Thursday, December 20, 2018

The Irrawaddy Magazine

The Irrawaddy Magazine

Over 700 People Flee Homes as Tatmadaw, AA Clash in Northern Rakhine

Posted: 20 Dec 2018 04:03 AM PST

SITTWE—More than 700 villagers have been displaced by clashes between the Myanmar Army (or Tatmadaw) and the Arakan Army (AA) in northern Rakhine State.

The entire population of Pyinnagyi village fled after the two sides clashed near the border of Kyauktaw and Ponnagyun townships on Tuesday.

Pyinnagyi, which is home to ethnic Mro people, was the closest village to the clashes. U Maung Maung, a Rakhine State lawmaker from Kyauktaw Township, said over 180 villagers had fled the clashes.

Around 80 residents of Chin Ma Wun Taung village fled to Thalu Chaung village to avoid the fighting. "We heard a lot of gunfire. Last night over 100 villagers from Pyinnagyi village arrived in Nga Si Yine village," U Maung Ni, a resident of Thalu Chaung, told The Irrawaddy.

Locals reported hearing gunshots and artillery fire in the area until noon on Thursday. Villagers from the surrounding villages did not dare go out to their farms or go fishing.

Elsewhere, more than 200 ethnic Khami people from two villages in Ponnagyun Township fled to Sai Din village in Buthidaung Township on Monday.

"For the time being, government departments and social organizations are providing food for them. But the villagers are scared and dare not go outside. So, they could face many difficulties in future," said U Aung Thaung Shwe, a Lower House lawmaker representing Buthidaung Township.

The Buthidaung Township General Administration Department has provided a week's rations for displaced persons taking shelter in Sai Din village, according to administrator U Kyaw Min Tun.

"We are also negotiating with international non-governmental organizations to provide aid for them," he told The Irrawaddy.

On Dec. 9 and 13, over 330 ethnic Mro people from Kyaukse Taung, Thabyu Chaung and Hpet Wun villages in Ponnagyun Township fled to Thin Pone Tan village in the same township.

"We still hear gunshots. Now, over 300 people are taking shelter in our village. We have enough food for the time being," Thin Pone Tan village administrator U Thein Win told The Irrawaddy.

According to reports from the Tatmadaw and the AA, the two sides have been engaged in periodic clashes on the Myanmar-Bangladesh border in Buthidaung and Rathedaung townships since Nov. 30.

On Dec. 12, the AA and its allies the Ta'ang National Liberation Army and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army released a joint statement saying they sought to engage in political negotiations and halt military operations in an effort to achieve peace.

The government's Peace Commission welcomed the statement, and said it would negotiate with the three to sign bilateral ceasefire agreements.

However, daily clashes between the AA and the Myanmar Army continue.

The AA is believed to have moved its headquarters from Laiza, which is under the control of the Kachin Independence Army, to a location in Chin State near the Indian border.

The post Over 700 People Flee Homes as Tatmadaw, AA Clash in Northern Rakhine appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Bodies of Two Missing Arakanese Fishermen Found With Throats Cut

Posted: 20 Dec 2018 12:53 AM PST

SITTWE—The bodies of two Arakanese men who went missing in Rakhine State's Maungdaw on Monday were recovered with their throats slit on Thursday morning.

U Maung Tun Aye, 56, of Maungdaw's Upper Pyu Ma village, and U Maung Maung Than, 51, of Rathedaung's Ohn Chaung village, went fishing in Pyu Ma Creek on Monday evening. When they had failed to return by the following day, their families reported them missing to Nga Khu Ya Police Station.

Police and locals searched for the two, and found them dead with their throats cut near the creek, Maungdaw Township administrator U Myint Khaing told The Irrawaddy.

Police are still investigating the crime, he said. "We don't know yet who killed them. But throat-slitting is ARSA's usual method of killing," he said, referring to the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army.

"One group searched along the creek by boat, and another group used motorbikes to search the road that runs along the creek," Kyein Chaung village administrator U Ko Ko Aung told The Irrawaddy.

