Wednesday, July 17, 2013

The Irrawaddy Magazine

The Irrawaddy Magazine

Smugglers and Security Forces Prey on Rohingya — Asia’s New Boat People

Posted: 16 Jul 2013 11:37 PM PDT

Injured Rohingya from Burma rest inside a naval ship, after being rescued, in Galle, Sri Lanka, Feb. 17, 2013. Click on the box below for a map of the destinations of the fleeing Rohingyas. (Photo: Reuters)

PADANG BESAR, Thailand — The beatings were accompanied by threats: If his family didn’t produce the money, Burma refugee Abdul Sabur would be sold into slavery on a fishing boat, his captors shouted, lashing him with bamboo sticks.

It had been more than two months since Sabur and his wife set sail from Burma with 118 other Rohingya Muslims to escape violence and persecution. Twelve died on the disastrous voyage. The survivors were imprisoned in India and then handed over to people smugglers in southern Thailand.

As the smugglers beat Sabur in their jungle hide-out, they kept a phone line open so that his relatives could hear his screams and speed up payment of $1,800 to secure his release.

"Every time there was a delay or problem with the payment they would hurt us again," said Sabur, a tall fisherman from Burma’s western Arakan state.

He was part of the swelling flood of Rohingya who have fled Burma by sea this past year, in one of the biggest movements of boat people since the Vietnam War ended.

Their fast-growing exodus is a sign of Muslim desperation in Buddhist-majority Burma. Ethnic and religious tensions simmered during 49 years of military rule. But under the reformist government that took power in March 2011, Burma has endured its worst communal bloodshed in generations.

A Reuters investigation, based on interviews with people smugglers and more than two dozen survivors of boat voyages, reveals how some Thai naval security forces work systematically with smugglers to profit from the surge in fleeing Rohingya. The lucrative smuggling network transports the Rohingya mainly into neighboring Malaysia, a Muslim-majority country they view as a haven from persecution.

Once in the smugglers’ hands, Rohingya men are often beaten until they come up with the money for their passage. Those who can’t pay are handed over to traffickers, who sometimes sell the men as indentured servants on farms or into slavery on Thai fishing boats. There, they become part of the country’s $8 billion seafood-export business, which supplies consumers in the United States, Japan and Europe.

Some Rohingya women are sold as brides, Reuters found. Other Rohingya languish in overcrowded Thai and Malaysian immigration detention centers.

Reuters reconstructed one deadly journey by 120 Rohingya, tracing their dealings with smugglers through interviews with the passengers and their families. They included Sabur and his 46-year-old mother-in-law Sabmeraz; Rahim, a 22-year-old rice farmer, and his friend Abdul Hamid, 27; and Abdul Rahim, 27, a shopkeeper.

While the death toll on their boat was unusually high, the accounts of mistreatment by authorities and smugglers were similar to those of survivors from other boats interviewed by Reuters.

The Rohingya exodus, and the state measures that fuel it, undermine Burma’s carefully crafted image of ethnic reconciliation and stability that helped persuade the United States and Europe to suspend most sanctions.

At least 800 people, mostly Rohingya, have died at sea after their boats broke down or capsized in the past year, says the Arakan Project, an advocacy group that has studied Rohingya migration since 2006. The escalating death toll prompted the United Nations this year to call that part of the Indian Ocean one of world’s "deadliest stretches of water."

Extended Families

For more than a decade, Rohingya men have set sail in search of work in neighboring countries. A one-way voyage typically costs about 200,000 kyat, or $205, a small fortune by local standards. The extended Rohingya families who raise the sum regard it as an investment; many survive off money sent from relatives overseas.

A map shows the destination of tens of thousands of Rohingyas who have fled Arakan State.

The number boarding boats from Burma and neighboring Bangladesh reached 34,626 people from June 2012 to May of this year – more than four times the previous year, says the Arakan Project. Almost all are Rohingya Muslims from Burma. Unprecedented numbers of women and children are making these dangerous voyages.

A sophisticated smuggling industry is developing around them, drawing in other refugees across South Asia. Ramshackle fishing boats are being replaced by cargo ships crewed by smugglers and teeming with passengers. In June alone, six such ships disgorged hundreds of Rohingya and other refugees on remote Thai islands controlled by smugglers, the Arakan Project said.

Sabur and the others who sailed on the doomed 35-foot fishing boat came from Arakan, a rugged coastal state where Rohingya claim a centuries-old lineage. The government calls them illegal "Bengali" migrants from Bangladesh who arrived during British rule in the 19th century. Most of the 1.1 million Rohingya of Arakan state are denied citizenship and refused passports.

