Day: July 14, 2023

Prime Minister Hun Sen has removed a Twitter post that attempted to connect the Cambodian opposition to a Thai politician’s failure this week to win enough parliamentary votes to become the country’s next prime minister.

Pita Limjaroenrat and his Move Forward Party fell short of the 375 votes needed to clinch power in an initial round of voting on Thursday.

Hun Sen tweeted that Pita’s setback was also “a major failure” to Cambodia’s exiled opposition activists. He was most likely referring to Sam Rainsy, the former head of the now-disbanded opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party who fled to France in 2015.

“These traitors always expected that when Pita becomes the prime minister of Thailand, they would use Thai territory to do a campaign against the Royal Government of Cambodia,” Hun Sen wrote in the tweet.

“Now the expectations of the brute opposition group have vanished like salt in water,” he said.

In May, Sam Rainsy told Radio Free Asia that if a new pro-democracy Thai government is formed, he would look into traveling to Cambodia through neighboring Thailand. 

Thailand’s progressive Move Forward Party was the top vote getter in the May 14 general election. It heads a pro-democracy coalition trying to unseat an administration with deep military ties that has ruled Thailand for almost a decade.

Hun Sen has asked Thailand to arrest Sam Rainsy if he travels there. Last month, he publicly threatened to attack Sam Rainsy with a rocket launcher if he led workers from Thailand into Cambodia. 

“Do not do politics that depend on somebody else,” the prime minister wrote in Thursday’s deleted tweet. “This is my goodwill message for the extremist groups.”

Online reaction

After it drew angry online comments, Hun Sen removed the post from Twitter.

“Absolutely ludicrous,” wrote Phil Robertson, Human Rights Watch’s deputy Asia director. 

Thai journalist Pravit Rojanaphruk tweeted that the 70-year-old Hun Sen is “a political dinosaur comfortable in the company of dictators.”

“When he looks at Pita, he sees the [political] liberalization & reform he fears might some day come to Cambodia,” he wrote.

Hun Sen posted another message on both Twitter and Telegram on Friday, writing that he doesn’t oppose Pita’s candidacy for prime minister. 

“I respect the decision of the Thai people and I will not interfere in the internal affairs of Thailand,” he wrote. “I am ready to work with Thailand’s leader, regardless of who or which party.”

He added that Cambodian opposition activists should stop using Pita’s name – “who does not know he is being used” – to oppose the Cambodian government.

Finland-based political commentator Kim Sok said the first message made it seem like Hun Sen doesn’t understand diplomacy and politics, even though he served as Cambodia’s foreign minister during the 1980s.

“Normally, a leader of a country uses good words and avoids bad words to other countries’ politicians, especially those who win the election,” he said in an interview with Radio Free Asia on Friday.

Translated by Chandara Yang. Edited by Matt Reed.

Fierce fighting between Myanmar’s military junta and an ethnic rebel group in the country’s northern Kachin state has raged for 13 days in a village close to the rebels’ headquarters, people living near the area told Radio Free Asia.

The headquarters of the Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, is in Lai Zar, and the military attacked Nam Sang Yang village, roughly 9.6 kilometers (six miles) away, on July 2. 

The ethnic army has been aiding anti-junta local militias and publicly supporting the shadow National Unity Government – made up of former civilian leaders and other junta opponents – since the Feb. 1, 2021 coup that overthrew the democratically elected government.

The fighting is the latest spasm of violence in Myanmar’s civil war, which pits the country’s military against an array of ethnic armies and civilians-turned-fighters that call themselves the People’s Defense Force.

Sources told RFA that the fighting has been a daily occurrence, as junta forces attempt to take Nam Sang Yang, while the KIA defends it. They are waiting for forces from another armed ethnic group, the Arakan Army, or AA, to enter the fray.

Nam Sang Yang lies at about the halfway point between the cities of Myitkyina and Bhamo, and taking it is the key for the junta to regain control of the road that connects them, Col. Nawbu, a KIA soldier in charge of news and information, told Radio Free Asia’s Burmese Service.

“The fighting started in early July, and the junta troops got reinforcements from Bhamo and Mytkyina,” he said. “I think they are about a hundred strong, but that’s not an exact number. We cannot say for sure what strategies the enemy is using.”