In another case, two ethnic Maramagyi men, U Saw Tun Oo and U Maung Hla Oo, were reportedly attacked by Rohingya while fishing in Pyu Ma Creek on Monday evening.

U Saw Tun Oo managed to get away and call for help. U Maung Hla Oo was hit in the head with an oar and seriously injured. He was transferred to Maungdaw Township Hospital from Kyein Chaung Hospital on Thursday.

On Dec. 16, a 13-year-old girl from Thit Taw village in Maungdaw Township was found dead with her throat slit some 2 miles from the village. She went missing the previous day while tending cattle.

The post Bodies of Two Missing Arakanese Fishermen Found With Throats Cut appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Suspects in Murder of Migrant Family Arrested in Karen State

Posted: 20 Dec 2018 12:32 AM PST

Two people were detained yesterday in Myaing Kalay, Hpa-an Township in Karen State, on suspicion of the murders of a Myanmar migrant family of four in Mae Sot, Thailand according to police in Karen State, Myanmar.

The two suspects—Ko Swe, 29, and Ko Zaw Zaw, 28—are said to be ethnic Arakanese from Rakhine State.

The police officer, who requested anonymity, told The Irrawaddy on Thursday that the men detained in Myaing Kalay on Wednesday had fled across the border at the town of Mae Sot in a bid to escape arrest.

They went into hiding in Myaing Kalay, the hometown of one of their wives, according to the police.

As the incident happened in Mae Sot, a town on the Thai side of the border with Myanmar, Myanmar police have to extradite the suspects to Thailand, according to the police source. The case will be handled by the Thai police force after the suspects are escorted back to the border town.

"We are sending them back to Myawaddy Police Station," said the police officer.

Myanmar police in Myawaddy, the town on the Myanmar side of the border across from Mae Sot, are cooperating with their Thai counterparts to investigate the case.

The incident happened when the two suspects were intoxicated and causing noise disturbances to the neighboring homes. When a member of the victim family complained to them a quarrel ensued. The two suspects beat the mother and father of the family to death using an iron rod and a length of wood, according to the police officer.

This counters previous reports that the quarrel broke out over a cow.

After the suspects fled to Myaing Kalay, police received a tipoff about their whereabouts from a member of the Myanmar migrant community in Thailand who knew the suspects, according to the police officer.

The Myanmar migrant family, which included a baby of 4 months and a four-year-old boy who were also murdered on Dec. 16, was living in a hut outside Mae Sot and made a living cutting sugar cane and tending cattle in the area.

The post Suspects in Murder of Migrant Family Arrested in Karen State appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Christian Home Stoned, Vandalized During Christmas Prayer in Magwe

Posted: 19 Dec 2018 11:45 PM PST

GANGAW, Magwe Region — Police in Magwe Region’s Gangaw Township have received a criminal complaint against residents of Paw Lel Village accused of a violent Monday night attack on a house where local Christians were praying.

"They have opened a case under Article 337 and Article 427 of the Penal Code. The first charge is causing harm and the second is causing damage to property," Gangaw police Lieutenant Soe Nyunt Aung told The Irrawaddy.

More than 20 local Christians were holding an early Christmas prayer at a private home when stones started hitting the house for about an hour, according to the township’s Baptist Christian Association. It said a group of men then broke into the house and vandalized it.

"While we were saying prayers, [they] threw stones at all sides of the house. Six people were injured. One of them was seriously injured on his head," said Rev. San Kew, who was in the house during the attack.

He said motorbikes, furniture and the dishes and plates to be used for dinner were damaged.

"We didn't see who damaged the property. We were all hiding in a room because we were frightened," the reverend said.

He said only four of Paw Lel’s 52 households were Christian and that the owner of the house that as attacked, Wa Dawns, filed the complaint with police against about 30 villagers.

U Tin Myat, administrator of the Min Ywa village tract, said police and firefighters have been posted at the house for the family’s protection.

"The two communities are rather relaxed, though. We conducted a patrol at night,” he said on Wednesday.

U Aung Hsan Myint, a Magwe Region lawmaker, said the assailants must be brought to justice.

"You cannot oppose others celebrating their religious event. Action must be taken against perpetrators according to the law," he said.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.