Machete-wielding Arakan Buddhists destroyed Sabur’s village last October, forcing him to abandon his home south of Sittwe, capital of Arakan state. Last year’s communal unrest in Arakan made 140,000 homeless, most of them Rohingya. Burma’s government says 192 people died; Rohingya activists put the toll as high as 748.

Before the violence, the Rohingya were the poorest people in the second-poorest state of Southeast Asia’s poorest country. Today, despite Burma’s historic reforms, they are worse off.

Tens of thousands live in squalid, disease-ridden displacement camps on the outskirts of Sittwe. Armed checkpoints prevent them from returning to the paddy fields and markets on which their livelihoods depend. Rohingya families in some areas have been banned from having more than two children.

Sabur’s 33-member extended family spent several months wandering between camps before the family patriarch, an Islamic teacher in Malaysia named Arif Ali, helped them buy a fishing boat. They planned to sail straight to Malaysia to avoid Thailand’s notorious smugglers.

Dozens of other paying passengers signed up for the voyage, along with an inexperienced captain who steered them to disaster.

"Dying, One by One"

The small fishing boat set off from Myengu Island near Sittwe on February 15. The first two days went smoothly. Passengers huddled in groups, eating rice, dried fish and potatoes cooked in small pots over firewood. Space was so tight no one could stretch their legs while sleeping, said Rahim, the rice farmer, who like many Rohingya Muslims goes by one name.

Rahim’s last few months had been horrific. An Arakan mob killed his older brother in October and burned his family’s rice farm to the ground. He spent two months in jail and was never told why. "The charge seemed to be that I was a young man," he said. Arakan State authorities have acknowledged arresting Rohingya men deemed a threat to security.

High seas and gusting winds nearly swamped the boat on the third day. The captain seemed to panic, survivors said. Fearing the ship would capsize, he dumped five bags of rice and two water tanks overboard – half their supplies.

It steadied, but it was soon clear they had another problem – the captain admitted he was lost. By February 24, after more than a week at sea, supplies of water, food and fuel were gone.

"People started dying, one by one," said Sabmeraz, the grandmother.

The Islamic janaza funeral prayer was whispered over the washed and shrouded corpses of four women and two children who died first. Among them: Sabmeraz’s daughter and two young grandchildren.

"We thought we would all die," Sabmeraz recalled.

Many gulped sea water, making them even weaker. Some drank their own urine. The sick relieved themselves where they lay. Floorboards became slick with vomit and feces. Some people appeared wild-eyed before losing consciousness "like they had gone mad," said Abdul Hamid.

On the morning of the 12th day, the shopkeeper Abdul Rahim wrapped his two-year-old daughter, Mozia, in cloth, performed funeral rites and slipped her tiny body into the sea. The next morning he did the same for his wife, Muju.

His father, Furkan, had warned Abdul Rahim not to take the two children – Mozia and her five-year-old sister, Morja. The family had been better off than most Rohingya. They owned a popular hardware store in Sittwe district. After it was reduced to rubble in the June violence, they moved into a camp.

On the night Abdul Rahim was leaving, Furkan recalls pleading with him on the jetty: "If you want to go, you can go. But leave our grandchildren with us."

Abdul Rahim refused. "I’ve lost everything, my house, my job," he recalls replying. "What else can I do?"

On February 28, hours after Abdul Rahim’s wife died, the refugees spotted a Singapore-owned tugboat, the Star Jakarta. It was pulling an empty Indian-owned barge, the Ganpati, en route to Mumbai from Burma. The refugee men shouted but the slow-moving barge didn’t stop.

But as the Ganpati moved by, a dozen Rohingya men jumped into the sea with a rope. They swam to the barge, fixed the rope and towed their boat close behind so people could board. By evening, 108 of them were on the barge.

Mohammed Salim, a soccer-loving grocery clerk, and a young woman, both in their 20s, were too weak to move. Close to death, they were cut adrift; the boat took on water and submerged in the rough seas.

"He was our hope," said Salim’s father, Mohammad Kassim, 71, who emptied his savings to pay the 500,000 kyat cost of the journey.

Of the 12 who died on the boat, 11 were women and children.

Mistaken for Pirates

What happened next shows how the problems of reform-era Burma are rapidly becoming Asia’s.

The tugboat captain mistook the Rohingya for pirates and radioed for help, said Bhavna Dayal, a spokeswoman for Punj Lloyd Group, the Indian company that owns the barge. Within hours, an Indian Coast Guard ship arrived. Officers fired into the air and ordered the Rohingya to the floor.

