Day: July 7, 2023

At least five members of rival Rohingya militant groups were killed in a gunfight Friday at a refugee camp in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district, police and other sources said.

Separately, following a four-day visit to refugee camps in that southeastern district, International Criminal Court (ICC) Chief Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan urged the world to provide more humanitarian support because, he said, Rohingya were missing meals after the U.N. World Food Program had cut monthly aid to U.S. $8 from $12 on June 1.

The killings in Friday’s shootout before dawn marked the latest bloodshed between the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) and Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO). Up until relatively recently, Bangladesh officials had denied that Rohingya militants had a foothold in the sprawling refugee camps near the Myanmar border, where security has deteriorated sharply.

“The gunfight that left five dead this morning was between two Rohingya armed groups, ARSA and RSO,” Md. Farooq Ahmed, an assistant superintendent with the Armed Police Battalion, told BenarNews.  

Sheikh Mohammad Ali, officer-in-charge of the Ukhia police station, said law enforcers recovered the corpses of those killed in the gunfight, which took place around 5 a.m. at the Balukhali camp. 

Camp resident Nur Hafez said gunshots woke him.

“I heard a hue and cry. Rushing to the scene, I found some blood-stained injured people lying on the ground. The police took them away after a while,” he told BenarNews.

“Due to contests among different groups inside the camp, the killings are increasing,” Hafez said.

Syed Ullah, a Rohingya camp leader, said that the feud between the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army and Rohingya Solidarity Organization had surfaced over efforts to exert dominance in the camps.

“The ordinary Rohingya people have been living in a terrified atmosphere,” he said.

The population of the densely crowded camps has swollen to about 1 million after about 740,000 Rohingya crossed the border into Bangladesh as they fled a brutal military offensive in their home state of Rakhine in Myanmar. That followed a series of deadly attacks by ARSA forces on Burmese military and police posts in Rakhine in August 2017. 

Ullah said uncertainty over efforts to repatriate the Rohingya to Myanmar had caused frustration, leading to an increase in criminal activities at the camps.

“We at the camps have faced two-pronged difficulties – our monthly food allocations have been reduced twice and now we face the danger of being killed by the armed groups,” he said.

Karim Khan, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, visited the camps to interview Rohingya about atrocities they suffered before fleeing to Bangladesh. 

He had made a similar visit in February 2022 after the Hague-based ICC authorized the investigation in 2019, but that was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The pre-trial chamber concluded at the time that it was reasonable “to believe that since at least 9 October 2016, members of the Tatmadaw [the Myanmar military], jointly with other security forces and with some participation of local civilians, may have committed coercive acts” against the Rohingya people that constitute crimes against humanity, according to a 55-page court document.

In a separate investigation, the International Court of Justice allowed a case to proceed that the Gambia had brought against Myanmar’s military regime alleging genocide against Rohingya. 

The ICJ in May ruled to allow Myanmar officials until Aug. 24 to present arguments and evidence “necessary to respond to the claims” made against them.

Following his four-day visit, Karim Khan expressed concern that Rohingya are going without meals.

“[U]p to March, Rohingya men, women and children were given three meals a day, they were given enough money to eat three times a day. And since March, they have (been) eating twice a day, and not even twice,” he told reporters at the Inter-Continental Hotel in Dhaka hours after flying in from Cox’s Bazar.

Mohammad Alam, a leader of Leda camp in Teknaf, had told BenarNews that the new monthly allocation translates to about 28 taka (25 cents) per day per person or about nine taka (eight cents) per each of three meals a day.

“Is it possible to feed a family with such an allocation,” Alam asked.

During his news conference, Karim Khan, who said he discussed the issue with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, expressed similar concerns.

“What could you do with nine taka – I was told one egg is 12 taka,” he said, pointing out that some meals are skipped.

He said children would ask their parents, “‘Where is lunch?’”

“The heart should note that this is an area where the world should give support,” Karim Khan said while urging the World Food Program and other United Nations agencies to step up.

“[I]t is a symptom of a malaise in which we have to show that every human life matters, that we give resources fairly and adequately wherever possible, that we realize 1.1 million people in a camp, the government of Bangladesh also needs support,” he said. “If people are hungry and there is no hope, it will lead to tension and difficulties.” 

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.

More than 500 prison inmates have been sentenced to death in Laos – some more than a decade ago – but the country’s dysfunctional legal system and unclear prison procedures have left the inmates languishing for years, the country’s minister of public security said.