The post Christian Home Stoned, Vandalized During Christmas Prayer in Magwe appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

An Illicit Business in Full Bloom in Hsi Hseng

Posted: 19 Dec 2018 11:30 PM PST

HSI HSENG, southern Shan State—Poppies grown by farmers in Hsi Hseng in southern Shan State's Pa-O Self-administered Zone are now in bloom.

In most poppy fields at this time of year, latex is being extracted from the seed pods. In some fields, however, growers are still fertilizing young poppy plants using the "broadcasting" method.

Poppy cultivation, a traditional practice in Hsi Hseng, is still the main livelihood for hundreds of families in the town.

Locals are well aware that poppy cultivation is illegal, but complain they lack the financial assistance needed to switch to other crops. Poppies take less time to harvest—and fetch higher prices—than other crops.

At harvest time, authorities arrive looking for poppy fields to destroy, so farmers in Hsi Hseng grow their poppies on remote, steep hillsides.

The remote locations of their fields do not spare farmers the need to pay taxes, however. Local growers are forced to make annual payments to local Pa-O militia, the Shan State Restoration Council and local police, according to the Myanmar Opium Farmers Association, a group of farmers who have for generations made their living by growing poppies and are now looking for alternative crops with the help of local and international NGOs.

According to a 2017 report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, there are over 40,000 hectares of farmland under poppy cultivation in Myanmar, 40 percent of it in southern Shan State.

The post An Illicit Business in Full Bloom in Hsi Hseng appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Myanmar Govt Could Start Demining Program ‘Tomorrow,’ Researcher Says

Posted: 19 Dec 2018 10:46 PM PST

YANGON — Since 2007 Myanmar has suffered the third highest number of antipersonnel landmine casualties among Asian countries and is now fifth in terms of landmine use globally. There were 202 landmine victims across 78 townships over the past year alone, according to the latest Landmine and Cluster Munitions Monitor report, launched in November.

Since Myanmar's peace process begin in late 2011, almost 1,200 people have been killed or injured by mines, more than 90 percent of them in Kachin, Shan and Karen states or eastern Bago Region, according to Landmine Monitor Myanmar, which shares data with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.

Yeshua Moser-Puangsuwan is the Landmines Monitor’s research coordinator. He said there have been at least 4,193 landmine casualties in Myanmar since 1999 but suspected the true number to be higher.

This year’s report says the latest casualty numbers were exacerbated by the military’s continued use of landmines for defense and the forced labor of civilians in conflict zones. It says Myanmar’s myriad ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) also continued to use antipersonnel mines and that the country still lacks any formal mine clearing operation despite mention of it in the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA).

Myanmar was also the top recipient of international funding for mine action in 2017 with $6.2 million earmarked for non-technical surveys, risk education and victim assistance.

Irrawaddy reporter Nyein Nyein spoke with Moser-Puangsuwan in Yangon about his work in Myanmar and how best to reduce mine casualties.

How do you gather information on injuries or deaths caused by landmines? 

There’s no formal record, so we can count what we can count, but we don’t believe that’s comprehensive because there’s things, obviously, that we’re missing. So we ask for people to open records. Under the Convention on the Rights of Disabled People, the government should be doing more surveillance of landmine disability as well as every other kind of disability. They honestly lack the capacity to do so. They need to ask for more help.

How do you verify that these people are still using landmines?

We have these allegations, and the more detailed the allegations, the more confident you could have in it. Many of them come from local people; they’ve been warned by one side or the others, "Don't go to that area." Everybody knows what the code means; it means there are mines there. And so this is one of the ways in which we know it. The other way is, there’s a casualty, a red flag that mines are there. We might know who’s operating in that area, which gives us an idea about it. There may be allegations by the local community that that was the last unit through. So you have to make assessment on this. It’s very difficult to do.

A landmine victim in Zawti Village in Kyaukki Township, Bago Region, in 2013. / Reuters

How can we improve the situation not to have more landmines?

