Day: March 11, 2024

Heavy artillery in Myanmar’s west killed seven people over the weekend, locals told Radio Free Asia.

After the ethnic rebel army captured a city only 24 kilometers (15 miles) from Rakhine state’s capital of Sittwe on Mar. 4, most residents fled as junta soldiers prepared for battle. 

While the Arakan Army has not entered Sittwe, a shell explosion on Saturday night is responsible for the deaths and five additional injuries. All victims were Rohingya living between Sittwe’s Kathe and Aung Min Ga Lar neighborhoods.

A resident who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons told RFA on Sunday that five people were killed instantly, while two more died at Sittwe Hospital.

“Five died on the spot at the beginning, and two died on Sunday morning,” he said. “The first five dead were a whole family.”

The dead were sent to Sittwe Hospital’s mortuary, locals said, adding that most of the injured were hit by shrapnel in the head and lower body.

The names and ages of victims could not be confirmed as telecommunication remains difficult to access in the area, but children and elderly women are among the casualties, residents said.

RFA contacted Rakhine state’s junta spokesperson Hla Thein for more information about the explosion, but he said that he didn’t know anything about the attack.

Military-controlled newspapers claimed on Monday that the Arakan Army fired into Sittwe’s Kathe neighborhood, killing the seven civilians. RFA contacted Arakan Army officials for comment on this accusation, but did not receive a reply by the time of publication.

A man who identified himself as part of Sittwe’s Rohingya community told RFA on Sunday that the restrictions and travel ban imposed by the junta have been particularly harsh for those in the ethnic group, historically targeted by the Myanmar military.

“Everyone is worried,” he said, asking not to be named for fear of persecution. “People don’t know when and at what time a heavy weapon will fall, so people live with fear and anxiety.”

Junta troops arrived in Sittwe’s Kathe neighborhood a few hours after the explosion, he said, adding that security has been tightened and almost no one dares to walk freely around the area. 

Despite allowing civilians to travel within Sittwe, those remaining in the capital have been told they are not allowed to leave, residents said.

Another Sittwe resident who also asked for anonymity told RFA he suspects the military junta’s repeated attacks on civilians are intentional.

“Heavy weapons have not just fallen once or twice,” he said. “I doubt that the heavy weapon firing had any purpose because they dropped shells in civilian neighborhoods, not a military target.”

Locals claimed ammunition was fired from Sittwe-based Police Battalion No. 12, but RFA has not been able to independently verify this statement.

On Feb. 29, soldiers firing explosives into a crowded market in Sittwe killed 12 civilians and injured 18 more in what appeared to be another round of indiscriminate civilian attacks. 

As of Feb. 18, renewed fighting in Rakhine between the military junta and Arakan Army has killed 111 civilians and injured 357 since it began on Nov. 13, 2023, according to a statement by the Arakan Army. 

Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.

After fleeing China’s persecution and entering Thailand 10 years ago, more than 40 Uyghurs remain incarcerated in overcrowded detention centers for illegal entry without knowing their fate, their families and rights groups said at a weekend seminar.

They are among more than 500 Uyghurs who fled China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region to Southeast Asian countries, according to Thai officials and NGOs. They hoped to be resettled in Turkey via Malaysia but only about 100 made their way through the red tape and intransigence of officials.

During the exodus from late 2013 to 2014, Thai immigration authorities arrested at least 475 Uyghurs – mostly on rubber plantations in Songkhla province – and detained them in March 2014, according to official figures. 

And the remaining Uyghurs have been held as illegal immigrants – not refugees – under “poor living conditions” in detention centers, unable to speak with outsiders, said an advisor to the country’s National Human Rights Commission, Rattikul Chansuriya, who contended that the Uyghurs could be in danger if repatriated to China. 

“The concerned authorities should urgently find appropriate third countries or other destinations for Uyghur detainees,” she told the seminar in Bangkok on Saturday.

She made the same recommendation to Thailand’s civilian-led Srettha Thavisin government. 

“The concerned authorities should expedite the implementation of the regulations for the screening of aliens who cannot be returned to their country of origin due to potential danger,” she said. “This is an important mechanism to provide protection to asylum seekers, including Uyghurs.” 

