Day: March 15, 2024

Police from Vietnam’s Dak Lak province made unexpected visits to two areas in Thailand where a number of ethnic minorities are seeking refugee status on grounds that they have been persecuted, they told Radio Free Asia. 

Members of the Montagnard community said they panicked when the agents visited their homes on Thursday to persuade and threaten them to return to Vietnam. The term “Montagnard” was coined by French colonialists to describe tribes who live in Vietnam’s Central Highlands, many of whom are Christians, but Vietnam has rejected use of the term. 

Police also searched for those wanted in last June’s armed attacks on two People’s Commune headquarters in Dak Lak province in the Central Highlands that left nine people dead, the refugees said. 

The area where the attacks took place is home to about 30 indigenous tribes who have a long history of conflict with the Vietnamese majority, and who claim they have been discriminated against.

In January, 100 individuals were tried in the case, and 10 were sentenced to life in prison on terrorism charges. The remainder were handed sentences ranging from three-and-a-half years to 20 years, mostly on terrorism-related charges. Vietnamese lawyers criticized it as a hasty show trial. 

Montagnards living in Bang Len district Nakhon Pathom province, 60 kilometers (37 miles) from the Thai capital Bangkok, said Thai police brought the Vietnamese police officers to their homes. 

Thai police officers asked the Montagnards to gather in a front yard where two of eight Vietnamese officers dressed in plainclothes questioned them, one of the refugees told Radio Free Asia on Friday.

Not convinced

The two officers gave their names and said they were from the homeland security force in Dak Lak province and from the Gia Lai provincial police, while the other officers took photos and videos with smartphones and camcorders, the refugee said. 

They tried to persuade the Montagnards to return to Vietnam, saying they would take care of their transportation, food and accommodation expenses,” he said. 

“Once you return to Vietnam, we’ll take care of everything,” the refugee said, recalling the officers’ words. 

But he was skeptical. “If we returned to Vietnam, we would die,” he said “We would never be safe. What the Vietnamese [authorities] want is to imprison us.” 

Dinh Ngan, an ethnic Bana refugee, said the directorof the Gia Lai provincial police said he would be their “guardian” if they wanted to return. Otherwise, the director said the police would arrest them or they would face difficulties.

Another refugee, Nay Phot, said the same official told the Montagnards to return to Vietnam where the government would be lenient towards them and provide them with land and vehicles. 

“They threatened that if we didn’t come back, the police would have to arrest us, and then the government would no longer forgive us,” he said.

In a statement posted nine days ago, Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security branded Montagnard Stand for Justice and the Montagnard Support Group as terrorist organizations linked to the 2023 Dak Lak attacks. 

Asking about others

The refugee, who requested anonymity out of fear of his safety, said the two officers asked him and others about the whereabouts of Y Quynh Bdap and other wanted Montagnards, showing them their images and arrest warrants on their cellphones. 

Y Quynh Bdap, co-founder of Montagnard Stand for Justice, was accused of being associated with the Dak Lak attacks and later sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison on a terrorism charge at a trial held in Vietnam this January. He has denied participating in the attack.

Police Col. Adisak Kamnerd of the Bang Len police told RFA that he had not received requests from any agency to allow Vietnamese officers to go there. 

Another security official, who asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media, told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service, that this was the first known incident whereby Vietnamese police questioned Vietnamese refugees in Thailand, violating their basic privacy rights. He also called the action “undiplomatic.”

“I believe they are coming after the suspects in the Dak Lak attacks,” he said.

The incident occurred one day after the Public Security Online Newspaper reported that Minister of Public Security To Lam met with Thai Ambassador to Vietnam Nikorndej Balankura. During the meeting, Lam proposed that the two sides sign an agreement on extradition and mutual legal assistance in criminal matters.

RFA did not receive a response to an email sent to the U.N.’s refugee agency in Bangkok.

Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to an emailed request for information. 

Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

In the clearest sign yet that a military draft will soon go into effect in Myanmar, junta authorities are summoning draft-eligible youths and taking information door-to-door throughout the largest city of Yangon, residents said Friday.

The move comes after the junta enacted a conscription law last month requiring selected young men and women to serve in the military, which is trying to replenish its ranks after suffering a series of battlefield defeats against rebel groups fighting them since the military seized power in a 2021 coup.

In reaction, many young people have fled Myanmar’s cities, saying they would rather leave the country or join anti-junta forces in remote border areas than serve in the military.

“We reject their authority under martial law,” said a 28-year-old resident of Yangon’s Mayangone township who said he would never serve in the military. 