Rahim, the rice farmer, said he and five others were beaten with a rubber baton. With the help of some Hindi picked up from Bollywood films, they explained they were fleeing the strife in Arakan State. After that, everyone received food, water and first aid, he said.

Another Indian Coast Guard ship, the Aruna Asaf Ali, arrived. It took the women and children to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, an Indian archipelago a short voyage to the south, before returning for the men.

In Diglipur, the largest town in North Andaman Island, immigration authorities separated the men from women and children, putting them all in cells. Guards beat them at will, Rahim said, and rummaged through their belongings for money. He lost 60,000 kyat and hid his remaining 60,000 kyat in a crack in a wall.

Rupinder Singh, the police superintendent in Diglipur, denied anyone was beaten or robbed.

After about a month, the Rohingya were moved to a bigger detention center near the state capital Port Blair. They joined about 300 other Muslims, mostly Rohingya from Burma, who had been rescued at sea. The men went on a one-day hunger strike, demanding to be sent to Malaysia.

The protest seemed to work. Indian authorities brought all 420 of them into international waters and transferred them to a double-decker ferry, said the Rohingya passengers.

"They told us this ship would take us straight to Malaysia," said Sabur.

It was run, however, by Thailand-based smugglers, he said.

Commander P.V.S. Satish, speaking for the Indian Navy and the Indian Coast Guard, said there was "absolutely no truth" to the allegation that the Navy handed the Rohingya to smugglers.

After four days at sea, the Rohingya approached Thailand’s southern Satun province around April 18. They were split into smaller boats. Some were taken to small islands, others to the mainland. The smugglers explained they needed to recoup the 10 million kyat they had paid for renting the ferry.

Economic of Trafficking

Thailand portrays itself as an accidental destination for Malaysia-bound Rohingya: They wash ashore and then flee or get detained.

In truth, Thailand is a smuggler’s paradise, and the stateless Rohingya are big business. Smugglers seek them out, aware their relatives will pay to move them on. This can blur the lines between smuggling and trafficking.

Smuggling, done with the consent of those involved, differs from trafficking, the business of trapping people by force or deception into labor or prostitution. The distinction is critical.

An annual US State Department report, monitoring global efforts to combat modern slavery, has for the last four years kept Thailand on a so-called Tier 2 Watch List, a notch above the worst offenders, such as North Korea. A drop to Tier 3 can trigger sanctions, including the blocking of World Bank aid.

A veteran smuggler in Thailand described the economics of the trade in a rare interview. Each adult Rohingya is valued at up to $2,000, yielding smugglers a net profit of 10,000 baht after bribes and other costs, the smuggler said. In addition to the Royal Thai Navy, the seas are patrolled by the Thai Marine Police and by local militias under the control of military commanders.

"Ten years ago, the money went directly to the brokers. Now it goes to all these officials as well," said the smuggler, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

A broker in Burma typically sends a passenger list with a departure date to a counterpart in Thailand, the smuggler said. Thai navy or militia commanders are then notified to intercept boats and sometimes guide them to pre-arranged spots, said the smuggler.

The Thai naval forces usually earn about 2,000 baht per Rohingya for spotting a boat or turning a blind eye, said the smuggler, who works in the southern Thai region of Phang Nga and deals directly with the navy and police.

Police receive 5,000 baht per Rohingya, or about 500,000 baht for a boat of 100, the smuggler said.

Another smuggler, himself a Rohingya based in Kuala Lumpur, said Thai naval forces help guide boatloads to arranged spots. He said his group maintains close phone contact with local commanders. He estimated his group has smuggled up to 4,000 people into Malaysia in the past six months.

Relatives in Malaysia must make an initial deposit of 3,000 ringgit into Malaysian bank accounts, he said, followed by a second payment for the same amount once the refugees reach the country.

Naval ships do not always work with the smugglers. Some follow Thailand’s official "help on" policy, whereby Rohingya boats are supplied with fuel and provisions on condition they sail onward.

The Thai navy and police denied any involvement in Rohingya smuggling. Manasvi Srisodapol, a Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman, said that there has been no evidence of the navy trafficking or abusing Rohingya for several years.

Cages and Threats

Anti-trafficking campaigners have produced mounting evidence of the widespread use of slave labor from countries such as Burma on Thai fishing boats, which face an acute labor shortage.

Fishing companies buy Rohingya men for between 10,000 baht and 20,000 baht, depending on age and strength, said the smuggler in Phang Nga. He recounted sales of Rohingya in the past year to Indonesian and Singapore fishing firms.