Nawbu said that he thought the junta’s aim was to retake the section of the road, but had no idea if they also had plans to try to also take Lai Zar the KIA headquarters.

“Anything is possible,” he said. “That’s the nature of war. That’s why we are on high alert.”

10 battles

At least 10 separate battles have been fought over the past 13 days, with junta troops employing heavy artillery on a daily basis, Nawbu said. Casualties have occurred on both sides, but he was not able to confirm exact details.  

Nawbu expects the fighting to intensify and continue for several more days as the military reinforces its troops.

Fighting along the road will be fierce, as members of both the AA and KIA are stationed there to defend against the junta, residents said.

Since July 3, the road has been closed by soldiers on either side, and resources are running low in Lai Zar, where the KIA makes its headquarters, a resident of the town, who refused to be named, told RFA.

“Many goods are out of stock here… there will be no food and essentials left in my store by the end of this month,” she said. “I have to try to make sure I have something to sell.”

Prices in Lai Zar are rising as items are harder to come by, the resident said. 

Due to the fighting, people traveling to and from Myitkyina and Lai Zar have been trapped, and more than a thousand Nam Sang Yang residents have fled to Myitkyina, Waingmo and Lai Zar since the fighting began. 

Airstrikes

Residents said the junta launched air strikes on nearby Ma Dee Yang village on the night of July 7, and they also fired heavy artillery in areas around Lai Zar.

“I think the fighting will get more intense according to what I recently heard,”  a resident of Lai Zar said on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. “They are still fighting now.”

The Lai Zar resident said that he could hear gunshots and heavy artillery shelling targeting the areas surrounding the town.

“These are sounds that are terrifying elderly people, children and pregnant mothers,” he said. 

We often hear the sound of heavy artillery shelling areas near Lai Zar. We hear gunshots off and on. The sounds of those shelling are terrifying for elderly people, children and pregnant mothers.”

Win Ye Tun, social affairs minister and the junta’s spokesman for Kachin state, told RFA that he did not know the situation of the fighting.

“I don’t know about the battle. As I said before, we are helping people who have fled from there … providing them with rice, oil, money and we also visit them to check on them,” he said. 

Meanwhile, Hla Kyaw Zaw, an expert on Myanmar affairs, said that the junta is focusing on KIA-controlled areas because they suspect that the KIA is helping militia groups called Public Defense Forces, or PDFs, formed by citizens opposed to military rule.

“Since the junta troops took a beating in Sagaing and other fronts, they might think that KIA is strongly backing the PDF in those regions,” he said. “But I think [the junta] won’t be able to besiege Lai Zar.”

Having the areas near its border controlled by ethnic groups could be strategically beneficial to China, he said.

“China is trying to influence both sides to solve the problems by peaceful means as much as it can. It is the way I see it. Especially the ethnic areas next to its  border, China won’t let them down.” 

Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.

In the latest “strike hard” campaign in Xinjiang, authorities are cracking down on any gatherings of more than 30 people and say it will last 100 days, according to Chinese media and two police officers in the region, in the latest effort to persecute the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs who live there.  

China regularly conducts “strike hard” campaigns in its far western region of Xinjiang that include police raids on Uyghur households, restrictions on Islamic practices and curbs on the culture and language of the ethnic minority group.

Reports about the start of the new campaign in Xinjiang appeared on the Chinese social media app Douyin on July 3, saying it was being implemented across Hotan prefecture, which is in southern Xinjiang.    

“The Hotan Prefecture Public Security Bureau will implement summer strikes, taking place from June 25 to Sept. 30 in order to ensure the protection of security within the region,” said Chinese media reported.

Other media in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and Korla, the second-largest city in the region, broadcast similar announcements. Information about the 100-day strike hard campaign also appeared on government websites for every prefecture in Xinjiang.  

Local public security bureaus are carrying out the operation in their respective areas, focusing on “crimes” deemed to pose a threat to public order, Chinese media reports said.

The illegal activities include “stirring up trouble, engaging in group fights, bullying the public, blackmailing, monopolizing the market, participating in illegal gatherings, and spreading rumors with malicious intent.” Authorities also will target “illegal mafias and criminal organizations.” 