There will be elections coming up soon and this is something that should be asked [of] every political candidate. What is their stand on continued use in the country? Do they want to see Myanmar become a party to the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, which comprehensively bans the mines and have remediation effects of victim assistance and mines clearance? This is the solution to the problem. Even the Myanmar government said so in their statement of November of this year, three weeks ago in Geneva. They have said that the Mine Ban Treaty is the solution to the problem of landmines contamination. So of course this is the direction that we encourage them to go in every opportunity that we have to encourage them. But we’re from outside the country. We can help in many ways, but ultimately it’s the people of the country here that need to hold the leaders to account, and one of the opportunities you have is the upcoming election, of asking political candidate, “Well, where do you stand on this? Do you want to see Myanmar join the Mine Ban Treaty?”

In the NCA there is a section for demining and protecting the civilian. But I heard that some of the [armed] groups, they’re starting to do mine awareness and starting to learn about demining things. They cannot really do that yet. Why do you think it is? The government is not allowing them?

You would have to ask each and every one of them that question to get a clear picture. Several groups have asked for assistance with mines clearances, and within the NCA framework it doesn’t seem that they’ve been able to get that. Different people have different readings for that — we have to wait for JMC [Joint Monitoring Committee], various other things. But there is no reason why the authorities could not put together a civil, not a military, but a civil mine clearance entity now and start working on the areas that are solely under its responsibility, that doesn't deal with the NCA. And once you start, it’s easier to expand that program into other areas.

If they [EAOs] do demining, would it [have an] effect on the peace process?

I think it would build confidence, because immediately you’d have a peace dividend. People get their lands back. They have a safer environment. If it’s done together, it builds confidence. So it’s a double win. It is only a good thing. It’s called for in the NCA. They should mobilize it and it will strengthen the peace process. And it will show that there’s commitment to the peace process. Some people are questioning that [commitment] now. So that’s really important to do.

You said all the mines here, they haven’t [been] demined yet.

That’s correct. There’s been no formal mine clearance program. There have been some haphazard attempts at clearing mines that we have seen over the years, and usually what happens is an ethnic armed group or the Tatmadaw [military] said they mine clear and area, they go in, they have a casualty, and they stop.

[Do] you work closely with the EAOs and Tatmadaw and everyone else for the documentation?

We talk to everyone. And of course we encourage them in the direction of the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty or, in the cases of ethnic armed groups, who can’t sign an international convention, that they put their practices in alignment with those types of legal restrictions. So this is something that we always ask them to do. There are a variety of types of systems out there even [for] ethnic armed groups, and I know some of them are interested in moving forward. But that just doesn't seem to be happening.

Which groups are really interested in demining? 

Karenni and the Karen.

But the progress [does] not seem [to be] a lot.

That's correct. There’s no formal clearance program going on.

So from you experience, the information gathering has always been difficult. That we know. We can see from your presentation. So how does this change, from the military, to the quasi-military, to the current [administration]? Is it getting [harder] to gather information?

No. I would say that it’s better than it had been in the past, partly because there is now formal acknowledgements that there’s a problem. So it’s easier to have the conversation. When people are denying that there’s even a problem, it’s very difficult. So now there’s formally been an acknowledgement that there is indeed the problem. But the discussion is, what do you do next at this point?

We would like to see them [the government] start now, but we want to see that they do the mine clearance to international standards. If they do secretive mine clearance, that’s not going to help. Nobody’s going to know what’s safe and what’s not.

About civil society participation in mine clearance, we know that civil society groups in Myanmar [are] strong and willing to do that. But in terms of their awareness and technical advancement, what level are we at?

Before zero.

Where in Myanmar can demining begin?

Have you ever been on the road out to Hpa-an [in Karen State]? Ok, so the south side of that road, there’s a big concrete factory or whatever it is. There are mines in that area. The local people would love to have them removed. There’s been no conflict there for 20 years. That area could be cleared tomorrow. It wouldn’t make any different to anybody except the local community. They would love to have that land back. There are lots of places like that.

