The Irrawaddy Magazine |
- Parents of Burmese Men Accused of Koh Tao Murders Arrive in Thailand
- Karen Leaders Prepare for Divisive Assembly
- Information Minister to Discuss Jailing of Journalists With President
- Two Govt Colonial Buildings in Rangoon to Get New Owners by Year’s End
- Between Tracks and Trains, a Bustling Bazar
- Traffickers Use Abductions, Prison Ships to Feed Asian Slave Trade
- Hong Kong Protesters Plan March After Fruitless Talks With Government
- North Korea Unexpectedly Frees American Jeffrey Fowle
| Parents of Burmese Men Accused of Koh Tao Murders Arrive in Thailand Posted: 22 Oct 2014 05:38 AM PDT  Tun Tun Htike, father of Win Zaw Htun, one of two Burmese workers accused of murder, cries as he speaks to reporters after arriving in Bangkok on Oct. 22, 2014. (Photo: Reuters) CHIANG MAI, Thailand — A British labor rights activist in Thailand made a second prison visit to two Burmese men accused of murder in southern Thailand on Wednesday, as the migrants' parents were briefed by Thai lawyers on the case in Bangkok. On Tuesday, the accused were also visited by members of the Lawyers Council of Thailand, and the case lawyers said the men had retracted confessions made to police earlier this month, according to The Associated Press. Zaw Lin and Win Zaw Htun, both 21-year-old Burmese migrants, were detained by police on Oct. 2 for the alleged murder of two British tourists, whose bodies were found the morning of Sept. 15 on Koh Tao island in southern Thailand. Andy Hall, a British labor rights activist and international affairs advisor to the Migrant Workers Rights Network (MWRN), said the accused were happy to learn of their parents' arrival in Koh Samui, where they are being held. Hall said he was asked by the men to deliver a message to their parents "to be happy and not to worry about them as they didn't commit the accused crime." The MWRN visited the prison on Wednesday for a second time this week, to provide the accused with requested accessories and deposit money into their prison accounts. Meanwhile, the parents of the two migrants met the Lawyers Council of Thailand and Thailand's National Human Rights Commission at the Burmese Embassy in Bangkok upon their arrival to Thailand on Wednesday, according to Kyaw Thaung, director of the Myanmar Association in Thailand. The parents will depart the Thai capital to visit their sons in Koh Samui on Thursday. Thailand's human rights commission vowed this week to launch an inquiry into allegations of police torture of the accused, who exhibited "pains consistent with internal injuries," the Bangkok Post reported on Monday. The MWRN advisor Hall also met the prison warden and asked him to reconsider the "unfair practice" of shackling the men—who have yet to be tried—24 hours a day. "[The prison warden] said he would consider the complaint," Hall told The Irrawaddy. The British activist said the accused have been in shackles without reprieve and were having difficulty using the toilet and showering, as well as suffering pain in their ankles. "So we brought socks and basic supplies they asked for, such as toothpaste, towel, soap and shampoo, during our visit," added Hall. The post Parents of Burmese Men Accused of Koh Tao Murders Arrive in Thailand appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| Karen Leaders Prepare for Divisive Assembly Posted: 22 Oct 2014 05:10 AM PDT  A group of Karen National Liberation Army soldiers stationed in Law Khee Lar for security during the second ethnic armed organizations conference in January 2014. (Photo: Saw Yan Naing / The Irrawaddy) Top-ranking Karen rebels are gearing up for an assembly in southeastern Burma this week, where a fractured leadership will discuss their future role in the nation's main ethnic coalition and the possibility of uniting Karen rebels under a single military alliance. The Karen National Union (KNU) will hold its central standing committee meeting from Oct. 23-25 in the group's headquarters at Lay Wah, also known as Law Khee Lar, in Karen State. Mahn Mahn, joint secretary of the KNU, told The Irrawaddy that committee members will prioritize three main issues: the KNU's position on rejoining the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC); reviewing the peace process; and how to create a successful Kawthoolei Armed Forces (KAF). "The first thing we will discuss is our suspension from the UNFC, and whether we will rejoin. Another thing is to review the whole process of the nationwide ceasefire. The last thing is to discuss the emerging KAF. We will discuss how to create this [unified armed force] more systematically," said Mahn Mahn. The UNFC is the nation's newest iteration of an alliance of ethnic armed groups, while the KAF is a newly proposed umbrella group of ethnic Karen armies. On Sept. 30, several leaders of the KNU—led by the group's Chairman, Mutu Say Poe—walked out of a UNFC congress in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand, stating