Many of the inmates were convicted on drug charges and have had their sentences reduced to life in prison, Lt. Gen. Vilay Lakhamfong, head of the Ministry of Public Security and deputy prime minister, told lawmakers at a National Assembly session on Thursday. 

Authorities have even released some inmates who had originally been sentenced to death, which hasn’t helped Laos make any headway on combating illicit drug production, trafficking, and related criminal activity, he said. 

“Lao laws do not mandate where and how to execute them, by firing squad or by lethal injection,” Lakhamfong told lawmakers. 

International organizations oppose the two execution methods, he said, adding that about 90% of Laos’ death-row sentences are drug-related.

“They don’t want us to do that; therefore, we have to keep them in jail and give them life sentences,” Lakhamfong said. 

Laos has not officially abolished the death penalty, though the last known execution, done by shooting, occurred in 1989, according to the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty. In the past, authorities never disclosed the number of prisoners put to death, the crimes they had committed, or the places of execution.

Now government and legal bodies involved in drafting laws are updating death-sentence procedures and are expected to complete their work by year end, Lakhamfong said.  

Largely poor landlocked Laos is part of the Golden Triangle, an area that converges with Myanmar and Thailand at the confluence of the Mekong and Ruak rivers, and is a haven for crimes, including the drug trade, by organized criminal networks.

Though Lao authorities have committed to combating drug trafficking, it remains rife in the Golden Triangle. In February, authorities there seized 500 kilograms of crystal meth in one of the largest hauls of the narcotic in the notorious zone. 

Setting a bad example

Meanwhile, members of the general public have urged authorities to execute inmates on death row so that people have faith in the country’s legal system.

One Laotian told Radio Free Asia that if authorities continue to pardon prisoners with death sentences, they will likely return to drug trafficking or the drug trade once they are out of jail.

“They should execute them, not just say it but do it, in the middle of a field and let all the other [prisoners] see it,” he said.

Another Lao citizen said if the inmates are let out of prison, it will set a bad example for others involved in the drug trade because they won’t fear getting caught and sent to jail.

“Inmates with death sentences should be executed right away if a court verdict orders an execution, and the law should be decisive and trustworthy,” he said. “If they do not execute them, then those who are in drug businesses right now will not fear the law, and that will undermine the country’s judicial system.”

A Lao legal expert, who declined to be named so he could speak freely, said authorities should carry out death sentences based on legal mandates, rather than keeping inmates in jail for 10-20 years, reducing their sentences to life in prison, and later releasing them.

“It is not good for society if inmates often ask for a pardon from a death sentence to get life in prison, but after 10 to 20 years are released,” he said.

Translated by Sidney Khotpanya for RFA Lao. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Matt Reed.

ASEAN chair Indonesia said Friday it was increasing efforts to implement a five-point consensus to end instability in post-coup Myanmar, while Burmese civil society groups called for junking the “ineffective” plan amid divisions within the regional bloc.

The crisis in Myanmar is expected to be one of the main topics at a series of ministerial-level meetings that Indonesia will host next week as the 2023 chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The talks will involve ASEAN members and other countries, including the United States, China and Russia.

Jakarta has been communicating with all parties in Myanmar to persuade them to support implementing the consensus, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said. 

“We have conducted 110 engagements, in the form of in-person meetings, virtual meetings, and phone calls, including my own face-to-face meetings with both the NUG and SAC foreign ministers on several occasions,” Retno told reporters, referring to the National Unity Government, the shadow civilian administration, and the junta, which calls itself the State Administration Council.

ASEAN leaders agreed on the consensus during an emergency summit in April 2021, but the Southeast Asian bloc has since been heavily criticized for inaction in pressing ahead with the five-point plan. 

It aims to reduce violence in Myanmar after the Burmese military toppled an elected government in February that year. The plan demands an immediate halt to violence, a constructive dialogue among all parties, the appointment of a special envoy, the delivery of humanitarian assistance and the visit of a delegation to Myanmar. 

The junta agreed to this consensus but reneged on it, prompting ASEAN to exclude any representative from the Myanmar junta from its meetings, starting in October 2021.

‘Most ASEAN states have no interest in democracy’

Meanwhile, a network of Burmese civil society groups, which calls itself Myanmar Spring’s young revolutionaries, said the exclusion was a mirage, because Indonesia, through its office of the special envoy, was engaging with the junta.