This has made the industry a major source of US concern over Thailand’s record on human trafficking. About 8 percent of Thai seafood exports go to supermarkets and restaurants in the United States, the second biggest export market after Japan.

The Thai government has said it is serious about tackling human trafficking, though no government minister has publicly acknowledged that slavery exists in the fishing industry.

Sabur, his wife Monzurah and more than a dozen Rohingya thought slavery might be their fate. The smugglers held them on the Thai island for five weeks. The captors said they would be sold to fisheries, pig farms or plantations if money didn’t arrive soon.

"We were too scared to sleep at night," said Monzurah, 19 years old.

Arif Ali, the family patriarch in Kuala Lumpur, managed to raise about $21,000 to secure the release of 19 of his relatives, including his sister Sabmeraz, Sabur, and Monzurah. They were taken on foot across the border into Malaysia in May. But 10 of the family, all men, remained imprisoned on the island as he struggled to raise more funds.

As Ali was interviewed in early June, his cellphone rang and he had a brief, heated conversation. "They call every day," he said. "They say if we call the police they will kill them."

Some women without money are sold as brides for 50,000 baht each, typically to Rohingya men in Malaysia, the Thai smuggler said. Refugees who are caught and detained by Thai authorities also face the risk of abuse.

At a detention center in Phang Nga in southern Thailand, 269 Rohingya men and boys lived in cage-like cells that stank of sweat and urine when a Reuters journalist visited recently. Most had been there six months. Some used crutches because their muscles had atrophied.

"Every day we ask when we can leave this place, but we have no idea if that will ever happen," said Faizal Haq, 14.

They are among about 2,000 Rohingya held in 24 immigration detention centers across Thailand, according to the Thai government.

"To be honest, we really don’t know what to do with them," said one immigration official who declined to be named. Burma has rejected a Thai request to repatriate them.

Dozens of Rohingya have escaped detention centers. The Thai smuggler said some immigration officials will free Rohingya for a price. Thailand’s Foreign Ministry denied immigration officials take payments from smugglers.

Promised Land

When Rahim, Abdul Hamid and the other Rohingya finally arrived in Thailand, smugglers met them in Satun province, which borders Malaysia.

They were herded into pickup trucks and driven to a farm, where they say they saw the smugglers negotiate with Thai police and immigration officials. The smugglers told them to contact relatives in Malaysia who could pay the roughly 6,000 ringgit.

"If you run away, the police and immigration will bring you back to us. We paid them to do that," the most senior smuggler told them, the two men recalled.

After 22 days at the farm, Rahim and Hamid escaped. It was near midnight when they darted across a field, cleared a barbed-wire fence and ran into the jungle. They wandered for a day, hungry and lost, before meeting a Burmese man who found them work on a fruit farm in Padang Besar near the Thai-Malaysia border. They still work there today, hoping to save enough money to leave Thailand.

If the smugglers get paid, they usually take the Rohingya across southern Thailand in pickup trucks, 16 at a time, with just enough space to breathe, the smuggler in Thailand said. They are hidden under containers of fish, shrimp or other food, and sent through police checkpoints at 1,000 baht apiece, the smuggler said. Once close to Malaysia, the final crossing of the border is usually made by foot.

Abdul Rahim, the shopkeeper who lost his wife and toddler, arranged a quick payment to the smugglers from relatives in Kuala Lumpur. He was soon on a boat to Malaysia with his surviving daughter and his sister-in-law, Ruksana. They were dropped off around April 20 at a remote spot in Malaysia’s northern Penang island.

For Abdul Rahim and many other Rohingya, Malaysia was the promised land. For most, that hope fades quickly.

At best, they can register with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and receive a card that gives them minimal legal protection and a chance for a low-paid job such as construction. While Malaysia has won praise for accepting Rohingya refugees, it has not signed the U.N. Refugee Convention that would oblige it to give them fuller rights.

Those picked up by Malaysian authorities face weeks or months in packed detention camps, where several witnesses said beatings and insufficient food were common. The Malaysian government did not comment on conditions in the camps.

The UNHCR has registered 28,000 Rohingya asylum seekers out of nearly 95,000 Burma refugees in Malaysia, many of whom have been in the country for years. An estimated 49,000 unregistered asylum seekers can wait months or years for a coveted UNHCR card. The card gives asylum seekers discounted treatment at public hospitals, is recognized by many employers, and gives protection against repatriation.

The vast majority, like Sabur, Abdul Rahim and their families, don’t obtain these minimal protections. They evade detention in the camps but live in fear of arrest.