that the sudden departure was caused by dissatisfaction with UNFC policy and structure, which they viewed as dominated by certain groups. Not everyone within the KNU supported leaving the alliance, however, including Mahn Mahn and former UNFC Deputy Chairman David Tharckabaw. The KNU soon announced that its leaders needed to discuss whether or not they should remain as active members, and temporarily suspended participation. The incident revealed growing disagreements among KNU leadership about the nation's peace process. Mutu Say Poe and his supporters want to move quickly, working closely with the government to reach a nationwide peace pact. An alternate faction led by KNU Vice-Chairman Zipporah Sein wants to proceed cautiously as they remain skeptical of the Burmese government. An added point of contention among Karen leadership is whether or not to support creation of the KAF, a unified ethnic Karen army that would combine four disparate forces. Those forces would include the KNU's military wing, Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA); KNU defense force Karen National Defense Organization (KNDO); and two KNLA offshoots, the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (DKBA) and the KNU/KNLA Peace Council. The KAF was proposed on Oct. 13 by the commanders of several rebel armed groups, but Mutu Say Poe's pro-government faction of the KNU issued a statement two days later distancing themselves from the proposal. The Oct. 15 statement also said that a military merger was already underway as of the KNU's 15th congress, at which a "Unity Committee" was formed to implement a unification policy. Zipporah Sein's supporters back the creation of the KAF, while Mutu Say Poe's faction opposes it. Karen civil society groups have been vocal in their support for unified armed forces in the fissured state. The initial announcement of the formation of the KAF followed soon after several clashes between the Burma Army and both DKBA and KNU/KNLA Peace Council troops. The KNLA was not involved in the conflict. All groups involved have signed ceasefires with the government. President Thein Sein's reformist government has secured 15 ceasefires with armed ethnic groups since coming into power in early 2011. The government has held six rounds of peace talks with ethnic negotiators, but the two sides have yet to reach an elusive nationwide ceasefire agreement. The post Karen Leaders Prepare for Divisive Assembly appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| Information Minister to Discuss Jailing of Journalists With President Posted: 22 Oct 2014 04:34 AM PDT  Information Minister Ye Htut is seen in this file photo. (Photo: The Irrawaddy) RANGOON — Minister of Information Ye Htut told media representatives on Tuesday that he would discuss the recent imprisonment of several local journalists with President Thein Sein and ask if he could intervene in the case. "The president cannot interfere in the judiciary sector, but he does have the authority to consider the cases after verdicts are given at the courts," state media quoted the minister as saying in response to a question about the sentencing last of five staffers of the Bi Mon Te Nay journal. Ye Htut made the remarks during a meeting with the Myanmar Journalist Network, a Rangoon-based journalists' support group. He said he would relay the views of the journalists about the criminal convictions of their colleagues to the president. Shwe Hmon, a member of the Myanmar Journalist Network, said Ye Htut had not gone into detail about how the president might intervene. She said, "We hope for a good result, but we need to wait and see," adding that the reporters had also raised the case of the imprisonment of staffers of the Unity journal. On Oct. 16, Rangoon's Pabedan Township Court sentenced five members of the defunct Bi Mon Te Nay journal to two years in prison on incitement charges. The journal had published a front page story on a statement by activist group, which mistakenly claimed that opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi had formed an interim government. The sentencing of the journalists and owners is the latest in a number of criminal cases by authorities against local journalists in recent months, and signals a marked decline in media freedom in Burma. In July, a court sentenced four journalists and a CEO of the Unity journal to 10 years in prison under the State Secrets Act for reporting on a secretive military installation. The sentence was recently reduced to 7 years. Kyaw Win, lawyer of the men from Bi Mon Te Nay journal, told The Irrawaddy that the president had the constitutional power to grant a pardon to convicted prisoners, while the Penal Code also includes an article that lets the president suspend a convict's punishment. He said, however, that his efforts to free the men would focus on getting an acquittal during an appeal with a Rangoon district court or the