The post Myanmar Govt Could Start Demining Program ‘Tomorrow,’ Researcher Says appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

National ID Cards Wrongly Issued to 21 Rohingya: Minister

Posted: 19 Dec 2018 10:42 PM PST

NAYPYITAW—The Ministry of Labor, Immigration and Population will take action against its own officials who issued national registration cards (NRCs) to Rohingya, wrongly identifying them as ethnic Kaman of Rakhine State.

The ministry in September launched an investigation after the Kaman National Progressive Party (KNPP) and the Kaman community lodged a complaint with the President’s Office and State Counselor’s Office saying that NRC cards labeling the holders ethnic Kaman were issued to more than 3,000 residents in southern Rakhine State's Ramree Township who are actually Rohingya.

The investigation of a total of 3,306 resident card recipients in Ramree Township's Kyauk Ni Maw Village found that 21 of them are not ethnic Kaman, Union Minister for Labor, Immigration and Population U Thein Swe told reporters in Naypyitaw on Wednesday.

The ministry will assign a deputy director to carry out further investigations to check whether there was misconduct by officials in the process of issuing the IDs to the residents, said the minister.

"We will take action according to the code of conduct for civil servants. We are collecting definitive evidence," the Union minister told reporters at the Lower House of Parliament.

During the Lower House session on Wednesday, an Arakanese lawmaker U Aung Thaung Shwe urged Parliament to review the issue of the incorrectly designated NRCs.

"I am concerned that stability will be disrupted in a stable and peaceful region by the fault of the government. I am concerned that doubts will arise between different communities. This will undermine public trust in the government. That's why I ask this question," U Aung Thaung Shwe told the Parliament.

U Pe Than, central executive committee member of the Arakan National Party accused some Rohingya of attempting to gain citizenship by claiming to be Kaman.

"If they make themselves an ethnic group through this short-cut, there will be many Kaman in the future. Then, they may demand autonomy from the ethnic affairs minister. Their birth rate is really high," U Pe Than told reporters.

Myanmar's 2008 Constitution says an ethnic affairs minister must be appointed to represent a minority ethnic group should it be of a certain size in population, and that the ethnic group should rightfully be appointed an official autonomous area in Myanmar.

An official household registration document issued by the General Administration Department in 2013, seen by The Irrawaddy, says only 500 of Kyauk Ni Maw's 4,300 residents at the time were Kaman. Most of the township's Kaman have moved to Yangon in recent years.

The KNPP secretary U Tin Hlaing Win has said that the number of ethnic Kaman in Kyauk Ni Maw at present is just over 200.

"The Kyaw Ni Maw community only speaks Bengali. They live according to Bengali culture. They can't even speak Arakanese (Rakhine) fluently. The immigration records indicate that they are not Kaman and they don't speak Kaman so this will further complicate [the citizenship problem]," he told The Irrawaddy.

Myanmar government officials often use the term "Bengali" to refer to Rohingya, whom they do not consider an indigenous ethnic group, but rather as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

Union minister U Thein Swe told the Parliament that all the residents issued with NRCs are ethnic Kaman except 21 individuals. His ministry has records to prove that the rest are Kaman, and anyone can check them at his ministry with the approval of the Parliament Speaker, he added.

"We checked the documents at our headquarters, and found that some of their ancestors are Bengali or Indian," U Thein Swe told the reporters about the 21 individuals, adding that his ministry would issue ID cards designating them as Kaman Bengali or Indian Kaman instead.

"We worked correctly in line with the law and have fixed the mistake. We will take action against [officials] who took bribes. As we have done this in a transparent manner, I hope this will help remove the doubts of the ethnic people," he said.

The Kaman minority is one of 135 officially recognized ethnic groups in Myanmar and one of the seven ethnic subgroups in Rakhine State. Unlike the Buddhist Rakhine, the Kaman are Muslim.

They have been living in Rakhine for centuries. During the Arakan Kingdom, the Kaman served as royal archers, but the profession vanished when the kingdom fell to the Burmese Konbaung Dynasty in 1784. Nowadays, there are about 45,000 ethnic Kaman Muslims across the country.