“[T]he Special Envoy’s official engagement with the illegal military junta is inconsistent with ASEAN’s decision and stance to exclude and ban members of the military junta from all high-level ASEAN meetings,” representatives of several civil society groups told Ngurah Swajaya, the head of the special envoy’s office, according to a statement issued Friday.

The groups’ representatives had met with Ngurah on Monday.

“[T]he representatives expressed their concern and frustration over the ineffectiveness and failure of ASEAN to stop the terrorist military junta’s violence and atrocities against Myanmar people over the past two years since the adoption of the Five-Point Consensus (5PC) on 24 April 2021,” the statement said.

They also conveyed to Ngurah that “the ineffective 5PC will only embolden the terrorist junta to commit further crimes and exacerbate the plight of the people of Myanmar.”

Indonesia’s president, too, acknowledged in May that there had been no progress in implementing the peace plan.

All along, Myanmar’s junta has cracked down on mass protests, killed more than 3,000 people and arrested thousands more, according to human rights groups. The United Nations said more than 1.8 million people had been forced to flee their homes in Myanmar because of violence since the coup.

And yet, ASEAN “continues to stick to a plan agreed in April 2021 that has palpably failed,” said CIVICUS Lens, a group that analyzes current events from a civil society perspective.

“A major challenge is that most ASEAN states have no interest in democracy. Half of them are outright authoritarian regimes, and the other half could be characterized as democracies with flaws – sometimes serious flaws,” the group wrote in an article in late June.

“Continuing emphasis on the 5PC as the baseline consensus, however, hasn’t masked divisions among ASEAN states. … But the fact that they’re formally sticking with it enables the wider international community to stand back and do little, on the basis of respecting regional leadership and giving the 5PC a chance.”

Of ASEAN’s 10 members, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam are not democracies, and Thailand’s outgoing government first came to power much like the current Myanmar junta, via a military coup.

CIVICUS Lens also noted Thailand’s decision to break ranks with ASEAN and engage in talks with the Myanmar military.

Indonesia on Friday again dismissed the Thai meeting in June as not a formal one.

“Regarding the informal meeting in Thailand, once again it was an informal meeting of ASEAN and only the foreign minister of Laos attended. The 5PC is the main track for resolving the Myanmar issue,” Foreign Minister Retno said.

However, in addition to Thailand and Myanmar, representatives of ASEAN members Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and the Philippines – as well as India and China – attended the meeting in Pattaya.

Some experts say that ASEAN’s approach to Myanmar reflects its limitations as a consensus-based organization that prioritizes stability and non-interference in its members’ domestic affairs. 

Additionally, while Jakarta should be praised for holding so many meetings with different stakeholders, it was impossible to assess the progress of its diplomatic engagements as they were confidential, said Hunter Marston, a researcher at the Australian National University. 

“It’s also possible that the Indonesian government has underestimated the degree to which the current conflict is entrenched and the unwillingness of the warring sides to consider a peaceful settlement that does not include the complete eradication of the other side,” he told BenarNews.

He said that the outcome of Indonesia’s efforts remained uncertain. 

“If nothing materializes by the end of Indonesia’s chairmanship, however, then everyone will point and say, ‘See? There was never a chance of progress to begin with’,” he said. 

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.

Warner Bros on Friday said a supposed depiction of a map of the South China Sea that prompted Vietnam to ban the upcoming “Barbie” movie was a “child-like crayon drawing” that carried no political message.

Vietnam announced early this week it had banned distribution of “Barbie” because its trailer includes a map that appeared to take China’s side in an emotive maritime territorial dispute.

The decision to scrap the planned July 21 release of the Warner Bros feature film, starring Margot Robbie as Barbie and Ryan Gosling as her boyfriend Ken, was made by the Central Council of Feature Film Evaluation and Classification, according to media in Hanoi.

The image that caused offense shows Robbie standing in front of a cartoon map containing roughly sketched islands and continents with dashes in several parts of the oceans, including eight dashes off the shore of a large landmass labeled “Asia.”

“The promotion and use of publications and products with the ‘nine-dash line’ is a violation and is not accepted in Vietnam,” Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Pham Thu Hang said Thursday, reiterating Hanoi’s complaint.

Warner Bros. denied the fleeting image had any political intention.