Supreme Court. Bi Mon Te Nay reporter Kyaw Zaw Hein, editors Win Tin and Thura Aung, and journal owners Yin Min Htun and Kyaw Min Khaing are being held in Rangoon's Insein Prison. Reporters without Borders, a France-based media freedom advocate group, in a statement released over the weekend, condemned the imprisonment of Bi Mon Te Nay staffers. "This sentence is out of all proportion and constitutes a serious violation of media freedom," said Benjamin Ismaïl, the head of the Reporters without Borders Asia desk. The post Information Minister to Discuss Jailing of Journalists With President appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| Two Govt Colonial Buildings in Rangoon to Get New Owners by Year’s End Posted: 22 Oct 2014 03:20 AM PDT  The former office of the Commerce Ministry's Corporation No. 5 on Bo Sun Pat Street in Rangoon. (Photo: Steve Tickner / The Irrawaddy) RANGOON — The Directorate of Investment and Companies Registration will announce the auction winners of two government-owned heritage buildings in Rangoon by the end of this year, Aung Naing Oo, the director general of DICA, told The Irrawaddy this week. The former Export and Import Enterprise office at the corner of Merchant and Mahabandoola streets, and the ex-office of the Commerce Ministry's Corporation No. 5 on Bo Sun Pat Street in Pabedan Township will be repurposed as hotels by yet-to-be determined private companies. In late 2013, DICA announced that it would auction four government-owned heritage buildings this year. In addition to the abovementioned properties, it said the former head office of the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism on Sule Pagoda Road—formerly known as the Fytche Square Building—and the old Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise office on Merchant Street in Pabedan Township would be privatized. Among the four buildings, DICA has compiled full documentation of ownership histories for the former Export and Import Enterprise office and the former Corporation No. 5 office. "These two buildings will be the first up for auction to the private sector soon. We will announce who the winners are before end of this year, but for the other two, we're still tracing ownership history," Aung Naing Oo said. "Though these buildings are owned by the government, we need more records of the original owners before auctioning to the private sector," he added. Aung Naing Oo said some of the buildings up for auction date back more than 100 years, constructed during the British colonial era. Dozens of colonial buildings in Rangoon were left abandoned or repurposed after Burma's former military regime abruptly moved the capital to Naypyidaw in 2005. Moe Moe Lwin, the director of the Yangon Heritage Trust (YHT), said the two buildings that will be actioned this year are believed to have been built between 1920 and 1930. "These two buildings are on the heritage buildings list of YHT. We've known that these would be auctioned as hotel projects since two years ago. We have made recommendations to the government on how to maintain them, as well as to suggest private companies that should win the bids," she said, adding that as heritage buildings, their owners would be expected to respect the historical legacy and architectural value of the structures in restoration efforts. "It's better, if the government can't maintain themselves, to allow private companies to preserve them. It is in the long-term interest of these buildings, but these maintainers should know the value of heritage buildings, not just be looking for profits," she said. YHT, which is leading efforts to preserve the former capital's abundance of colonial architecture, has compiled a list of more than 1,000 publicly and privately owned buildings that it considers of heritage value. The Yangon City Development Committee (YCDC) has compiled a less expansive list of between 100 and 200 public buildings in the city. Since DICA announced plans to auction the buildings last year, the Inle Lake View Resort, Green Vision Co. Ltd., Apple Tree Co. Ltd., and Union Resources & Engineering Co. Ltd. (UREC) have been nominated as candidates for the restoration of the former Export and Import Enterprise office. Apple Tree, S.V. Resort and Pacific Prince International Pte. Ltd. have been nominated for the former Corporation No. 5 building. The post Two Govt Colonial Buildings in Rangoon to Get New Owners by Year's End appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| Between Tracks and Trains, a Bustling Bazar Posted: 21 Oct 2014 05:00 PM PDT  Many local vendors take advantage of passing trains to sell their produce directly to passengers at Danyingon train station in Rangoon. (Photo: Steve Tickner / The Irrawaddy) RANGOON — Danyingon train station is where gardeners from across outer Rangoon bring a huge variety of fresh produce for wholesale distribution to smaller city markets, and also where many smaller vendors come to