Day: February 9, 2024

Vietnam’s President Vo Van Thuong recently commuted the sentences of several inmates on death row to life in prison as part of a general amnesty, but rights campaigners and legal experts said the move should not be seen as a sign that the country is improving its rights record.

Instead, they said, Vietnam’s liberal use of the death sentence is part of a bid by the government to keep its citizens in line and burnish its international image through regularly announced acts of clemency.

On Dec. 27, Thuong granted amnesty to 18 death row inmates, commuting their sentences to life in prison. More than a month later, five other death row inmates had their sentences similarly reduced after they filed a petition to Thuong.

California-based activist Nguyen Ba Tung of the Vietnam Human Rights Network told RFA Vietnamese that the amnesty was simply part of a bid by the government to “beautify Vietnam’s image on the world stage.”

“The government retains the death penalty as a way to menace the people,” he said in a phone interview. “At the end of the year, or on special holidays, they let the president grant an amnesty to show that they are ‘humane.’ But international human rights groups can see through this act.”

Vietnam’s judiciary is notorious for its application of the death sentence. Eighteen criminal charges in the country’s penal code carry maximum sentences of execution – most of which are related to drug crimes.

Amnesty International’s latest annual report on death sentences and executions, released in May 2023, ranked Vietnam as eighth among nations with the most recorded death sentences in 2022, with at least 102.

Just weeks prior to Thuong’s decision to grant amnesty to the five death row inmates, a court in Nghe An province handed down nine death sentences to convicted traffickers from a busted drug ring.

Amnesty ‘not a progressive act’

Nguyen Van Dai, a veteran lawyer in the capital Hanoi, told RFA that the application and commutation of the death sentence is all part of a strategy by the government to threaten its citizens at home and avoid criticism abroad.

“Every year, Vietnam hands out hundreds of death sentences to drug traffickers and murderers,” he said. “If all the death inmates were executed, the international community would pillory Vietnam. So they find inmates who were sentenced to death for less heinous criminal acts and grant them amnesty.”

Dai dismissed the idea of amnesty for death row inmates as progress or a sign of judicial reform.

“Progress means that clemency should be granted to all prisoners, both political or criminal, but it is never applied in cases of national security,” he said. “This is a form of discrimination and I don’t consider amnesty a progressive act.”

In 2022, Vietnam granted clemency to 31 death row inmates, four of whom were foreign nationals.

In September 2023, Vietnam executed death row inmate Le Van Manh, despite claims by Amnesty International that his case was “mired in serious irregularities and violations of the right to a fair trial,” and calls by the international community to stay his sentence.

Manh was sentenced to death in 2005, when he was 23 years old, for allegedly raping and killing a female student from his village earlier that year. He had pleaded not guilty to the charges and maintained his innocence until his execution.

Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

Tibet’s regional capital of Lhasa is seeing a flurry of Tibetan visitors for Losar, the Tibetan New Year, thanks to a relaxation in travel restrictions announced by Beijing in an effort to revive the slumping economy, three sources from inside Tibet said.

Most of them are coming from Sichuan and Qinghai provinces – known as Kham and Amdo provinces in Tibetan – to visit Lhasa, a key pilgrimage destination with a host of major sites, including the Potala Palace, Barkhor Street, the Jokhang Temple and Norbulingka Palace, the sources said.

“This is also the largest gathering of Tibetans from Kham and Amdo in Lhasa since 2008,” the first of the three sources said. They all requested anonymity citing fear of repercussions for speaking to the media. 

However, authorities also imposed restrictions on visits to the Jokhang Temple, the holiest site in Tibetan Buddhism: It can be accessed only the first day of Losar, Feb. 10, and will be closed from Feb. 11-16, the sources said.

Limits were placed on visits to other religious sites during Losar, and on forming large gatherings during the 15-day-long Tibetan New Year celebrations, two of the sources said. 

And Lhasa police said devotees must present their identification cards before participating in religious rituals near temples and pilgrimage sites.

Travel restrictions

The moves come after Chinese authorities imposed strict travel restrictions in 2018 on Tibetans going on pilgrimages to Lhasa from other parts of the Tibet Autonomous Region and from Tibetan-majority areas of Chinese provinces. 

They made Tibetans obtain a special permit to travel to the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region. 

Last year, Tibetans were required to fill out a separate application form from a local official and submit it to an office in Lhasa, and a resident of the city was required to provide assurance that the traveler would not engage in protests.