“The map in Barbie Land is a whimsical, child-like crayon drawing,” Warner Bros. said in a statement quoted by entertainment industry news outlet Variety on Friday. “The doodles depict Barbie’s make-believe journey from Barbie Land to the real world. It was not intended to make any type of statement.”

The nine-dash line is a boundary used by Beijing on its maps to demarcate territorial claims over most of the South China Sea, including sections of the waterway that fall within areas claimed by Vietnam, the Philippines and other countries. Vietnam calls China’s map a “cow’s tongue” that reaches way down into Southeast Asia.

BlackPink show to go on

The line – often literally consisting of nine dashes on a map encompassing the entire South China Sea – includes the disputed Paracel and Spratly Islands.

“Barbie” is far from the first Hollywood or independent feature to run afoul of  Hanoi’s Communist government.

In 2019, Vietnam halted showings of the DreamWorks film “Abominable” over a scene that showed the “nine-dash line” and drew an outcry among viewers. Netflix offerings including “Pine Gap,” “Madam Secretary,”  and “Put Your Head on My Shoulder” also ran afoul of Hanoi over the sea map.

China itself has a history of pressuring foreign entertainment outfits, retailers, fashion firms, hotels and airlines over perceived misrepresentation of its borders, including that with self-governing Taiwan, over which Beijing claims sovereignty.

While Vietnam’s moviegoers will have to miss “Barbie,” fans of K-Pop in the nation of 98 million will still apparently get to see the best-selling girl group BlackPink later this month.

Earlier this week it appeared that the South Korean quartet’s “Born Pink World Tour Hanoi” could suffer a boycott if not a ban after reports the “nine-dash line” was posted on the website of its Vietnamese promoter. Vietnam cultural authorities said they would investigate the incident.

But the China-based tour promoter, iMe Entertainment, issued an explanation and an apology, according to Vietnamese state media, and the allegedly offending image was removed. 

Two Hanoi concert dates – July 29 and 30 – remain on BlackPink’s website and tickets are available.

Edited by Matthew Pennington.

Seven Burmese garment workers and union activists will face trial on incitement charges in a military court for advocating for a pay raise at a factory that supplied Inditex, the owner of the Spanish retailer Zara, a labor activist said Friday.

The case has put a spotlight on the plight of workers in Myanmar’s troubled garment sector. Several companies have exited the country since the February 2021 military coup and subsequent deterioration in labor conditions.

Inditex is reportedly set to make a phased exit from the country after the arrests of the five garment workers and two union activists in June. They worked at a Chinese-owned factory operated by Hosheng Myanmar Garment Company Limited in Yangon division. They formed a union in April to bargain for better conditions. 

An activist affiliated with the union, declining to be named for safety reasons, told RFA that the seven accused are still being held at Hlawga police station in Shwepyithar Township.

On Friday, despite a scheduled hearing, the activist was told that the seven would remain in custody awaiting a trial for incitement. If convicted, they face up to two years in prison under section 505 (a) of Myanmar’s penal code. 

“Before setting up the trade union, the working conditions had many rules – no complaints, forced overtime, very low salary,” the activist said. “The factory doesn’t like the trade union, so that’s why the seven trade union members were dismissed.”

The activist said the trial of the seven will be held behind closed doors at a military court in Shwepyithar Township in Yangon. The township is under martial law. 

RFA has reached out to Inditex for comment.

Workers lack recourse from labor abuse

Nearly 500,000 people are employed in Myanmar’s garment sector, but labor activists say the military takeover has diminished regulatory oversight of factories. They say workers have less ability to negotiate with their employers and lack recourse in cases of labor abuse. But faced with economic instability, some feel they have no choice but to accept any job available.

In the last two years, as Myanmar has sunk into civil conflict and international condemnation of the military junta has grown, Inditex and other European brands have decided to quit the Southeast Asian country, including Primark, C&A, and the UK-based Tesco PLC and Marks & Spencer. 

Since December, the European Union and international retailers have funded the Multi-stakeholder Alliance for Decent Employment in Myanmar, or MADE, to provide more accountability for conditions in factories that supply garments for export, expanding on a previous project. Roughly 380,000 garment jobs are directly reliant on EU trade.

Labor activists have called for the program to be axed, claiming brands still present in the country have not been able to ensure worker protection in factories. Out of 37 brands linked to labor violations in Myanmar factories since the coup, Inditex was reported to be linked to the highest number of alleged abuse cases, followed by H&M and Bestseller. 