sell directly to the train-traveling public. By sunrise each day, the market is infull swing. Apart from the continual arrival of produce by road to the large covered market beside the station, every available space between the four busy train tracks and the platforms is taken up by vendors hoping to sell to passing passengers or buyers from secondary markets across the city. Between the frequent arrivals and departures, the tracks themselves quickly fill with people walking or lounging on the rails. The market also remains one of the most popular and fascinating stops for tourists taking the circular train, a three-hour ride for those wanting a glimpse of everyday Burmese life in the country's largest city. The post Between Tracks and Trains, a Bustling Bazar appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| Traffickers Use Abductions, Prison Ships to Feed Asian Slave Trade Posted: 21 Oct 2014 10:50 PM PDT  A suspected victim of human trafficking rests at a government shelter in Thailand's Takua Pa district of Phang Nga October 17, 2014. (Photo: Reuters) PHANG NGA, Thailand — When Afsar Miae left his home near Teknaf in southern Bangladesh to look for work last month, he told his mother, "I’ll see you soon." He said he expected to return that evening. He never did. When he reported for work at a house on the outskirts of Teknaf, a man there gave him a drink of water. Soon, his eyelids sagged and his head started spinning. When he awoke, it was dark. He had lost all sense of time. Two Bangladeshi men then forced him and seven others onto a small boat and bound them. "My hands were tied. My eyes were blindfolded," said Miae, 20. The boat sailed through the night until it reached a larger ship moored far offshore. Miae was thrown into its dark, crowded hold by armed guards. He and his fellow captives survived on scraps of food and dirty water, some of them for weeks. The ship eventually sailed toward Thailand where, as Reuters reported last year, human-trafficking gangs hold thousands of boat people in brutal jungle camps until relatives pay ransoms to secure their release. Testimonies from Bangladeshi and Rohingya survivors provide evidence of a shift in tactics in one of Asia’s busiest human-trafficking routes. In the past, evidence showed most people boarded smuggling boats voluntarily. Now people are being abducted or tricked and then taken to larger ships anchored in international waters just outside Bangladesh’s maritime boundary. It’s unclear exactly how many people are being coerced onto the boats. But seven men interviewed by Reuters who said they were taken by force described being held until the boats filled up with hundreds of people in what are effectively floating prisons. Two of the men were taken to trafficking camps in Thailand. 'Eating Leaves' The experiences of these men recall the trans-Atlantic slave trade of centuries ago. Miae and four other men who were held on the same ship as him described being kept in near total darkness and being regularly whipped by guards. Two men from another boat said they were forced to sit in a squatting position and that the hatch to the hold was only opened to remove dead bodies. Miae and 80 other men were abandoned, starving and dehydrated, on a remote island by their captors, who appear to have fled for fear their operation had been exposed, according to two local Thai officials who were involved in rescuing the men in Phang Nga, located just north of the popular tourist island of Phuket. "Their conditions were beyond what a human should have to go through," said Jadsada Thitimuta, an official in Phang Nga. "Some were sick and many were like skeletons. They were eating leaves." More than 130 suspected trafficking victims, mostly Bangladeshis but also stateless Rohingya Muslims from western Burma, have been found in Phang Nga since Oct. 11, according to Thailand’s Ministry of Social Development and Human Security. Prayoon Rattanasenee, the acting governor of Phang Nga province, said that interviews conducted by police, rights groups and his own people revealed that the victims were "brought by force. Many were drugged but we don’t know the exact number," he told Reuters. Evidence indicates that many of the boats appear to be from Thailand. The abducted men recalled ships with either Thai flags or Thai-speaking crews. In June, six people were killed and dozens injured when a mutiny broke out in Bangladeshi waters on what the Bangladesh Coast Guard described as a "Thai trawler" trafficking hundreds of men to Thailand. The Bangladesh Coast Guard told Reuters it was aware of trafficking ships lurking just outside Bangladesh’s territorial waters. Intercepting them wasn’t easy, said Lieutenant Commander M. Ashiqe Mahmud. "At night they enter our waters, take the people and again cross the boundary," he said. "It is very difficult to identify those ships at sea." Ashiqe said the coast guard was intercepting smaller boats that were