“Earlier, without proper travel documents from one’s respective county or local office, Tibetans faced many restrictions when traveling to Lhasa from Dotoe and Domey regions,” said the first source. 

“However, these restrictions have been eased recently, and there’s been a huge increase in the number of Tibetans traveling into Lhasa for the Tibetan New Year. This is aimed at boosting the Chinese economy [in Tibet].”  

Chinese authorities appear to have relaxed the restrictions because of worries about the economic slump in China amid falling exports, a prolonged crisis in the property market, high debt and soaring youth unemployment.

A second source, a tour operator based inside Tibet, told RFA that the surge in tourists in Lhasa has been beneficial for local businesses that earlier faced the brunt of a larger economic slowdown in China. 

“Tourism can indeed have a significant positive impact on a country’s economy, and the growing number of tourists in Lhasa will boost the economy of our local business owners,” the first source said.

Earlier this year, while delivering a government work report at the annual session of the regional People’s Congress, Yan Jinhai, chairman of the regional government of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, set a target of 8% economic growth in 2024, down from the estimated growth of about 9% in 2023, Chinese state media reported. 

Distant dream

While China may have eased some domestic travel restrictions, including those within the country, international travel, including that to neighboring Nepal, still remains subject to a range of restrictions and conditions, the sources said. 

“I went to Nepal with a few of my friends last month but in order to go on that trip, I had to deposit 100,000 Nepali rupee [US$750] and give the name of someone I knew in Lhasa as security,” said the third source who recently traveled to the landlocked Himalayan country.

But after agreeing to the conditions, the person could not travel independently. 

“I was always accompanied by the travel agency representative,” the third source said. “I felt like a prisoner.”  

Travel to Western countries, meanwhile, continues to remain a distant dream, said the sources from inside Tibet.

“It’s almost impossible for Tibetans to travel to the United States and other Western countries,” the third source said. 

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

They stick on the eyelids and provide more volume than mascara ever could. False eyelashes are big business. But consumers who buy them may be indirectly funding North Korea’s missile program.

Though they come in blister packs that say “Made in China,” they may have actually been made in North Korea and shipped to China – in possible violation of sanctions.

A Chinese trader provided Radio Free Asia with a shipping statement showing that a North Korean company based in the border city of Sinuiju last month exported 190,000 false eyelash products to a company in Donggang, a city in China’s Liaoning province.

“North Korean trading companies produce artificial eyelashes using raw materials imported from Chinese companies,” the trader told RFA Korean, insisting on not being identified for fear of punishment. “Then they sell them back to companies in China. North Korean workers receive 1 Chinese yuan (14 U.S. cents) for every three artificial eyelash products they make.”

Through this singular transaction, the state-run North Korean company made 63,000 yuan (US$8,800) in profit for the cash-strapped government, which is trying to develop missiles that would threaten the United States. Washington has in turn slapped sanctions on North Korea to keep it from exporting goods.

The transaction also included 18,000 wigs, which she said takes two or three days to make.

“Some people make more than 100 eyelashes a day,” she said. “The inspection standards are strict and very picky.”

‘Made in China’

The statement and the trader’s testimony corroborates a story that Reuters broke last week that fake eyelashes and other beauty products made in North Korea are sent to China and disguised as Chinese products to avoid sanctions. 

The products are stamped “Made in China” and  exported to the United States, Brazil, Russia and elsewhere, the report said.

Pingdu, in China’s Shandong province, is known as the center of the supply chain for North Korean artificial eyelashes. Reuters reported that this region produces 70% of artificial eyelash production in the world.

According to a 2023 estimate posted on its website by Kali, a Chinese manufacturer of eyelash boxes, about 80% of Pingdu’s artificial eyelash factories purchase or reprocess raw materials and semi-finished artificial eyelash products from North Korea.

The Reuters report said this kind of country-of-origin-laundering operation is being carried out openly in China, and according to Chinese customs data, North Korea exported a total of 1,680 tons of artificial eyelashes, beards and wigs to China last year, worth about US$167 million.

The eyelash business is so lucrative that North Korean workers dispatched by their government to earn foreign cash in China by working in factories there are being given extra eyelash work. 

“A seafood company in China that employs North Korean workers is forcing workers to undergo additional eyelash processing,” the trader said. “The workers are complaining.”