By early July, Sabur had found temporary work in an iron foundry on Kuala Lumpur’s outskirts earning about $10 a day. He will likely have to save for years to pay back the money that secured his release.

Abdul Rahim’s family now lives in a small, windowless room in a city suburb. His late wife’s sister, Ruksana, coughed up blood during one interview, but is afraid to seek medical help without documentation.

By early July, Abdul Rahim had married Ruksana. He was picking up occasional odd jobs through friends but was struggling to pay the $80 a month rent on their shabby room. Despite that, and the loss of his first wife and daughter, he still believes he made the right decision to flee Burma.

"I don’t regret coming," he said, "but I regret what happened. I think about my wife and daughter all day."

China Detains Another Activist Who Pressed About Leaders’ Wealth

Posted: 16 Jul 2013 10:46 PM PDT

China's Communist Party Chief Xi Jinping raises his glass during a 2012 visit to Iowa Governor Terry Branstad’s Iowa Statehouse. He was still vice-president at the time. (Photo: AP)

BEIJING — China has detained a key campaigner for officials to reveal their wealth, a close friend of the activist said on Wednesday, as the new government escalates a crackdown that underscores the limits of its fight on corruption.

The detention of Xu Zhiyong, who has pushed for greater civil rights, could lead to a trial and trigger a global outcry over Beijing’s tightening grip of a fledgling movement for officials to disclose assets.

China has detained 16 activists in the disclosure campaign, in what rights groups say is the new leadership’s first crackdown targeting graft campaigners.

“It’s possible more people will gradually be caught,” said Teng Biao, a close friend of Xu, the best known of the activists and the founder of the “New Citizens’ Movement”.

Xu has been held under house arrest for three months, with no reason given by the authorities, Teng, a former human rights lawyer, told Reuters by telephone, adding that there was a high possibility Xu could face trial.

Beijing police detained Xu late on Tuesday night on a charge of “suspicion of gathering a mob to disturb order in a public place”, a copy of Xu’s detention notice obtained by Reuters says.

But the police declined to confirm the detention to Reuters. Xu’s mobile phone was turned off on Wednesday. His wife, Cui Zheng, declined to be interviewed.

Xu’s detention is likely to draw the attention of Western governments, which have sparred with China over human rights. The news came as China prepares to put on trial three activists agitating for officials to disclose assets.

Xi Jinping’s appointment as Communist Party chief in a once-in-a-decade leadership change last November had inspired many Chinese with hope for political reform, spurring citizens nationwide to push for the asset disclosures.

But the detentions signal the Communist Party will not tolerate any open challenge to its rule, despite the claims of greater transparency.

“This crackdown not only flies in the face of Xi’s rhetoric, it also undermines Xi’s legitimacy,” said Maya Wang, a researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The right thing to do would be for the government to release the activists.”

Xu has been a thorn in the government’s side. In 2009, he was briefly arrested on tax evasion charges his defenders said were trumped up in a bid to stifle his work. The charges were dropped after a public furore.

In May, Xu told Reuters he was under house arrest. “It could be due to my campaign to push for asset disclosure,” he wrote in an e-mail message.

Freedom of the Press, Vietnam Style

Posted: 16 Jul 2013 10:35 PM PDT

A man eats ice-cream in front of a poster promoting the 83rd anniversary of Vietnam's Communist Party, in Hanoi on Feb. 3, 2013. (Photo: Reuters / Kham)

Every week in Hanoi, the Central Propaganda Commission of the Vietnamese Communist Party, and in Ho Chi Minh City, the commission's southern regional office, convene "guidance meetings" with the managing editors of the country's important national newspapers.

Not incidentally, the editors are all party members. Officials of the Ministry of Information and the Ministry of Public Security are also present. Similar meetings take place in every province, a process emblematic of just how complete the control of the press is in Vietnam.

At these meetings, someone from the Propaganda Commission rates each paper's performance during the previous week — commending those who have toed the line, reprimanding and sometimes punishing those who have strayed.

In good cop/bad cop fashion, the party's overseers mix counseling and persuasion with threats and a bit of repression. Although there's no legal basis for it, the party regards the media as "propaganda forces" subject to its guidance and instruction. Probably the party itself recognizes the absurdity of this subjugation, which tramples on legal and journalistic principles.

On the one hand, the Propaganda Department instructs the "comrade editors and publishers" to make sure that the staff back in the office is "fully oriented," while on the other hand it insists that every one of them keeps the party's instructions strictly confidential.