leaving Bangladeshi shores with people to feed the larger ships. A report in August by the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said that in the first half of the year, Bangladeshi authorities reportedly arrested "over 700 people [including smugglers and crew] attempting to depart irregularly by sea from Bangladesh." The Royal Thai Navy, which patrols the coastline with the Marine Police Division, also said it was aware people were being held captive on ships off its coast. "The truth is they use fishing boats to transport people and the bottom of the boat becomes like a room to put the people, but it seems like a commercial fishing boat," said Royal Thai Navy spokesman Rear Admiral Kan Deeubol. The ship on which Miae was held set sail with its human cargo for Thai waters four days after he was taken aboard. Others interviewed by Reuters say they spent up to six weeks in the hold of the ship anchored in the Bay of Bengal. Fourteen armed guards were aboard, said Miae. The men were forced to squat for much of their journey and sometimes had their hands and feet bound with rope or cloth. The guards routinely beat them with sticks or whipped them with rubber fan belts. Food was a handful of rice a day, or nothing at all. What little drinking water they received was contaminated with sea water. "We tasted it in our hands and it was salty," said Muhammed Ariful Islam, 22, a Bangladeshi fruit vendor who was on the same boat as Miae. A New Weapon Miae, who left behind his wife and three children, said he was kidnapped. "I never thought I would leave Bangladesh," he said, sitting in a government shelter in Phang Nga. That’s a change. In the past, many impoverished Rohingya Muslims from Burma and Bangladesh voluntarily boarded small, local fishing boats heading across the Bay of Bengal in the hope of reaching Muslim-majority Malaysia where they could find work. Smuggling, done initially with the consent of those involved, differs from trafficking, which involves entrapment, coercion and deceit. Thai authorities say the existence of the boats in which people are being held against their will is a response to the more strenuous efforts they are making to combat trafficking. Police operations have led to the rescue of 200 to 300 trafficking victims in the past six months, said Police Major General Thatchai Pitaneelaboot, who is in charge of counter-trafficking operations for immigration police in southern Thailand. "The traffickers have become more sophisticated and cautious, partly because of the Thai government policy to crack down," he said. The country’s military government says it is beefing up cooperation with neighboring Malaysia and has registered more than one million illegal migrant workers to prevent them falling prey to traffickers. "That’s a big step," said Sek Wannamethee, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Human rights groups say the growing use of force is because trafficking has become increasingly lucrative, not because of any new measures taken by Thailand. Competition between a rising number of people smugglers explains why they are resorting to kidnapping, said Chris Lewa of the Arakan Project, a Rohingya advocacy group. "There are always five to eight boats waiting in the Bay of Bengal. And the brokers are desperate to fill them." Matthew Smith, the executive director of Fortify Rights, an organization that documents human rights violations in Southeast Asia, said the size of the ships being used by traffickers has increased as business is thriving and the trafficking rings are able to operate largely with impunity. Thailand's Role A series of Reuters investigations in 2013 revealed the complicity of some Thai authorities in smuggling Rohingya and in deporting them back into the hands of human traffickers. Thailand was downgraded in June to the lowest category in the U.S. State Department’s annual ranking of the world’s worst human-trafficking centers, putting it in the same category as North Korea and the Central African Republic. The same month, the Thai military vowed to "prevent and suppress human trafficking," after having seized power from an elected government on May 22. Five months later, jungle camps are still holding thousands of people in remote hills near the border with Malaysia, according to testimonies from two recent escapees and a human smuggler. The men and women aboard the prison ships who reach Thailand are sold for $200 each to trafficking gangs, according to one of two Rohingya men interviewed by Reuters who recently escaped from the trafficking camps. "The camps are running very smoothly," the human smuggler, based in southern Thailand, told Reuters. The smuggler, a long-time Rohingya resident of Thailand who spoke on condition of anonymity, estimated there were up to eight large camps holding 2,000 to 3,000 people at any one time. The two men who recently escaped described the brutality in the camps. One of them told Reuters