After initially being required to provide personal information at his ward administration office, he is now avoiding authorities. Like others interviewed for this report, he spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.

The junta has claimed that conscription won’t go into effect until April, but RFA Burmese has received several reports indicating that forced recruitment is already under way across the country.

The junta has announced plans to recruit 5,000 people monthly under the conscription law. Those who fail to comply with the military service call-up face up to five years in prison.

‘Summoning has commenced’

All townships in Yangon have initiated enforcement of the country’s conscription law, according to official records.

Based on data from the ministry, township-level militia recruitment teams are screening young residents and requiring them to fill out eligibility forms by ward. Those within the specified age range are then being summoned to ward offices to be tallied, residents told RFA.

Authorities are selecting three to five people from smaller wards and five to 10 people from larger wards, said one resident of Yangon, who also declined to be named.

“The township general administration, in collaboration with the immigration office, examined their census records, focusing on people aged 24 to 30,” he said. “The summoning process has already commenced across the entire Yangon region.”

Those selected are being assured that they will be assigned to serve solely within their respective townships, and will not be sent to the front lines after completing their training, he added.

Operational procedures vary among townships, residents said, with youths being summoned to ward offices in some and door-to-door inspection by authorities in others. In areas with limited numbers of draft-eligible residents, authorities have proposed a lottery system to choose from among the middle-aged, they said.

A 27-year-old mother of a newborn in Dagon Seikkan township said that her husband was included in the census.

“I am a breastfeeding mother, so I would have to be left with my baby” if her husband is drafted. she said. “If he is selected, it would feel like our world is collapsing.”

Attempts by RFA to contact Htay Aung, the junta’s attorney general and spokesperson for Yangon region, went unanswered Friday.

However, on Tuesday, Soe Thein, the junta’s chief minister of Yangon region disclosed during a meeting in the city that militia recruitment teams and census teams had been established “down to the ward and village” level, calling on authorities to emphasize precision in their work.

‘State of utter chaos’

Parents of draft-age young people are also terrified. One woman in Yangon said her neighborhood is “in turmoil.”

“The actions of the junta are deeply troubling and are taking a toll on the mental well-being of our children,” she said. “Parents are grappling with how to navigate this situation and uphold their values.”

RFA received reports that similar summonses are being issued in the capital of Naypyidaw, where draft-eligible residents are being required to register at township general administration offices for military service.

Than Soe Naing, a political commentator, said the implementation of the draft law reflects the “dire state of the nation.”

“Some young people are seeking to leave the country, while others are heading to liberated areas [under rebel control],” he said. “It is a state of utter chaos.”

Translated by Kalyar Lwin. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

A Cambodian opposition activist released from prison last year after apologizing to then-Prime Minister Hun Sen and joining his ruling party has repudiated his defection after arriving in a “safe” third country.

Voeun Veasna, a forestry activist and former broadcaster for the online television station of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, was released in May 2023 after joining the ruling Cambodian People’s Party and apologizing to Hun Sen for a derisive poem he wrote about him.

The activist then fled to neighboring Thailand – where he was initially arrested in November 2021 following a request from Hun Sen – and filed a claim with the U.N. refugee agency as an asylum seeker.

He told Radio Free Asia in an interview that he could repudiate the decision to defect to the ruling CPP now that he was in a “safe” third country, which he declined to disclose for security reasons.

“I can’t live with communist leaders, and I can’t betray my conscience. I must resign,” Voeun Veasna said, referring to the CPP’s origins as the sole party of Cambodia’s 1980s revolutionary communist regime. 

Voeun Veasna added that he had only exercised his freedom of speech and should not have been jailed in the first place.

“I was talking about how Cambodians’ living standards are not getting better like neighboring countries,” he said. “I was imprisoned unjustly.”

CPP spokesman Sok Eysan said he didn’t care about Voeun Veasna’s decision to repudiate his defection after fleeing from Cambodia.

“The CPP doesn’t need convicts to join the ruling party in order to evade prison terms,” the ruling party spokesman said.

Voeun Veasna’s announcement follows the arrest last month of prominent opposition activist Kong Raiya, who also publicly defected to the ruling party to avoid political persecution but then reneged. 

Unlike Voeun Veasna, Kong Raiya revealed his decision to leave the CPP while in Thailand, and was arrested there last month before a visit by Prime Minister Hun Manet, who succeeded his father last year.

Another arrest

Separately, the Nation Power Party, a new opposition party founded in the wake of the barring of the Candlelight Party – itself a successor to the banned CNRP – from last year’s national election released a statement slamming the arrest of one of its electoral candidates, Meu Seanghor.