The trader said that North Korea even uses prison labor to fill its eyelash contracts.

In June 2019, RFA reported that female prisoners in North Korea were doing additional work of making wigs and eyelashes even after their assigned work 

RFA reported in April 2021 that the North Korean government wanted to steer young workers into other industries so there was a labor shortage for eyelash and wig makers that year.

Sanctions violation?

While the North Korean export of eyelashes violates U.S. sanctions against North Korea, they are not subject to U.N. sanctions, Troy Stangarone, at the Washington-based Korea Economic Institute told RFA.

“Technically speaking, the export of eyelashes is not sanctioned under the United Nations,” he said. “What is prohibited is the export of North Korean goods to the United States without a license to import from North Korea.” 

“Any fake eyelash products processed in North Korea by Chinese firms would be ineligible to be shipped to the United States,” he said. “So, this is really a difference between U.N. and U.S. sanctions.”

The U.S. firm e.l.f. Cosmetics was fined US$1 million in 2019 after it was discovered that the company had over a period of five years imported eyelashes from China that had North Korean components. 

“Ultimately North Korean export of eyelashes or other fake hair products is a small part of their economy and exports,” Stangarone said. “It’s unlikely that North Korea will be able to really drive its own economic growth without diversifying into other areas.”

Translated by Claire S. Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.

Dragon down the economy: Chinese leader Xi Jinping is pulling out all the stops in the auspicious Year of the Dragon to revive the world’s second-largest economy, which has downshifted to a slower-growth phase after decades of breakneck expansion. 

Critics say short-term fixes won’t help an economy weighed down by structural problems like mounting local government debt, a tumbling real estate market and the fallout from Xi’s own national security-first approach that features crackdowns on the tech sector and wealthy entrepreneurs – as well as policies that scare off foreign investors.

Myanmar border guards and soldiers fled into Bangladesh earlier this week after losing contact with their commanders during fierce fighting in Rakhine state, an interpreter present during their conversation with Bangladesh officials told BenarNews on Friday.

Many of these Burmese members of the junta-affiliated border police and army who have been sheltering with the Border Guard Bangladesh said they wished to return to their homes, according to an interpreter who spoke to BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated news outlet, near the BGB outpost in Teknaf, Cox’s Bazar.

As many as 330 members of the Myanmar Border Guard Police (BGP) and soldiers crossed the border after abandoning their posts in Rakhine, next door in Myanmar, amid fierce fighting with Arakan Army rebels, who have been making advances in gaining control of territory in battles with junta forces. 

The BGP members told the interpreter, Mohammad Saiful Islam, that they were attacked around 4 a.m. on Feb. 4. They fought back before fleeing on Feb. 6.

“They said the Arakan Army encircled from three sides and launched attacks on them. Before the attack, the Arakan Army severed all means of communication with their senior officials,” Saiful Alam told BenarNews. “But they continued their resistance for two days. Ten of their members died while the Arakan Army lost at least 20 of their members. 

“They had no way to contact their commanding officers to get instructions.”

As the fighting crept closer to the border this week, at least three civilians on the Bangladesh side were reported killed by artillery and gunfire from the fighting.

Saiful Islam said he talked to 17 army officers linked to Myanmar’s border guard along with 147 BGP members who fled from the Rakhine state. They told him they crossed into Bangladesh to survive. 

“‘If we proceeded in other directions, they would apprehend and kill us,’” he quoted an unnamed soldier as saying. 

Saiful Islam said BGB leaders gave him questions to ask the Myanmar forces, adding most were reluctant to provide any details. They were more interested in asking about how they would be returned to Myanmar.

“The common answer I get from them is ‘we came under attack and we fled,’” he said.

Earlier this week, officials reported that 330 Myanmar troops crossed into Bangladesh and surrendered their weapons to the BGB.

Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman Siddiqui, BGB’s new chief, said Bangladesh had followed international norms by allowing the Myanmar border guards and soldiers to cross into Bangladesh on humanitarian grounds. 

Bangladesh ambassador to Myanmar Md. Monowar Hossain said he spoke to a Myanmar deputy foreign minister who expressed his government’s desire for the BGP to be returned. Bangladesh agreed to repatriate them by sea.

Fight for control

Myanmar’s security forces and the rebel Arakan Army (AA), founded in 2009, have been fighting for control of Rakhine state, which borders Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar and Bandarban districts.