‘Combat illegal activities’

RFA contacted police stations in various cities and counties in Xinjiang for information on the campaign, and two officers working the night shift at the Toqquztara County Police Department in northern Xinjiang’s Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture confirmed the 100-day campaign.

A Chinese police officer said that the 100-day strike hard measures are in effect continuously throughout the year.  

“We take action against illegal activities at any time throughout the entire year, 365 days,” he said. “Even after the conclusion of the 100-day strike, our efforts to combat illegal criminal activities will not cease.”

Another officer there said the current strike-hard campaign is targeting individuals involved in drug use, drug dealing, gambling, group fighting and theft, as well as those who pose threats and disturbances to public peace. 

“If we just watch and do nothing, they will think nothing is going to happen to them,” he said. “Some individuals may choose to hide during the day and engage in theft during the night, and we can take care of that.”

Additionally, those who host gatherings with more than 30 people, organize parties or conduct religious ceremonies without first reporting to their neighborhood committee or to police will be targeted for holding “illegal gatherings,” the police officer said, referring to religious gatherings.

“While some individuals may attend gatherings with good intentions, there are others who may have ulterior motives,” the policeman said. “However, regardless of their initial intentions, if any participant engages in discussions or activities involving forbidden matters, all individuals present at the gathering will face consequences.”

Other illegal activities include watching and sharing forbidden content. 

Reading from the Quran, the central religious text of Islam, should only be done under the guidance of a government-assigned imam, and individuals are forbidden to discuss the holy book on their own, the second officer said.

Individuals from abroad who come to Xinjiang, including those visiting relatives, should report to neighborhood committees or a local police station within three days of their arrival or risk police action, he added.

Neither Chinese media nor police contacted by Radio Free Asia states reasons for the current strike hard campaign. 

Catalyst for crackdown

The current crackdown coincides with a politically sensitive anniversary of deadly ethnic violence in Urumqi, which began on July 5, 2009.  

The unrest was set off by a clash between Uyghur and Han Chinese toy factory workers in southern China’s Guangdong province in late June that year that left two Uyghurs dead. News of the deaths reached Uyghurs in Urumqi, sparking a peaceful protest that spiraled into beatings and killings of Chinese, with deaths occurring on both sides. Chinese mobs later staged revenge attacks on Uyghurs in the city’s streets with sticks and metal bars.

About 200 people died and 1,700 were injured in three days of violence between ethnic minority Uyghurs and Han Chinese, according to China’s official figures. 

Uyghur rights groups say the numbers of dead and injured were much higher.

The crackdown in Urumqi became a catalyst for the Chinese government’s efforts to repress Uyghur culture, language and religion through mass surveillance and internment campaigns.

“Behind the repressive measures undertaken by the Chinese Communist Party government, there are significant underlying issues,” said Omir Bekali, a Uyghur of Kazakh descent who spent nine months in three “re-education” camps in Xinjiang on allegations of terrorist activities, commenting on the latest strike hard campaign.

“First, the timing of this ‘strike’ operation coincides with the July 5 Urumqi incident, a sensitive event that the Chinese government prefers not to acknowledge,” he told RFA. “It has been 14 years since the incident, yet the crackdown persists.” 

“Second, the current policies pursued by the Chinese government in the region can be seen as a form of ethnic and cultural genocide,” he said, adding that authorities justify subjecting Uyghurs to physical and psychological harm as necessary measures for maintaining social stability. 

The government also imposes restrictions on Uyghur weddings, funerals and candlelight ceremonies that do not adhere to government regulations, labeling them “illegal gatherings” as another way of carrying out genocide, said Bekali, who now lives in the Netherlands.

The U.S. government and the parliaments of several Western countries have said that abuses, including the detention of Uyghurs in camps and prisons, physical mistreatment and torture, and the use of Uyghur forced labor, amount to genocide or crimes against humanity.

Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

The Chinese government has canceled a Tibetan Buddhist religious event where a prominent lama was scheduled to preach, though organizers obtained permission from authorities in advance, two Tibetans with knowledge of the situation said.  