Thailand’s foreign ministry had not responded to a request for comment on the Uyghurs by the time of publication.

Civilian government provides little hope

The life of Uyghurs under the then-government of Prayuth Chan-o-cha, a former army general who led the May 2014 coup, was harsh.

A month after the forced repatriation of 109 Uyghur men in July 2015, a bomb blast killed 20 people and injured more than 100 others at Bangkok’s Erawan Shrine, frequented by Chinese tourists. Thai officials believed the attack was in retaliation for China blocking the transfer of Uyghur refugees to Turkey after Ankara accepted more than 170 Uyghur women and children.  

At that time, the Turkish embassy in Bangkok said it was willing to accept all the Uyghurs, but China protested. Beijing has continued to closely monitor the status of the detainees, prompting Bangkok to prevaricate. 

One Thai NGO said in spite of international pressure on Thailand it continues to be hard to persuade the government to release the Uyghurs.

“The Uyghurs are a small group of people, [who] mean nothing. China keeps submitting letters to follow up on Uyghurs with the Thai foreign ministry every day,” said Chalida Tajaroensuk, director of the People’s Empowerment Foundation, a Thai NGO that assists Uyghur refugees in Thailand. 

She said it was hard for NGOs and even for Thai officials to have access to the detainees, especially the two bomb suspects, because the government called the matter a “top secret security issue.”

At least five Uyghurs died in detention, according to the Germany-based World Uyghur Congress.

The National Human Rights Commission advisor, Rattikul, said that Thailand’s Human Rights Commissioner would persist in advocating for various recommendations. 

These include establishing a definitive timeline for third-country asylum, ensuring access to psychotherapy, enabling communication with outsiders, providing prompt notification in case of death, and improving detention facilities.

Additionally, the Commissioner is pushing for the authorities to identify a third country for asylum seekers and the implementation of a “no repatriation” policy when there is a potential danger. However, these recommendations have so far received no response from the Srettha administration.

“I thought this government would have a more liberal policy, or a balanced policy on this matter or human rights issues in general but it’s disappointing. I still didn’t hear anything about them upholding human rights issues in Thailand,” she said.

Following nine years of a military-backed government, the ruling coalition’s leading party Pheu Thai may not do much to improve the administration’s human rights focus. 

Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, whom the media dub a “salesman” for his economic focus, is seen by many political pundits as disregarding human rights.

But Human Rights Watch Deputy Asia Director Phil Robertson said Srettha needs to stop buckling under Beijing’s pressure.

“Thailand should say to China: ‘Look, according to our law and international standards, we can’t send them to you.’” 

Waiting for his father 

Speaking in an animated video at Saturday’s seminar, a Turkey-based man whose father remains in a Bangkok cell said no one wanted to become a refugee but did it out of necessity. He said his family was longing to be reunited.   

The man said his parents and siblings were detained in Thailand on March 14, 2014, before all-but-his-father were released for settlement in Turkey. 

“The most important man in our lives is missing … We know where he is, but we cannot hug him,” said the man, who wished to remain anonymous to protect his family.

“His absence is the most visible wound in our soul.”  

Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.

The renewal of close U.S. ties with Micronesia, Palau and the Marshall Islands will contribute to greater regional security, island leaders said after President Joe Biden signed a government funding bill into law that included US$7.1 billion for the three Pacific allies.  

Biden’s signature on Saturday following the $460 billion bill’s passage through Congress last week averted a partial government shutdown. It also ended uncertainty about funding for the three Micronesian nations that occupy a swath of the western Pacific crucial to U.S. military dominance in the region.

“The path to this day has been longer than expected and a challenging road that raised concerns,” Federated States of Micronesia’s President Wesley Simina said in a video posted online Sunday.

“At the end of the day, the FSM and the U.S. reached an agreement with an outcome that I am confident will benefit both our nations and contribute to greater peace and prosperity for our peoples and to greater security and stability for the Indo-Pacific region and the world,” he said. 

The Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau, which together are home to about 200,000 people, give the U.S. military access to their vast ocean territories in exchange for funding and the right for their citizens to live and work in the U.S. The agreements, known as compacts of free association, also allow the U.S. to deny other countries access to the waters between the Philippines and Hawaii.