The existence and content of these weekly meetings sometimes leaks out into the blogosphere, the online forums beyond the reach of the Propaganda Department. On March 29, 2011, it seems, editors were instructed not to report that movie actress Hong Anh had declared her independent candidacy for a National Assembly seat; not to use "Doctor Vu" when referring to dissident activist Cu Huy Ha Vu, then facing trial on charges of "propagandizing against the state;" to bury reports that nine foreign tourists died when a Halong Bay tour boat capsized; and to eschew investigation of the nation's decision to build a nuclear power plant.

Vu's trial was the object of particularly heavy-handed guidance. Journalists covering it for major newspapers received unsigned notices on plain paper enjoining them to praise the impartiality of the judges and the correctness of the sentence, and to refrain from commentary or in-depth analysis.

Telephone calls and oral instructions expedite guidance to editors on sensitive subjects. Don't report this incident, they're told; don't highlight that case, restrict coverage of these topics. Because no tangible evidence remains that the guidance was transmitted, when it's alleged that the press was gagged on such and such a story, the officials of the Ministry of Information can reply with straight faces that Vietnam is being slandered by "hostile forces."

In a clandestine recording circulated soon after a guidance meeting in December 2012, Propaganda Department Vice Director Nguyen The Ky is heard rebuking the press for reporting that Chinese vessels had cut the cables of seismic gear being towed by a Vietnamese exploration ship. It doesn't matter that the reports cite sources in the state oil company and Foreign Ministry.

"You must clarify that the Chinese vessels just unintentionally caused the cables to be broken," Ky said; "it was not an act of deliberate sabotage against us."

The recording was immediately posted on dissident blogs and then on the Vietnamese language service of the BBC. Invited to comment, Ky told the BBC that he was only exchanging professional opinions with the editors.

Clearly the Propaganda Department was mightily embarrassed by the leak. It's rumored that at the guidance meeting the following week, editors were subjected to a body search for hidden recording devices.

The press card system is a sophisticated method of controlling reporters. No card, no access. Without a press card, reporters can interview ordinary people, but can't hope to meet high-ranking officials, visit contacts at public offices or cover official workshops or conferences.

The system has been in operation for a long time. In 2007, it was legalized by government circular. The circular requires the issuing official to certify, inter alia, that a would-be journalist has been properly recommended by the paper, magazine or broadcaster that wishes to employ him, by the local Department of Information and the local branch of the Vietnam Journalists Association, and "has not been rebuked in the previous 12 months."

The press card system illustrates the blurry boundary between Vietnam's state sector, its ruling party and civil society. Ostensibly the press is an institution of civil society, and newspapers, magazines and broadcasters are not official agencies.

Legally speaking, in view of the Vietnamese Constitution's guarantee in Article 69 of "freedom of opinion and speech, freedom of the press, [and] the right to be informed," the state has no standing to regulate who is or is not a journalist, unless, of course, that promise is trumped by the State's obligation in Article 33 to "ban all activity in the field of . . . culture that is detrimental to national interests."

In any event, the Propaganda Department asserts its right, prescribing that Vietnam's media are the "voice of party organizations, State bodies and social organizations." Vietnam's Law on the Media further requires reporters to "propagandize, propagate the doctrine and policies of the party, the laws of the State, and national and world cultural, scientific and technical achievements in accordance with the guiding principles and aims of media organizations."

The result is that a great many journalists are subject to the direction of apparatchiks whose capacity for communication is decidedly inferior to theirs.

Without a press card, one is not recognized as a journalist and can be barred with no explanation at all from events at the whim of the organizing body, the police or civil authorities.

Vietnam's authorities deliberately manipulate this situation. They seek to pit "right side" (press card-bearing) reporters against "left side" (free) reporters, including bloggers. They don't always succeed. The party's propaganda and security apparatus know better than anyone the power of secrecy. Openness and transparency are their enemy. Yet the controllers of information now face a new danger: card-carrying journalists are leaking suppressed stories to their colleagues in the blogosphere.

On October 30 last year, Huyen Trang was detained and interrogated at a Ho Chi Minh City police station. When she explained that she was a reporter for the Catholic Church-affiliated Redemptorist News Service, police officers shouted at her "Who recognized you? Where is your press card? You are all a band of reactionary parasites!"

Trang's experience is unexceptional. Free journalists are often harassed or even assaulted by the police or by ruffians. Their denunciations and complaints are ignored because they are not "journalists performing duties" in the eyes of the authorities. Dieu Cay and Ta Phong Tan are serving long prison terms chiefly because they organized a "Club of Free Journalists."