The post National ID Cards Wrongly Issued to 21 Rohingya: Minister appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Indian Journalist Detained For Calling State Leader a Modi Puppet

Posted: 19 Dec 2018 09:10 PM PST

GUWAHATI, India — An Indian television journalist has been detained for criticizing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government on social media under laws intended to ensure national security, leading to protests in the capital, New Delhi.

Kishorechandra Wangkhem was working for a television channel in the northeastern state of Manipur when he uploaded several video clips last month calling the state’s BJP chief minister, N Biren Singh, a "puppet" of the central government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“It is nothing but a blatant abuse of the law and powers of the government,” Wangkhem’s lawyer, N. Victor, told Reuters by telephone.

Victor said he planned to appeal against his client’s detention, with a hearing likely on Thursday.

India has one of the world’s largest and most diverse media industries, but its journalists often face harassment and violence. The country is ranked 138th in the World Press Freedom Index run by Reporters Sans Frontières — lower than Zimbabwe, Afghanistan and Myanmar — as a result of censorship laws and the murder of several journalists.

Wangkhem was initially arrested on separate charges of sedition on Nov. 21, before being released on Nov. 25, his wife, Ranjita Elangbam, told Reuters.

He was then detained on Nov. 27 under India’s National Security Act, which allows for detention of up to a year without trial, and has since been held at a jail in the state capital, Imphal. A board of judges set up under the Act approved his detention on Thursday.

In the posts, Wangkhem criticized the state government for commemorating a north Indian freedom fighter, the Rani of Jhansi, a symbol of resistance against British colonial rule in the mid-1800s, who he said had nothing to do with Manipur’s own struggle against the British.

“Don't betray, don't insult the freedom fighters of Manipur,” he said in one of the posts.

Manipur’s deputy home minister, Th Charanjeet Singh, said in a statement the state had considered the evidence and stood by its decision to detain Wangkhem.

The post Indian Journalist Detained For Calling State Leader a Modi Puppet appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Trudeau Says No ‘Stomping on Table’ Over Canadians Held in China

Posted: 19 Dec 2018 09:03 PM PST

OTTAWA, Canada—Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged caution on Wednesday and said he would not be “stomping on a table” after China detained a third Canadian amid a diplomatic dispute over the arrest of a Chinese technology executive.

The detentions of the Canadians—including one disclosed on Wednesday—followed the Dec. 1 arrest in Vancouver of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. The arrest was made at the request of the United States, which is engaged in a trade war with China.

Trudeau has been under pressure to take a more robust stand on the detentions, but said at a news conference: “Political posturing or political statements aren't necessarily going to contribute. They might actually hinder the Canadians' release. We're going to take every situation carefully and seriously.

“Canadians understand that even though political posturing might be satisfactory in the short term to make yourself … feel like you’re stomping on a table and doing something significant, it may not directly contribute to the outcome we all want, which is for these Canadians to come home safely.”

Trudeau said he was asking China for more information on the detentions. No details have been given on the latest, but Trudeau said it was “a very separate case” from last week when former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor were detained amid the diplomatic quarrel triggered by Meng’s arrest.

The National Post newspaper said the latest detainee was a Canadian woman who was teaching English in China and was held because of “visa complications.”

Huawei is the world's biggest supplier of telecoms network equipment and second-biggest smartphone seller. The United States has been looking since at least 2016 into whether Huawei shipped US-origin products to Iran and other countries in violation of US export and sanctions laws, Reuters reported in April.

The Canadian government has said several times it saw no explicit link between the arrest of Meng, the daughter of Huawei's founder, and the detentions of Kovrig and Spavor. But Beijing-based Western diplomats and former Canadian diplomats have said they believed the detentions were a “tit-for-tat” reprisal by China.

Bob Rae, Canada’s special envoy to Myanmar and a former Liberal Party leader, tweeted on Wednesday that “there are no coincidences” and said the detentions looked “too much like hostage taking.”

An official at the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa said the embassy had no information to release on the issue.

Meng is accused by the United States of misleading multinational banks about Iran-linked transactions, putting the banks at risk of violating US sanctions. She was released on bail in Vancouver, where she owns two homes, while waiting to learn if she will be extradited to the United States. She is due in court on Feb. 6.