The seventh Gungthang Rinpoche Lobsang Jamyang Geleg Tenpe Khenchen was to give a Kalachakra teaching in Dzoege, Ngaba county, in the western Chinese province of Sichuan, where the he was born, the sources said. 

The Kalachakra, which literally means “infinite wheel of time” in Sanskrit, is a sacred event where key Buddhist teachings are passed on to devotees. Only a very few qualified Tibetan Buddhist masters, including the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, can impart such teachings.

The Rinpoche is an influential religious figure from Labrang Tashikyil Monastery in Xiahe county, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, in Gansu province — part of the region traditionally known to Tibetans as Amdo. In 2004, he was recognized as the seventh reincarnation of Gungthang Rinpoche by the sixth one, Jamyang Zhepa. 

The Tibetan title “rinpoche” means “precious one” and is used at the end of the name of lamas who have been recognized as the reincarnation of a great teacher.

“The Kalachakra was scheduled to begin in July in Dzoege, but just when it was about to commence, the authorities canceled it,” said a Tibetan from inside Tibet, who requested anonymity so he could speak freely. 

“The Chinese government cited that the month of July marks the 70th anniversary of the instituting of Kanlho prefecture, and therefore, the Kalachakra had to be canceled,” he said, referring to the Tibetan name for Gannan prefecture. 

The move illustrates ongoing efforts by Chinese authorities to maintain a firm grasp on Tibetans by suppressing expressions of their Buddhist religion. 

It also comes as the ruling Chinese Communist Party seeks to appoint its own Panchen Lama — the second-most revered figure in Tibetan Buddhism who is chosen by the Dalai Lama — as a state-selected proxy. Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the legitimate 11th Panchen Lama, has been missing since Chinese authorities abducted him in May 1995.

In recent years, Chinese authorities have strengthened laws to control the behavior of religious teachers in an effort to curb the spread of Tibetan Buddhist teachings, demolished Tibetan religious sites, and closed down religious schools.  

The Tibetan source went on to say that the venue and tents for the event had been in place since June, but that “Chinese authorities suddenly banned the Kalachakra for some lame excuses.”

Tibetan Buddhists now hope that the authorities will allow the Kalachakra to be held in August, he added. 

A Tibetan who lives in exile said the event was canceled because the Chinese government aims to curb the influence of Tibetan Buddhism and Tibetan religious teachers. 

“The Chinese government is aware that thousands of devotees from many Tibetan areas of Amdo, such as Machu, Luchu, Thewo, Dzoege, Shagdom, Jhamey, Thangkor and other regions, were going to attend the Kalachakra teaching, so the government canceled it to control and restrict these influences,” said the source who declined to be named so he could speak freely. 

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

Washington on Friday again urged countries to push Myanmar on a peace plan that has failed so far, although the regional bloc is divided over how to handle the Burmese crisis.

Countries must persuade the Burmese military to follow through on the five-point plan, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said as he met with his counterparts from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and other countries in Jakarta on Friday.

“In Myanmar, we must press the military regime to stop the violence, to implement ASEAN’s five-point consensus, to support a return to democratic governance,” Blinken said in a speech during a meeting with ASEAN ministers. 

The bloc, of which Myanmar is a member, has sought to mediate a resolution to the situation in that country, where the military toppled an elected government in February 2021 and threw civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi in prison. Nearly 3,800 people have been killed in post-coup violence, mostly by junta security forces.  

On Thursday, ASEAN issued a joint statement of its foreign ministers, but that was delayed by a day following a meeting of the region’s top diplomats Tuesday and Wednesday. Reports said the delay arose because they could not agree on what their joint statement would say about Myanmar.

The statement reflected the dissonance. 

Thailand had last month held another meeting with Myanmar’s junta-appointed foreign minister, representatives of ASEAN members Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and the Philippines, and India and China. The Burmese and Thai militaries are said to be close, and the outgoing Thai PM is a former army chief.

ASEAN 2023 chair Indonesia did not take kindly to that meeting, which it skipped along with Singapore and Malaysia.

And yet, the joint statement acknowledged that meeting, noting that “a number of ASEAN member states” viewed it “as a positive development.”

The statement went on to note, however, that efforts to solve the Myanmar crisis must support the five-point consensus and efforts by ASEAN chair Indonesia.