Amid increased U.S.-China rivalry in the Pacific, the three island nations last year signed new economic assistance agreements with the U.S. that are significantly more generous and provide a total of $7.1 billion over two decades. But budget battles between Republicans and Democrats created uncertainty about when the funding taps would be turned on.

The leaders of Palau, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands, the New Zealand and Australian ambassadors to the U.S. and dozens of U.S. politicians had recently rung alarm bells that delays in securing the funding had created an opening for China’s government to further increase its influence in the region.

Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine said the Nitijela – the Marshall Islands legislature – still needs to give its approval for the updated compact, which includes $700 million in contributions over four years to a national trust fund.

The Marshall Islands was the last of the three nations to sign its amended compact with the U.S. last year after negotiations complicated by the legacy of American nuclear testing on Bikini and Enewetak atolls in the 1940s and 1950s.

U.S. legislative approval “represents a very big step in our mutual and enduring efforts to strengthen the compacts,” Heine said in a statement. 

The compact, she said, “is crucial to the wellbeing of our citizens and security of our region.” 

The Marshall Islands hosts a mainstay U.S. ballistic missile testing and space surveillance range on Kwajalein Atoll. In Palau, the U.S. military is building an over-the-horizon radar station.

Last month, Simina and the leaders of Palau and Marshall Islands had warned in a letter to senior U.S. legislators that uncertainty about funding had “resulted in undesirable opportunities for economic exploitation by competitive political actors active in the Pacific.”

The letter didn’t name China but its inroads with Pacific island nations, including a security pact with the Solomon Islands in 2022, have recently galvanized renewed U.S. attention to the region.

China’s government has courted Pacific island nations for several decades as it seeks to isolate Taiwan diplomatically, gain allies in international institutions and erode U.S. dominance. Beijing regards Taiwan, a democracy and globally important tech manufacturing center, as a renegade province that must be reunited with the mainland.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.

China is increasing its 2024 defense budget by 7.2% to US$231 billion amid regional tensions and growing rivalry with the United States, marking the third consecutive year of over 7% growth in defense spending.

Since 2015 and under Xi Jinping’s leadership, China’s defense budget has more than doubled, becoming the second-largest globally, despite the economic slowdown. This military spending increase outpaces the government’s economic growth forecast of 5% for 2024.

As “national defense is the security guarantee for the survival and development of a nation,” a stable growth in military expenditures has been maintained throughout the years, a Chinese military spokesperson, Wu Qian, said at the weekend.

The increased defense budget, announced at the National People’s Congress (NPC) last week, will focus on military construction and capabilities; the innovative development of national defense science and technology; military reform; and an improved remuneration policy system, Wu added. 

The increase aligns with Beijing’s goal of achieving a “world-class military” by 2049, as reported by the state-run Xinhua News Agency quoting Xi Jinping  at the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2017.

“Given the state of China’s economy now, it does appear that Beijing is bent on persisting with its buildup of the People’s Liberation Army despite the economic challenges,” said Collin Koh, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, who also warned about the “opacity in China’s decision making.”

Researchers of the China Power project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington D.C. shared a similar view. 

“While China releases an official defense budget, how much China actually spends on its military is widely debated,” its March report reads in part. 

Despite joining the U.N. voluntary report on military expenditures, China “remains less transparent than many countries,” the report further reads. 

China’s official defense budget for 2022 was approximately US$230 billion, but the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimated the actual figure that year to be US$292 billion, or almost 27% higher.

The U.S. Department of Defense also noted in 2021 that China’s real military spending may be around 1.1 to 2 times higher than stated in its official budget.

Yet the Chinese military spokesperson Wu insisted that “China’s defense expenditures are open, transparent, reasonable and appropriate.” 

“China actively participates in the United Nations’ military expenditure transparency system and has submitted its military expenditure report for the previous fiscal year to the United Nations every year since 2008,” Wu said. 

Lower than the U.S.

The military budget for 2024 is about 10 times as much as China’s education budget, and almost five times more than the budgets for science and technology.