US President Donald Trump told Reuters last week he might intervene in the case if it would serve national security interests or help close a trade deal with China.

The comments upset Canada, which warned the United States against politicizing extradition cases.

Trudeau said a decision on whether to use Huawei equipment in Canada’s 5G mobile network should be made by experts and not influenced by politics.

Buying time

A source with direct knowledge of the situation said senior officials at the Canadian Foreign Ministry had held many meetings about the detainees but that a formal task force had yet to be created.

“At this point, Canada is trying to buy time by stressing it has a rules-based order and an independent judiciary,” said the source, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the situation.

A second source said Canada was concerned that the detainees were in the hands of the powerful security authorities.

“Even if there were voices of reason in the Chinese system saying: ‘Are you crazy? The Canadian government cannot order a judge to release Ms. Meng,’ the security voices are going to trump them,” the source said.

Philip Calvert, a former diplomat in China and now a research fellow at the University of Victoria, said at least the first two detentions were indicative of “the way China often engages internationally in situations like this.”

“The people making the decisions in Beijing really think when push comes to shove, they can put pressure on Canada to override the system,” he said.

Flavio Volpe, president of Canada’s Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association, said on Wednesday he had spoken with a few Chinese automakers that are now delaying a decision to set up production facilities in Canada. The automakers, which Volpe declined to name, had been weighing whether to sell cars built in Canada to the North American market.

The last time Canadians were detained in China for security reasons was in 2014 when Kevin and Julia Garratt, who ran a coffee shop in northeastern China, were held near the border with North Korea. She was released and left the country, while her husband was charged with spying and stealing state secrets before being released and deported two years later.

The arrest of the Garratts came shortly after a Chinese businessman was picked up on a US warrant in Canada.

The post Trudeau Says No ‘Stomping on Table’ Over Canadians Held in China appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Bipartisan Senators Call For US ‘Genocide’ Label of Myanmar Killings

Posted: 19 Dec 2018 08:45 PM PST

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of U.S. senators on Wednesday called on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to designate the Myanmar military’s campaign against the Rohingya Muslim minority a genocide.

More than 700,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar’s Rakhine State for neighboring Bangladesh since August last year, when attacks on security posts by Rohingya insurgents triggered a military crackdown that the United Nations, the United States, Britain and others described as ethnic cleansing.

Myanmar denies the accusations of ethnic cleansing.

“We are deeply concerned that despite clear evidence of genocide amassed by the Department’s own report … that the Department has not made a formal determination that the crime of genocide has been committed,” said a letter to Pompeo from the senators, a copy of which was seen by Reuters.

In September, leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee called on the Trump administration to declare the military campaign a genocide, days after a State Department report stopped short of that description.

A declaration of genocide by the U.S. government could have legal implications of committing Washington to stronger punitive measures against Myanmar’s government, which is led by Nobel laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. This has made some in the Trump administration wary of issuing such an assessment.

The areas where the Rohingya lived in Myanmar’s western Rakhine State before the army ousted them were being dramatically transformed, making their return increasingly unlikely, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

The senators asked Pompeo to provide a formal determination about the actions of Myanmar’s military.

“There is no question that the violence in northern Rakhine State — intended to terrorize, drive out, and exterminate Rakhine’s Rohingya population — meets the definition of genocide,” the letter said.

Led by Senator Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the letter was also signed by Republican Senators Marco Rubio and Susan Collins and Democratic Senators Ed Markey, Tim Kaine, Ben Cardin and Jeff Merkley.

Failing to officially label the actions a genocide would “deny truth-telling and accountability” for the Rohingya and “… would leave an indelible stain on our nation’s legacy of promoting and advancing human rights, dignity, and accountability,” the letter said.

The United Nations Security Council is mulling a resolution that the council could consider further steps, including sanctions, if there was not enough progress made by Myanmar in returning refugees, diplomats said.

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Malaysia Targets Middlemen to End Debt Bondage of Migrant Workers

Posted: 19 Dec 2018 08:32 PM PST

KUALA LUMPUR — Under pressure to crack down on labor abuses, Malaysia is moving to eliminate middlemen who charge millions of foreign workers exorbitant recruitment fees, leaving them saddled with debt and vulnerable to exploitation.

