Asia.

“All floral tributes and elegiac verses are to be handed over to Jiang’s widow Hua Zhongwei before March 14, then passed onto the hospital authorities for review,” the person cited the directive as saying.

“The eulogy has already been written,” they said.

Called for reappraisal of Tiananmen Square

In 1989, Jiang was a surgeon in active service at the Chinese People’s Liberation Army General Hospital in Beijing, also known as the PLA 301 Hospital, where he took part in the rescue and treatment of the injured during the massacre, which began on the night of June 3.

Jiang later shot to fame in 2003 as the doctor who blew the whistle on a massive cover-up by Chinese health authorities of the extent of the SARS outbreak that year.

On Feb. 24, 2004, he threw the full weight of his fame behind renewed calls for an official reappraisal of the Tiananmen Square protests as a “patriotic movement,” risking a happy and peaceful retirement to do so, according to his family.

“He kept calling for a reappraisal of the official verdict on the 1989 student movement, which he thought was a huge mistake on the part of the Chinese Communist Party,” the person close to Jiang’s family said.

“The authorities put restrictions on his freedom many times over the last 20 years … although he was still allowed to talk to the media until 2019,” they said.

House arrest

Jiang was placed under house arrest soon after his letter to Xi and subsequent interviews with the Hong Kong media, and held incommunicado, with no phone contact with the outside world, the person said.

“Even his son wasn’t allowed to contact him for a whole month, and this really affected Dr. Jiang, and his mood,” they said. “Later in life, he suffered from Alzheimer’s and … wasn’t even allowed to go out of the hospital for a doctor’s appointment … they lived in the living quarters of the 301 Hospital.”

“Recently, he was admitted to the high-ranking ward of the 301 Hospital after contracting pneumonia,” the person said. “Dr. Jiang died very suddenly – he had never had pneumonia before that, and I’m guessing it was due to COVID-19.”

China has seen a huge wave of COVID-19 infections since it lifted its draconian zero-COVID policies in December 2022, following nationwide protests at the end of November. The World Health Organization warned in late January that the number of related deaths was likely far higher than those being reported, in the absence of mass compulsory testing.

Healthcare workers across China have also told Radio Free Asia that they are seeing large numbers of people seriously ill after being reinfected with the Omicron variant of COVID-19, citing the damage wreaked by COVID-19 on the immune system.

‘Noble character’

Zhang Xianling, a co-founder of the Tiananmen Mothers group representing the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, said she thought Jiang was a “noble” person, though she had never met him.

“Everyone knows about what he did,” Zhang said. “After he blew the whistle, the government took measures, so [his whistleblowing] was tantamount to saving people’s lives right across the country.”

“Later, he also spoke out about June 4, 1989, on two or three occasions,” she said. “For a member of the Communist Party to stand up for justice and speak out for the people like he did shows him to be a person of very noble character.”

Zhou Fengsuo, a former student leader in the 1989 protest movement and now executive director of the U.S.-based Human Rights in China, said Jiang was one of the few Chinese doctors to testify in public to the number of deaths and injuries he saw after the People’s Liberation Army put down the peaceful protests with machine guns and tanks.

“There were more than 40 hospitals that received patients during the June 4 massacre, which means that nearly 1,000 doctors would have been involved,” Zhou said. “We know the names of some of them.”

“But only Jiang Yanyong was brave enough to testify in public, to abandon all claim to status and reputation by doing so, because he would definitely run afoul of the Chinese Communist Party,” he said.

“He followed his own conscience and stuck to the truth, which naturally meant he had widespread support,” Zhou said.

Letter to Xi

In his 2019 letter to Xi, Jiang said he had seen 89 patients with gunshot wounds in the emergency room of the 301 Hospital in the space of two hours, seven of whom died, a passage that Zhou cited as particularly courageous.

Public memorials and discussion of the events of June 1989 are still largely banned in mainland China, with activists who seek to commemorate the bloodshed often detained, with veteran dissidents placed under police surveillance or detention ahead of each anniversary.

In 2004, Jiang won the Ramon Magsaysay Award for public service, named for the former president of the Philippines.

“As the virus called Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome swept unacknowledged into Beijing, he broke China’s habit of silence and forced the truth of SARS into the open,” the award website says of Jiang.

“For his bold act, Jiang enjoyed a brief moment of celebrity and was lauded as ‘China’s pride,'” it said.

“The … board of trustees recognizes his brave stand for truth in China, spurring life-saving measures to confront and contain the deadly threat of SARS,” the award website said.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.