he witnessed camp guards gang-raping a woman. Police Major General Thatchai describes a vast and complex trafficking network in which Bangladeshis and Rohingya kidnap and trade their own people with the help of nationals from Thailand, Burma, Malaysia and Pakistan. "It’s transnational crime," Thatchai said. The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR confirmed the existence of "bigger fishing or cargo vessels" that carry up to 700 passengers across the Bay of Bengal to Thailand – a five- or six-day journey. This time of year is rush hour for smugglers and traffickers. October marks the start of the four-month "sailing season," the busiest time for smuggling and trafficking ships plying the Bay of Bengal. The Thai Navy’s Kan said most of the boats and crews were from Thailand and that patrols against traffickers had been increased in the country’s territorial waters. But Kan said the bigger boats were operating beyond Thailand’s maritime boundaries, in international waters, and so the navy couldn’t move against them. Whose Jurisdiction? Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), to which Thailand is a signatory, each nation "shall take effective measures to prevent and punish the transport of slaves in ships authorized to fly its flag." The Navy didn’t respond to queries on why it wasn’t acting against trafficking ships carrying the Thai flag outside its territorial waters. Robert Beckman, the director of the Centre for International Law at the National University of Singapore, said the Thai Navy would have jurisdiction over a ship flying a Thai flag in international waters. Under UNCLOS it had a right, not an obligation, to act against someone suspected of engaging in the slave trade, he said. The "uncertain state of the law on these matters," Beckman added, meant that navies and coast guards were "usually very reluctant to arrest persons outside their territorial waters, especially if they are on ships flying the flag of another state." Interviews with two Rohingya, who in early October escaped from a Thai trafficking camp, corroborate the testimonies of the Phang Nga victims. They also suggest the slave ships have been operating for some time. Mohamad Nobir Noor, 27, says he was living in an impoverished Rohingya settlement in Bangladesh, near the border with Burma, when he was taken. One September evening last year, men with knives and sticks forced him onto a small boat that sailed all night to reach a larger vessel moored at sea. It would eventually hold 550 people, Noor estimated. They were guarded by 11 men with guns, he said. Most were Thai speakers but one was Rakhine, the majority Buddhist ethnic group in Rakhine State, where communal violence since 2012 has killed hundreds and left 140,000 homeless, most of them Rohingya. About 30 of those being held were women. "There was one woman who was very beautiful," said Noor. "The guards took her upstairs. When she came back she was crying and her clothes were wet. She didn’t say anything." Drinking water was so scarce that Noor said he drank his own urine to survive. When someone died, a small group of men was permitted to carry the body up on deck. A quick prayer was said and then the bodies were thrown into the water. "For the sharks," Noor said. Escape and Mutiny Once, Noor tried to escape by jumping overboard during a trip to the toilet. The guards dragged him back in and gave him electric shocks with wires attached to the ship’s generator, he said. Usually, most passengers were too physically weak or terrified to confront the guards. But, on at least one occasion, desperation trumped fear. On the morning of June 11, the Bangladesh Coast Guard arrived off the coast of St. Martin’s Island, in Bangladesh waters, to record the bloody aftermath of a high-seas firefight that followed a mutiny aboard a Thai trafficking ship. Desperate for food and water, passengers had overwhelmed the crew. But another trafficking ship quickly arrived and its crew opened fire on the mutineers, said Lieutenant Commander Mahmud of the Bangladesh Coast Guard. Six people were killed and 30 sustained bullet injuries. Among the injured were "two Thai crew members and one Myanmar human trafficker," according to a Bangladesh Coast Guard statement. A record 40,000 Rohingya passed through the Thai camps in 2013, Lewa of the Arakan Project said. They are held captive until relatives pay the ransom to traffickers to release them over the border in Malaysia, she said. By early 2014, not just Rohingya but other nationalities were also ending up in the trafficking camps. In a series of raids earlier this year, Thai police found hundreds of Bangladeshis, as well as Uighur Muslims from China’s restive northwestern province of Xinjiang. The camps were also the likely destination of the Bangladeshis rescued in Phang Nga. But something went wrong. They were brought ashore at the remote island in Phang Nga under cover of darkness. Phang Nga