Vietnam does not figure among the deadlier countries to be a journalist. The State doesn't need to kill journalists to control the media because by and large, Vietnam's press card-carrying journalists are not allowed to do work that is worth being killed for. Reporters are rarely independent and investigative; there is nothing close to anti-corruption journalism and therefore the press does not pose a danger to vested interests.

A writer for the dissident blog Anh Ba Sam commented recently that "in this beautiful socialist country of ours, there are only two inner sanctums from which no secrets emerge. One is our prisons; the other is the party's politburo." That's absolutely right.

Every matter that may erode the legitimacy of the regime or threaten the survival of the party is treated as a state secret or as a "special case." Chief among these in recent years is Vietnam's relationship with China.

The press will never find a written explanation of the party's posture vis-a-vis its Chinese counterpart or a document addressing its management of the media in this matter.

The public can perceive at best that this is a highly sensitive matter, proven by the occasional punishments meted out to media that stray over an invisible red line, by the lengths that organizers go to to limit reporters' access to international academic conferences on the South China Sea territorial disputes or by stipulations that reportage on anti-China street demonstrations must "expose the plots of reactionaries to exploit patriotic sentiment."

The official media can see the regime's unease more clearly. It's expressed in the countless cautionary telephone calls to editors, publishers and even ordinary reporters when a story is breaking. The media are forbidden to relay this anxiety to the public, no matter how hungry readers are for insights on the deepening crisis with China.

Coverage of South China Sea disputes becomes a forbidden fruit so appealing that some newspapers and journalists feel tempted to cross red lines to harvest it, although they may not have done proper spadework. Sovereignty disputes are an inherently challenging subject, and the press has few reliable experts and reference resources.

There's truth, therefore, in Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Nguyen Phuong Nga's complaint that "some of the media appear to consider national sovereignty as a hot topic for building readership and increasing advertising revenues."

Shocking headlines, unverified anecdotes and misleading "facts" crowd out quality reportage. Reporters search out sources with a strong bias against China. The poor quality of mainstream journalism provides the regime plenty of excuses to maintain its grip on the press, especially with regard to the South China Sea crisis.

Defenders of the regime often argue that the answers are perfectly clear to those who really seek to become informed, e.g., if one is sufficiently concerned about the trend of Vietnam's relations with China, one must study harder. Put that way, the regime is under no obligation to be more transparent or informative in its dealings with the public or the national media.

Pham Doan Trang is a reporter without a press card. A longer version of this story first appeared in three parts on her blog, www.phamdoantrang.com in June 2013.

Panama Finds Suspected Weapons On North Korean Ship

Posted: 16 Jul 2013 10:07 PM PDT

A long, green missile-shaped object is seen inside the North Korean-flagged ship “Chong Chon Gang” docked at the Manzanillo Container Terminal in Colon City July 16, 2013. Panama detained the ship from Cuba as it headed to the Panama Canal and said it was hiding weapons in brown sugar containers, sparking a standoff in which the ship’s captain attempted to commit suicide. (Photo: Reuters)

PANAMA CITY — A North Korean ship carrying weapons system parts buried under sacks of sugar was seized as it tried to cross the Panama Canal on its way from Cuba to its home country, which is barred by United Nations sanctions from importing sophisticated weapons or missiles, Panamanian officials said Tuesday.

A private defense analysis firm that examined a photograph of the find said the ship appeared to be transporting a radar-control system for a Soviet-era surface-to-air missile system, and Cuba later called the equipment on the boat "obsolete defensive weapons" from the mid-20th century.

A statement from Cuba’s Foreign Ministry late Tuesday acknowledged that the military equipment belonged to the Caribbean nation, but said it had been shipped out to be repaired and returned to the island.

It said the 240 metric tons of weaponry consisted of two Volga and Pechora anti-aircraft missile systems, nine missiles "in parts and spares," two Mig-21 Bis and 15 engines for those airplanes.

"The agreements subscribed by Cuba in this field are supported by the need to maintain our defensive capacity in order to preserve national sovereignty," the statement read.

It concluded by saying that Havana remains "unwavering" in its commitment to international law, peace and nuclear disarmament.

Earlier, Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli said the ship identified as the 14,000-ton Chong Chon Gang was carrying missiles and other arms "hidden in containers underneath the cargo of sugar."

Martinelli tweeted a photo showing a green tube that appears to be a horizontal antenna for the SNR-75 "Fan Song" radar, which used to guide missiles fired by the SA-2 air-defense system found in former Warsaw Pact and Soviet-allied nations, said Neil Ashdown, an analyst for IHS Jane’s Intelligence.