Thai Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai defended the meeting, saying it was in line with an earlier ASEAN document that called for exploring other approaches for resolving the crisis.

In another shocker for the rest of ASEAN, and indeed, everyone else, the Thai foreign minister announced on Wednesday that he had met secretly over the weekend with Myanmar’s imprisoned civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. The Thai foreign ministry said that she and the junta had approved the meeting with Don.

And not everyone is on board with the five-point consensus either, although they present a unified front, reports say.

The previous foreign minister of Malaysia, Saifuddin Abdullah, was an exception. He had said last July that it was time to junk the peace plan and devise a new one on a deadline that included enforcement mechanisms. 

ASEAN operates by consensus, which means any action it takes has to be approved by every member state. Divisions within the bloc have meant that not every member has approved of tougher action against Myanmar.

Therefore, other than shutting out the Burmese junta from all high-level ASEAN meetings for reneging on the consensus, little else has happened since February 2021.

Hunter Marston, a Southeast Asia researcher at the Australian National University, said the ASEAN top diplomats’ joint statement was largely in line with his expectations.

He would have liked to see “ASEAN invite the NUG as a way of imposing costs on the junta, but that won’t receive consensus,” Marston told BenarNews, referring to the National Unity Government, which is the shadow civilian administration.

He would have also liked to see “see a clearer acknowledgement of ASEAN’s frustration with the military junta.”

And the statement “still left room for Thailand’s rogue … diplomacy,” Marston said. 

Another analyst, Muhammad Waffaa Kharisma, from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta, said he had expected a little better from the joint statement.

“[N]ow I only hope that ASEAN does not accept back the junta without accountability,” he told BenarNews.

China has agreed to import half a million cows this year from Laos, but the landlocked Southeast Asian nation is having trouble filling the order due to a lack of capacity to produce them and high quality standards imposed by Beijing, Lao government officials and farmers told Radio Free Asia.

In June 2021, Laos launched a campaign to export 500,000 cows per year to China – to meet rising demand for beef – and its Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry heavily promoted cattle farming and provided training for farmers and entrepreneurs, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported.

But before the end of July that year, Lao cattle and cattle products were banned due to an outbreak of the bovine lumpy skin disease, the Laotian Times reported.

The deal was back on in 2022, but Laos sent only 8,100 cattle to China last year. 

China requires that cows must be of high quality, younger than 4 years, and weighing less than 350 kilograms (770 pounds). They also must be vaccinated for diseases.

Of 2,100 farms in Laos raising livestock, 143 raise cows for export to China, the Lao Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry reported this year.

Low capacity

For its part, the northern province of Luang Namtha can only export 3,000 cows to China this year, an official from the Department of Livestock and Cattle for the northern parts of the country told RFA’s Lao Service, asking for anonymity to speak freely.

That’s barely a tenth of the quota if it were evenly divided between Laos’ 17 provinces.

“First [the province] will send 3,000 cows based on our plan at the end of August,” the official said. “Laos may not be able to get to the 500,000 mark [this year].”

Even if the Lao government were to offer its total support, exporting half a million head of cattle is not possible, said an official from the agriculture and forestry sector in the northern province of Xieng Khouang.

“The entire country can’t send 500,000 cows to China per year even if the Lao government tries hard,” he said. “In August and September this year the government will try to raise awareness, telling villagers to raise cows and teach them how to raise hem in order to get income for their families”

Import standards

China’s expectations for quality make half a million cows per year unrealistic, a cattle farm owner told RFA. Not only do they need to be young and healthy, they must all also be vaccinated.

“It’s impossible for Laos to send 500,000 cows to China,” he said. “China has so many conditions and rules to send cows to them. Sending cow meat to China is easier than sending live cows.”

If Laos really wants to export that many cows yearly, the government must find ways to teach people to raise quality cows on par with its neighbor Thailand, a Lao animal husbandry expert told RFA.

“Lao cows are of so low quality. The government must improve our cow raising ability in order for them to be send them to China,” he said. “Without an increase in quality China won’t buy cows from Laos.”

Translated by Sidney Khotpanya for RFA Lao service. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.