But the Chinese military spokesperson Wu said compared to the U.S., China’s defense expenditure remains “relatively low in terms of the percentage in GDP, percentage in national fiscal expenditure, and per capita defense expenditure as well as per-service member defense expenditure.”

“China adheres to the path of peaceful development and firmly pursues a defensive national defense policy,” Wu added.

Koh from S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies believes that whether China’s defense policy is defensive or offensive, “it requires a debate on several fronts, including strategic and operational.”

“But the fact is that it is acquiring an array of offensive, especially force projection type, capabilities – several of which could be deemed destabilizing in nature,” Koh told Radio Free Asia.

Such a move as the military budget expansion could “fuel regional arms dynamics and consequently a potential arms-tension spiral given the extant geopolitical flashpoints in the region,” he added.   

“Its aggressive behavior against its neighbors such as India and Southeast Asian rivals in the South China Sea should also justify China being seen as a security threat.”

Taiwan reunification

Observers also noted that China’s Premier Li Qiang in his government work report at the opening of the annual parliamentary session last week dropped the mention of “peaceful reunification” when speaking of Taiwan.

But the report pledged that Beijing would be “firm in advancing the cause of China’s reunification.”

China considers the self-ruled island one of its provinces that should be reunited with the mainland but so far Chinese officials have not threatened military action and the word “peaceful,” though was dropped before, was re-installed last year. 

“We should promote the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations and advance the process of China’s peaceful reunification,” said the then-Premier Li Keqiang at the 2023 NPC meeting. Li passed away last October. 

In response to Li Qiang’s government work report, Taiwan Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jeff Liu said that Taiwan is a sovereign independent country and is not subordinate to the People’s Republic of China, which has never ruled Taiwan.

Koh believes Beijing has also paid close attention to what’s happening in Ukraine since the war started and sought to draw useful lessons to refine its own wartime strategy on Taiwan.

“Taiwan definitely forms a major consideration,” he said. “But it’s also equally important to say that in this context, the primary adversary Beijing is preparing the PLA for isn’t just simply Taiwan per se, but the Americans.”

The U.S.-China rivalry has been dominating the international geopolitical agenda for several years and shows no sign of abating, analysts noted.

Edited by Taejun Kang and Elaine Chan.

The Paris-based Vietnam Committee on Human Rights (VCHR) – or Quê Me – marked Friday’s international women’s day with a call for the release of all the country’s female prisoners of conscience.

More than 30 of Vietnam’s 200-plus political prisoners are women, the group said.

While the government claims these women threatened national security or caused harm to the nation, VCHR said the reality is that they were simply fighting for basic rights, social justice and a clean environment.

It said their arrests violated the Vietnamese constitution, national legislation and international human rights law.

“By stifling these essential voices, Vietnam is not only violating its binding international commitments, but also jeopardizing its own future,” VCHR Vice-President Võ Trần Nhật said.

“A clean environment cannot be built without environmentalists, a society respectful of human rights cannot exist without human rights defenders.”

VCHR cited the cases of eight women prisoners, including Nguyễn Thúy Hạnh who is being treated for cancer while in detention.

Hanh, who in 2016 ran for a seat in Vietnam’s National Assembly, was arrested in April 2021 on charges of “anti-state propaganda,” for allegedly disseminating materials against the state.

After a year of incarceration in a Hanoi prison, she was forced into treatment for depression at the Central Mental Institute in Hanoi. In January, her husband wrote on Facebook that her harsh treatment had made her condition much worse.

VCHR said that as a member of the U.N. Human Rights Council and a signatory of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Vietnam should respect its binding international commitments to respect human rights, including environmental and workers’’ rights and end the arbitrary detention of activists.

The organization called on all U.N. member states to participate in Vietnam’s fourth Universal Periodic Review in Geneva on May 7, 2024, to pressure Hanoi to release all human rights defenders, bloggers and environmental rights defenders from Vietnam’s prisons.

It said the international community needed to urge Vietnam to immediately abolish the provisions in the National Security chapter of the criminal law, especially articles 109, 117 and 331 used to arrest and detain individuals who assert their rights to freedom of speech, association, assembly and expression, and religion and belief.

Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.