Meu Seanghor, also known as Kea Visal, had planned to be a candidate for the upcoming elections for Cambodia’s provincial and district administrative councils, according to the party, but was arrested on Friday in Kampong Cham province on charges of “incitement.”

The opposition party said his arrest was “an act of intimidation” and would “provoke a gloomy environment” for the May 26 council elections, in which only those already directly elected by the public to Cambodia’s 1,652 commune councils are allowed to vote.

Meu Seanghor’s wife said he was “pushed into a car” and taken away by police, and said she believed the arrest was politically motivated.

RFA reached out to Chhun Srun, the chief of Kampong Cham’s Baray commune, where he was arrested, but he could not be reached.

Translated by Yun Samean for RFA Khmer. Edited by Alex Willemyns and Malcolm Foster. 

A new U.S.-based Cambodian pro-democracy group stands prepared to work with Prime Minister Hun Manet to put the country on a path of reform and thereby “legitimize” his rule, its leader said Thursday.

Exiled former deputy opposition leader Mu Sochua announced the creation of the Khmer Movement for Democracy in September, saying it aims to reform Cambodia’s corrupt judiciary and reintroduce fair elections while training a new generation of political leaders.

Speaking with Radio Free Asia in Washington, D.C., on Thursday after meeting with officials from the National Endowment for Democracy and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Mu Sochua conceded Hun Manet would likely not let the group operate openly in Cambodia.

Hun Manet last year took over as premier from his father, Hun Sen, after an election in which the opposition Candlelight Party was barred from competing. Mu Sochua, meanwhile, stands subject to arrest if she returns to Cambodia and faces an eight-year prison sentence.

But she said she hopes her group will in time be allowed to emerge from the shadows in Cambodia, and said the group’s aim was not to topple Hun Manet or his ruling Cambodian People’s Party, or CPP.

“Of course, physically, we cannot be in Cambodia at this moment – in the near future, we cannot be – but at the same time, we are saying the approach that we take is not a confrontational approach,” Mu Sochua said, adding the group could “legitimize” Hun Manet’s rule.

“The message to Mr. Hun Manet is that there are solutions to reform the justice system and the approach, or technique, or strategy is not to … leave it to your own people,” she said, advising he instead “open up” and “go to talk to the people about how to reform the judiciary.”

Mu Sochua argued that Hun Manet’s power still rested on the support of Hun Sen, but that he has an opportunity to make his own name by stepping out of his father’s shadows and pursuing real reforms.

“If he wants to be the legitimate prime minister of Cambodia, that’s the way to go,” she said. “Be free. Don’t be afraid of your own people.”

Hun Manet did not respond to a request for a comment.

New generation

Mu Sochua served as minister of women’s affairs for the FUNCINPEC party when it was in a coalition with the CPP in the 1990s. But she emerged as one of Cambodia’s most outspoken opposition leaders as vice president of the Cambodia National Rescue Party, or CNRP.

The united opposition party, which formed from the merger of two previously rival parties in 2012, was forced to disband by Cambodia’s Supreme Court in 2017 after looking set to potentially unseat Hun Sen at the 2018 election. The Candlelight Party then emerged from the party’s ashes before itself being banned from last year’s election.

Besides repression, though, the Cambodian opposition’s top leadership faces long-running generational issues. Its two main leaders, Sam Rainsy and Kem Sokha, are aged 75 and 70, respectively, and have dominated the opposition scene for nearly three decades.

Mu Sochua herself turns 70 in a few months.

Meanwhile, after 38 years in power, the 71-year-old Hun Sen handed power to his son Manet, 46, following last year’s election as part of a generational turnover of the CPP that also saw the sons of the interior and defense ministers replace their aging fathers.

Though Mu Sochua said Thursday that age is only a number and she “still wants to be a part” of Cambodia’s pro-democracy movement when she turns 80, she acknowledged that “my role will be different” as the years go by and that a new generation of leaders was needed.

One of the barometers of success for the Khmer Movement for Democracy, then, will be its ability to train workers, community leaders and women to engage in politics, so they are one day “able to take over the torch from Mr. Sam Rainsy or Mr. Kem Sokha,” she said.

Still, that could be easier said than done.

Until the group is able to operate openly in Cambodia, the group’s training efforts will mainly have to take place through podcasts, short videos and written research documents, Mu Sochua said.

“It’s a hybrid kind of capacity building: face-to-face when we can, and then through social media,” she said. “It’s like a marathon, you know – take one step at a time. It’s a long journey.”

Edited by Malcolm Foster.