One rights group found that freedom of association was “nearly non-existent” and that business-military collusion was found in 16% of cases. At Hosheng, soldiers were recorded telling workers there were no unions under military rule.

In April, the 16-union Myanmar Labour Alliance sent a letter to EU leaders requesting that the program be defunded. It said that training for workplace coordination committees provided by MADE would undermine union efforts and allow management to conduct elections which would threaten existing unions. 

‘We don’t have any legal mechanism’

The alliance reported that since the coup, 53 union members and activists were murdered and 300 were arrested. Khaing Zar Aung, a representative of the alliance and president of the Industrial Workers Federation of Myanmar, told RFA that brands had no capacity to oversee working conditions on the ground. 

“What mechanism do we have?” she asked. “We don’t have any legal mechanism applicable.”

However, the EU has also remained firm in their stance on the program. 

An EU spokesperson told RFA in a statement that funding for MADE provides ways for workers to file complaints about workplace conditions, “as well as facilitating dialogue between employers, workers and international stakeholders.” 

While acknowledging the constraints on freedom of association, the spokesperson wrote: “Nonetheless, the EU and the Multi-stakeholder Alliance for Decent Employment in Myanmar (MADE) partners believe that the interests of workers are best served if EU companies continue to source from the country, as long as this is done responsibly.”

“When large international retailers exit, this will inevitably lead to a loss of jobs, regardless of how the retailer goes about this,” Jacob A. Clere, a team leader of the MADE project, told RFA. He said retailers are currently being enrolled in MADE for 2023, with the first cohort to be finalized this coming month. 

“We estimate that between 130 and 170 facilities could collectively be covered by those who initially joined MADE in 2023.”

John Kerry, the U.S. special envoy for climate change, will travel to Beijing this month for talks with Chinese officials on global warming, a State Department official said on Friday. The trip will mark the third to China in the last month by a member of President Joe Biden’s cabinet.

The trip will take place in the week starting July 16, an official at the State Department told Radio Free Asia on condition of anonymity because the travel plans have not yet been officially announced. 

Kerry is expected to meet with Xie Zhenhua, his Chinese counterpart as special envoy for climate change. The pair have not met publicly for talks since then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s August 2022 trip to Taiwan threw ties between Beijing and Washington off course.

In an interview with The New York Times, Kerry said he would seek “genuine cooperation” during the visit, which follows trips by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

“China and the United States are the two largest economies in the world and we’re also the two largest emitters,” Kerry said. “It’s clear that we have a special responsibility to find common ground.”

The meetings will take place as the El Niño pattern sets in, causing record-setting temperatures and flooding in China. Meteorological authorities also say that July 4 was the hottest ever recorded day.

Important talks

Kerry’s trip will be his third to China as climate envoy since Biden appointed the former U.S. secretary of state to the role in 2021.

It comes as American and Chinese officials cautiously test a thaw in relations after almost a year of intensifying bad blood over issues like the status of the self-governing island of Taiwan, the alleged Chinese spy balloon found over the United States and microchip exports.

The stakes in the talks for climate change mitigation will be high: China is the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, responsible for about 30% of emissions, while the United States is second, at about 10%.

Even though China has emerged as a frontrunner in global renewable energy – thanks to a blend of incentives and regulatory policies to host about 50% of the world’s operational wind and solar capacity – fossil fuels also currently generate about two-thirds of China’s electricity.

In 2022, China alone accounted for 53% of the world’s coal-fired electricity generation, showing a dramatic revival in appetite for new coal power projects. Chinese officials have said emissions will likely peak in 2030 before slowing down to reach net zero by 2060.

Last year, Beijing approved the highest new coal-fired power capacity in eight years. That has continued this year, environmental group Greenpeace said in April, with China’s government approving at least 20.45 GW of new coal capacity in the first three months of 2023.

Yet climate change remains one of the most visible areas where U.S. and Chinese officials have sought cooperation in recent years.

In May, the U.S. ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns, said the two governments have a joint interest in working to mitigate climate change. Despite the tense relations between the countries, he said, Kerry and Xie kept talking and “work together … very effectively.”

“It doesn’t mean they always see eye to eye,” Burns said at an online event hosted by the Stimson Center. “But I think both governments want to work to see if we can achieve the U.N. target of limiting the average global increase to 1.5 degrees Centigrade.”