official Jadsada says he believed they were about to be transferred by road to another location, but a tip-off to the authorities compelled their captors to flee. Local officials have yet to account for another 190 passengers they believe came on the same boat as Miae and Islam from Bangladesh via the Bay of Bengal. Jadsada said they might already be trapped in trafficking camps. The post Traffickers Use Abductions, Prison Ships to Feed Asian Slave Trade appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| Hong Kong Protesters Plan March After Fruitless Talks With Government Posted: 21 Oct 2014 09:56 PM PDT  Pro-democracy protesters watch formal talks between student protest leaders and government officials on a video screen near the government headquarters in Hong Kong on Oct. 21, 2014. (Photo: Reuters) HONG KONG — Hong Kong protesters planned to march to the home of the city's Beijing-backed leader on Wednesday to push their case for greater democracy a day after talks between student leaders and senior officials failed to break the deadlock. Demonstrators have occupied main streets in the Chinese-controlled city for nearly a month to oppose a central government plan that would give Hong Kong people the chance to vote for their own leader in 2017 but tightly restrict the candidates to Beijing loyalists. A wide chasm separates the protesters and the government, which has labeled their actions illegal and repeatedly said their demand for open nominations was impossible under the laws of the former British colony. Expectations had been low for a breakthrough in Tuesday evening's televised talks, which were cordial and pitted five of the city's most senior officials against five tenacious but poised student leaders in black T-shirts. Protesters were unhappy about what they felt was a lack of substantive concessions from the government officials and they dug in their heels. Some have called for a march to the home the city's leader, Leung Chun-ying, and will repeat their calls for him to step down. "I am going to join the march this afternoon to express my dissatisfaction," said Kelvin Kwan, a 29-year-old social work graduate who camped with protesters overnight in the Mong Kok district. Andy Lau, a 19-year-old college student, said now was the time to step things up. "I think it is time to seriously consider escalating the movement, such as expanding our occupation to many more places to pressure the government to really face and answer our demands," he said. Hong Kong returned from British to Chinese rule in 1997 under a "one country, two systems" formula that allows it wide-ranging autonomy and freedoms and specifies universal suffrage as an ultimate goal. But Beijing is wary about copycat demands for reform on the mainland eroding the Communist Party's power. City leader Leung told reporters before Tuesday's talks that the panel that picks candidates for Hong Kong's 2017 election could be made "more democratic." That was first indication of a possible concession. "There's room for discussion there," said Leung, who did not take part in the talks. "There's room to make the nominating committee more democratic." The end-game for the protests remains unclear. Hong Kong's high court issued injunctions this week barring protesters from blocking roads, but the police appeared unwilling or incapable of carrying them out. The use of tear gas by police early in the protests backfired, sparking outrage among many in Hong Kong and helping to swell the ranks of the demonstrators. Since then, police have occasionally used pepper spray and batons but they have not tried to fully clear the streets. The government appears to be in a quandary: unable to make concessions but wary that a crackdown would only exacerbate the protests. Analysts say the government is biding its time. The unprecedented open debate on democracy on Tuesday night reflected a shift in the government's approach to engage rather than shun a movement that has lasted beyond most people's expectations. The officials offered the prospect of discussions about how a nominating committee that will pick candidates for city leader is formed, and said they would send a report to Beijing on the situation and the protesters' demands. After the meeting, disappointed students said they had yet to decide whether to hold more talks. "It is very obvious why many people are still staying here tonight," student leader Yvonne Leung told thousands of cheering demonstrators at the tent-filled main protest site in the Admiralty district, near government offices. "It is because we absolutely have no idea what they were talking about. … The government did not give us a concrete reply and direction in the dialogue today. We are absolutely very disappointed about this." The post Hong Kong Protesters Plan March After Fruitless Talks With Government appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| North Korea Unexpectedly Frees American Jeffrey Fowle Posted: 21 Oct 2014 09:37 PM PDT