China’s state-run media outlets claimed that American chipmaker NVIDIA had for the first time listed the Chinese tech company Huawei as its “biggest competitor” in its latest annual earnings report.

But the claim is misleading. While NVIDIA did mention Huawei in the report for the first time, it was only cited as one of a number of competitors, not its biggest.

On Feb. 24, China’s state-controlled Reference News said: “The U.S. chip giant identified Huawei as the ‘biggest competitor’ in its report submitted this week to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.”

Reference News cited a report by the German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle, or DW, published to back its claim. 

Keyword searches found the report cited by Reference News published on the website of DW Chinese on Feb. 23. It claimed that Nvidia lists Huawei as the biggest competitor in its annual report.

Santa Clara, California-based NVIDIA is a leading technology company known for its powerful graphics processing units, or GPUs, which are used in video gaming, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. 

Shenzhen-based Huawei is a global telecommunications and electronics company known for its smartphones, networking equipment, and leading advancements in 5G technology.

While becoming a top producer of both telecom equipment and electronic devices, Huawei was caught in the crossfire of the U.S.-China trade war, suffering a steep drop profit after being blacklisted by the American government for buying unapproved parts from U.S. suppliers.

The claim about NVIDIA listing Huawei as the biggest competitor has been also shared in China’s state-run Global Times. Other Chinese language media such as Singapore’s Lianhe Zaobao and Taiwan’s United Daily News published similar reports.

NVIDIA’s report

On page 9 of NVIDIA’s annual earnings report, it does mention Huawei in four of the five market areas where the company faces serious competition, including as a supplier of GPU hardware and as a cloud service featuring in house AI. 

However, the relevant section of the report does not describe Huawei as either its “biggest competitor” or as a “major competitor,” and instead lists it as one amongst many multinational tech companies such as U.S. companies like AMD and Intel. 

Other Chinese companies mentioned as competitors in the 2024 report  include Alibaba and Baidu. While this is the first time Huawei has appeared as a noted “competitor” in NVIDIA’s annual report, Baidu appeared in the 2023 report while Alibaba was listed as early as 2022.

Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Taejun Kang and Malcolm Foster.

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Amid the many hardships and privations of life in North Korea, there are a few places that offer fairly lavish accommodations, with swimming pools, hot springs and advanced medical facilities: nursing homes for veterans of the 1950-53 Korean War.

But the soldiers who fought in the “Great Fatherland Liberation War” who are still alive today are now mostly nonagenarians, the nursing homes are becoming vacation resorts used by the wealthy elite, including young people, residents told Radio Free Asia.

And that’s generating bitterness among the public because most people can’t afford to stay in the nursing homes, meaning that only the tiny upper crust of well-connected people who hold all of the country’s wealth and power can stay there.

“A few days ago, I heard from an acquaintance of mine who is an official at a major company in Chongjin City that his college student son had visited a war veterans’ nursing home,”  a resident of the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons. 

“I was shocked to hear that his son had booked the veterans’ nursing home and spent a few days eating and playing well with his friends there,” she said.

Pet project

The nursing homes were a pet project of supreme leader Kim Jong Un, who ordered each province to start building them in 2015. State media at the time cast Kim as a leader concerned about the elderly veterans, whose numbers have dwindled.

The North Hamgyong resident said that staying in the nursing home costs 40,000 won (US$4.40) per night for the room only, or 100,000 ($11) if the visitor uses the various amenities – a vast sum for most North Koreans who are scraping by on meager salaries and selling goods in markets. 

According to her acquaintance, there were no war veterans in the nursing home at all, she said.

“There were only workers and young people in their prime working age,” she said. “They are opening the nursing home to the public so that they can earn money.”

Many of the nursing homes made the shift to temporary lodging out of necessity, she said.

The government was supposed to provide food and fuel for the residents and maintain the buildings. When that did not happen, the government left it to the nursing homes to become self-sufficient. Opening to the public became the only way to keep them afloat.

Generating resentment

Another resident, from the northwestern province of North Pyongan, told RFA that the war veterans’ nursing home there can be used by anyone with money.

“Those nursing homes for war veterans are the most-up-to-date style of buildings in each province, which is what the authorities paid attention to,” she said. 

The buildings were built in a folk style with traditional roof tiles, and inside there are  “health facilities such as a hot spring and music room,” she said.

But news that the wealthy can pay to use the nursing homes and enjoy amenities like hot springs is generating resentment among ordinary people, she said.

“Newspapers and TV only praise veteran soldiers as heroes on certain anniversaries,” she said. “But the reality is that there is no real support for them.”

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