"It is possible that this could be being sent to North Korea to update its high-altitude air-defense capabilities," Ashdown said. Jane’s also said the equipment could be headed to North Korea to be upgraded.

Panamanian authorities said one container buried under sugar sacks contained radar equipment that appears to be designed for use with air-to-air or surface-to-air missiles, said Belsio Gonzalez, director of Panama’s National Aeronautics and Ocean Administration. An Associated Press journalist who gained access to the rusting ship saw green shipping containers that had been covered by hundreds, perhaps thousands, of white sacks marked "Cuban Raw Sugar."

The UN Security Council has imposed four rounds of increasingly tougher sanctions against North Korea since its first nuclear test on Oct. 9, 2006.

Under current sanctions, all UN member states are prohibited from directly or indirectly supplying, selling or transferring all arms, missiles or missile systems and the equipment and technology to make them to North Korea, with the exception of small arms and light weapons.

The most recent resolution, approved in March after Pyongyang’s latest nuclear test, authorizes all countries to inspect cargo in or transiting through their territory that originated in North Korea, or is destined to North Korea if a state has credible information the cargo could violate Security Council resolutions.

"Panama obviously has an important responsibility to ensure that the Panama Canal is utilized for safe and legal commerce," said Acting US Ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo, who is the current Security Council president. "Shipments of arms or related material to or from Korea would violate Security Council resolutions, three of them as a matter of fact."

Panamanian authorities believe the ship was returning from Havana on its way to North Korea, Panamanian Public Security Minister Jose Raul Mulino told The Associated Press. Based on unspecified intelligence, authorities suspected it could be carrying contraband and tried to communicate with the crew, who didn’t respond. Martinelli said Panama originally suspected drugs could be aboard.

The 35 North Koreans on the boat were arrested after resisting police efforts to intercept the ship in Panamanian waters on Thursday as it moved toward the canal and take it to the Caribbean port of Manzanillo, Martinelli told private RPC radio station. The captain had a heart attack and also tried to commit suicide during the operation, Martinelli said.

Panamanian officials were finally able to board the ship to begin searching it Monday, pulling out hundreds of sacks of sugar.

Luis Eduardo Camacho, a spokesman for Martinelli, said authorities had only searched one of the ship’s five container sections, and the inspection of all the cargo will take at least a week. Panama has requested help from United Nations inspectors, along with Colombia and the UK, said Javier Carballo, the country’s top narcotics prosecutor.

"Panama being a neutral country, a country in peace, that doesn’t like war, we feel very worried about this military material," Martinelli said.

North Korea’s government made no public comment on the case.

In early July, a top North Korean general, Kim Kyok Sik, visited Cuba and met with his island counterparts. Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma said he was also received by President Raul Castro, and the two had an "exchange about the historical ties that unite the two nations and the common will to continue strengthening them."

The meetings were held behind closed doors, and there has been no detailed account of their discussions.

"After this incident there should be renewed focus on North Korean-Cuban links," said Hugh Griffiths, an arms trafficking expert at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Griffiths said his institute told the UN this year that it had uncovered evidence of a flight from Cuba to North Korea that travelled via central Africa.

"Given the history of North Korea, Cuban military cooperation and now this latest seizure, we find this flight more interesting," he said. "

The Chong Chon Gang has a history of being detained on suspicion of trafficking drugs and ammunition, Griffiths said. Lloyd’s List Intelligence said the 34-year-old ship, which is registered to the Pyongyang-based Chongchongang Shipping Company, "has a long history of detentions for safety deficiencies and other undeclared reasons."

Satellite tracking records show it left the Pacific Coast of Russia on April 12 with a stated destination of Havana, then crossed the Pacific and the Panama Canal on its way to the Caribbean. It disappeared from satellite tracking until it showed up again on the Caribbean side of the canal, on July 10, Lloyd’s said.

The disappearance from satellite tracking indicates that the crew may have switched off a device that automatically transmits the ship’s location after it moved into the Caribbean, Lloyd’s said.

Mulino, the Panamanian public security minister, said the ship crossed the Panama Canal from the Pacific to the Caribbean last month carrying a cargo of sheet metal that was inspected by Panamanian authorities.

Griffiths said the Chong Chon Gang was stopped in 2010 in the Ukraine and was attacked by pirates 400 miles off the coast of Somalia in 2009.

Griffiths’ institute has also been interested in the ship because of a 2009 stop it made in Tartus — a Syrian port city hosting a Russian naval base.
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