From factories to construction sites and plantations, the Southeast Asian nation relies heavily on foreign workers for jobs usually shunned by locals.

Many arrive having borrowed huge sums to pay recruitment agents, meaning they have to work for years earning virtually nothing — a form of modern-day slavery known as debt bondage.

In a bid to address this, recently Malaysia struck a deal with Nepal to directly recruit workers there, without going through agents. The agreement came after Nepal temporarily suspended sending workers due to concerns about their treatment.

“This is aimed at curbing human trafficking and exploitation of workers,” Malaysian Human Resources Minister M. Kulasegaran told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“They must not be in a bondage situation in this country and caught in a vicious cycle of earning to pay back money.”

Under the agreement, which came into effect on Oct. 29, Nepali workers will be hired on a government-to-government basis. Malaysian employers will have to bear all the recruitment costs, including airfare, and visa and medical check-up fees.

Kulasegaran said Malaysia is negotiating similar agreements with Bangladesh, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Bangladesh, Indonesia and Nepal are the top providers of Malaysia’s nearly 2 million registered migrant workers, government figures show. There are millions more without work permits.

Overworked

The world’s largest glove maker, the Malaysian firm Top Glove, said this month it would cut ties with unethical recruitment agents, after some of its migrant workers were found to have clocked excessive overtime to clear debts.

Campaigners for years have asked Malaysia to eliminate the middlemen who charge migrants up to 20,000 Malaysian ringgit ($4,790), a debt they often toil for years to pay off.

Debt bondage is one of the most prevalent forms of modern slavery, which affects more than 40 million people worldwide, according to the United Nations’ International Labor Organization.

The U.S. State Department’s 2018 Trafficking in Persons report put Malaysia in its Tier 2 Watch List — the second-lowest ranking — for not meeting the minimum standards in efforts to eliminate human trafficking, including debt bondage.

Since a reformist government swept into power in May — ousting a long-ruling, corruption-mired coalition — it has suspended a key recruitment firm accused of exploiting workers, and initiated a review on migrant worker policies.

High recruitment fees mean that migrants often become trapped, working excessive hours in the hope of repaying their debt more quickly.

Indra, who left Nepal for Malaysia in 2011 to work on a plantation, said he had to fork out $1,100 to pay an agent.

He managed to repay the debt within six months by borrowing money from relatives. But he said others are not so lucky, and are instead forced to turn to moneylenders who charge interest of at least 3 percent monthly.

Migrant workers must work extra hours to service the debt as the interest builds up, but they struggle to pay it off entirely, he said.

“Many workers have to ask for overtime work, because they have no other options to survive if they don’t do that,” said Indra, who now works at a laundry firm in downtown Kuala Lumpur and declined to give his full name for fear of reprisals.

“Change the system”

Kulasegaran, the government minister, has urged major firms operating in Malaysia to take the lead in ensuring there are no labor abuses among migrant workers.

While Top Glove has pledged to cut ties with unscrupulous agents, the issue remains sensitive for many companies, including the electronics brands Samsung and Panasonic, which both declined to comment.

A spokeswoman for the palm oil giant Wilmar, a Singapore-listed firm with nearly 9,500 migrant laborers on its plantations in Malaysia, said the company has been paying recruitment costs for foreign workers since 2012.

Aegile Fernandez, from the Malaysian migrant rights group Tenaganita, welcomed the government’s plan to eliminate recruitment agents. But she warned that foreign workers continue to be exploited in other ways.

“No recruitment fees, no debt bondage — this is a good step that helps workers,” she said. “But what about when they arrive here for work?”

Fernandez urged the government to address other abuses by employers, such as underpaying wages, refusing to secure the proper documents for migrant workers and keeping their passports to prevent them from leaving.

“We need to change the system. We need to put in place a comprehensive labor migration system,” she said.

The post Malaysia Targets Middlemen to End Debt Bondage of Migrant Workers appeared first on The Irrawaddy.
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