In recent months, the AA has intensified attacks on the Myanmar military and the BGP. 

On Friday, the AA claimed it captured the final major junta territory in Mrauk U, effectively taking control of the town in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state, according to Radio Free Asia, a news service affiliated with BenarNews.

Previously, the AA captured two key military units in western Rakhine state, seizing control of Minbya. This came after AA rebels captured a BGP camp in Maungdaw township last weekend.

As fighting intensified between the junta forces and the Arakan Army, the civilian population of Rakhine state – including Buddhist Chakma and minority Rohingya Muslims – has been displaced. Hundreds of people have been trying to cross into Bangladesh, but the BGB was put on alert to stop any influx of Myanmar residents.

In Dhaka, Obaidul Quader, a senior minister and spokesman for and general secretary of the ruling Awami League party, said the government would not allow people from Myanmar to take shelter in Bangladesh. 

Lt. Col. Mohiuddin Ahmed, BGB Teknaf battalion commander, said many people were trying to enter Bangladesh at different spots along the border. 

“As of today, we have apprehended 137 people who attempted to enter,” he told BenarNews on Friday.

Two days earlier, Quader told journalists that Rohingya would not be allowed to cross over from Rakhine. 

“The Rohingya people have become a big burden for Bangladesh … the international assistance has fallen. How long can we support them,” he asked.

About 1 million Rohingya live in refugee camps in and around Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar – most have fled Myanmar since a military crackdown against their stateless minority group in August 2017.

On Friday, residents of Tombru, Gundam, Teknaf and Ukhia in Bangladesh told BenarNews correspondents that the intensity of fighting near the border has been reduced.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news outlet.

A 20% year-over-year increase of agricultural exports from Laos in 2023 was largely on the back of Chinese plantations, according to trade officials, meaning that the country will reap few of the profits.

Members of the business community told RFA Lao that the government needs to review its approach to foreign investment while improving its agricultural output to avoid a deepening trade deficit and improve the living standards of farmers in Laos.

The Lao Ministry of Industry and Trade recently reported that last year Laos exported 9.5 million tons of agricultural products worth US$1.4 billion – an increase of just over 20% from 2022.

However, the ministry acknowledged that most of the exported goods were produced by Chinese investors who leased land and grew vegetables and fruit in Laos to sell to China.

Produce exports from Laos are largely cassava, potatoes, coffee, bananas and sugar. The country exports most of its products to China, Vietnam and Thailand, respectively.

Chinese nationals run 933 projects in the agricultural sector in Laos, and their investments in the country are on the rise. Most of the projects adhere to what the Lao government refers to as the “2+3 System,” in which Laos provides land and labor, while foreign investors supply capital, expertise and a market for goods.

An official with the Ministry of Industry and Trade confirmed to RFA that most agricultural products in Laos – including cattle, vegetables and fruit – are produced by Chinese nationals for export to China, rather than by Lao farmers.

“China won’t allow goods produced by Lao farmers to enter China,” said the official who, like other sources interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. “They only accept goods produced by Chinese factories and investors that meet their quality standards.”

The Lao government will only receive a small portion of the US$1.4 billion in exports last year through taxes, tariffs, land concession fees and transportation fees, he added.

Real value of foreign investment?

A Lao businessman in Luang Prabang province said the government and the people of Laos “will only get 10% of [the export value] because most goods were produced by the Chinese.”

He questioned whether the Lao government – and by extension, the people – gains more than it loses from foreign investment.

“The government must be more competitive by improving the quality and increasing the quantity [of agricultural products]; if not, Laos can expect to face a large trade deficit every year,” the businessman said. “To do that, the country must increase its knowledge, budget and access to modern technology.”

The Lao Ministry of Industry and Trade reported that in 2023, Laos imported US$6 billion worth of products and exported $5.3 billion, resulting in a trade deficit of US$700 million.

Laos can export 33 agricultural products to China – most of them fruits, vegetables and cattle – 15 products to Vietnam and 15 products to Thailand. China is the main market for Lao exports and the market is growing annually.

An official with the Asian Development Bank, or ADB, told RFA that in order to grow its exports, Laos must produce more of its own goods and improve their quality.

“China has opened up its market for Lao products – particularly bananas, cassava, corn and fruit,” the ADB official said. “Laos exported about 300 million tons of bananas last year. These export can boost the Lao economy.”

Translated by Max Avary. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.