 A group of people bow at the base of the giant bronze statue of the state founder and late "Great Leader" Kim-Il Sung in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang on February 26, 2008. (Photo: Reuters) WASHINGTON — North Korea has freed Jeffrey Fowle, one of three Americans detained by the country, and he is being flown home to his family, Washington said on Tuesday, amid growing international pressure on Pyongyang over its human rights record. North Korea has been on a diplomatic campaign to counter charges by a UN body that highlighted widespread human rights abuses and a move by some UN members to refer the state to an international tribunal. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the United States welcomed the release of Fowle, a street repair worker from Miamisburg, Ohio, but pressed Pyongyang to free the two remaining Americans. "While this is a positive decision … we remain focused on the continued detention of Kenneth Bae and Matthew Miller and again call on the DPRK to immediately release them," Earnest said, referring to the country's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Fowle, 56, was arrested in May for leaving a Bible at a sailor's club in the North Korean city of Chongjin, where he was traveling as a tourist. The isolated state is particularly sensitive to religious proselytizing. Miller was arrested in April for a separate incident. The longest to be held by North Korea is Bae, a Korean-American missionary arrested in November 2012 and sentenced to 15 years' hard labor. North's Motive Unclear It was not immediately clear why reclusive North Korea decided to free Fowle. US officials declined to give details on the negotiations that led to his release, or to speculate why Pyongyang freed him in case it jeopardized talks over Bae and Miller. The release was facilitated by Swedish diplomats, said State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf. Sweden has an embassy in Pyongyang and acts as a "protecting power" for Washington. The United States has long insisted that the release of American prisoners should be unconditional and not linked to talks on North Korea's nuclear program. Stephan Haggard, a North Korea expert at the University of California in San Diego, said the move to free Fowle was likely part of an effort by Pyongyang to show it was "reasonable". "North Korea is currently engaged in a very complex charm offensive on many fronts," said Haggard, citing Pyongyang's discussions with Japan on the fate of Japanese citizens abducted decades ago, as well as planned talks with South Korea despite a recent series of border altercations. Japan would send officials to North Korea to hold meetings on Oct. 28-29 for an update on Pyongyang's investigation into the abducted citizens, Japan's top government spokesman said on Wednesday. Tokyo eased some sanctions on North Korea in July in return for the North reopening its probe into the status of the victims, who were kidnapped to train spies. North Korea made it a condition of Fowle's release that the US government transport him out of the country and set a time for him to be picked up, US officials said. "In this timeframe the Department of Defense was able to offer a plane," said Harf. Passengers on another flight at Pyongyang airport reported seeing a blue and white US military passenger jet, a stars-and-stripes emblem on its tail, parked on the tarmac on Tuesday afternoon, a source in Pyongyang told Reuters. Heading Home After departing Pyongyang, the US plane carrying Fowle flew to the Pacific island of Guam, site of a major US Navy base, before leaving for the United States, Harf said. Bae's sister, Terri Chung, said in a statement that her family celebrated Fowle's release but was in pain knowing her brother remained at a labor camp with an uncertain future. "While we wrestle with the disappointment that Kenneth was not brought home as well, we believe, however optimistically, that this release could be a sign of hope for Kenneth," she said. Fowle's release came as some United Nations members prepare a resolution to refer North Korea to an international tribunal for crimes against humanity, which prompted Pyongyang to propose its own text praising its human rights record. "We regard the resolution against the DPRK as politically motivated and has nothing to do with the genuine protection and promotion of human rights," North Korea's envoy to the United Nations, Jang Il Hun, told a Council on Foreign Relations forum earlier this week in New York. John Delury, a Seoul-based expert on North Korea, said the release would give diplomats on both sides more room to move, especially if Fowle was the first. "If it's a one off – if it's just Fowle – then it's not a game changer, there are still two citizens there. Kenneth Bae is really the top nut to crack, he's the hard one," said Delury.
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