The Irrawaddy Magazine

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• Dark Days for Media Freedom in Burma
• Senior US Official Raises Arakan Concerns With Thein Sein
• Police, CCTV to Safeguard Thingyan Festivities
• A Happy Burmese New Year for the ‘Big Four’?
• Tin Aye’s Plan to Cheat the Game
• Credit Bureau Delayed by ‘Second Thoughts’ About Foreign Stake
• In Moulmein, a Hospital Continues its Long Battle With Leprosy
• Australian PM Confident Sounds Are From Flight 370
• Flaws Found in Thailand’s Human-Trafficking Crackdown
• Philippines: Invite All Southeast Asia to Pacific Pact

Dark Days for Media Freedom in Burma Posted: 11 Apr 2014 04:42 AM PDT The Irrawaddy condemns the recent imprisonment of a reporter from the Democratic Voice of Burma. This move follows the detention in February of four journalists from the weekly news journal Unity on charges of violating the Official Secrets Act for reporting on an alleged secret military chemical weapons production facility in Magwe Division. President Thein Sein's promise to lift censorship and uphold press freedom rings hollow. Reforms in Burma have stalled, if not reversed. We call on the government to immediately free all reporters in custody. The post Dark Days for Media Freedom in Burma appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

Senior US Official Raises Arakan Concerns With Thein Sein Posted: 11 Apr 2014 01:18 AM PDT At the head of the table, US Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Russel, right, and US Ambassador to Burma Derek Mitchell, left, speak with reporters on Thursday at the US Embassy in Rangoon. (Photo: US Embassy) RANGOON — The US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs has raised concerns about the humanitarian situation in Arakan State during meetings with Burma's president and other high-level government officials in Naypyidaw. Daniel Russel said he spoke "very candidly" during meetings on Wednesday and Thursday with President Thein Sein as well as Burma's foreign minister, information minister and deputy minister for border affairs. The discussions focused on the government's short- and long-term plans in restive Arakan State, as well as preparations for Burma's Asean chairmanship and US concerns about press freedoms in the country. Accompanied by US Ambassador to Burma Derek Mitchell, Russel was briefed by Deputy Minister of Border Affairs Maung Maung Ohn about plans to restore humanitarian aid in Arakan State following attacks on the offices and residences of international NGOs and UN agencies in the state capital Sittwe last month. Maung Maung Ohn was the head of a commission established by the Burmese government to investigate the attacks in Sittwe, and earlier this week he criticized state authorities for their weak handling of the incident. "I conveyed Washington's concern about the humanitarian situation, as well as our strong hope and expectation that the government will provide the security and the access to international humanitarian agencies necessary to address the needs of the people in distress in Rakhine [Arakan] State," Russel reporters during a media roundtable at the US Embassy in Rangoon on Thursday. Russel told The Irrawaddy that he was encouraged by the government's commitment to provide increased security for INGOs but added that he would need to see whether the plans translated to action on the ground. "It's still very early days, because it was only yesterday [Wednesday] when the government issued a statement describing their response plans," he said, noting several positive signs, including indications that travel authorizations would be granted to NGOs. "We need to wait and see what those statements and commitments translate into in terms of practical steps that allow for early access by humanitarian agencies in a secure environment that allows them to restore the level of service that we previously have seen." He said that he and the ambassador raised concerns about the inability of specific INGOs to continue providing critical medical services in the state, including Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), whose operations were suspended in Arakan State in late February. "It is very clear to me that the government takes this problem seriously, and that from the top-down it is looking for ways to facilitate the early return of international aid agencies, and to do so in a way that contributes to the long-term solution to the situation," he said. Asked to comment on the Burmese government's insistence that problems regarding the Rohingya in Arakan State are domestic issues only, Russel told reporters that the interruption of humanitarian services was also a concern for the international community. "There are domestic issues involved. There are also universal principles involved. We don't interfere in the domestic affairs of any country, but we certainly act in support of universal principles, including humanitarian principles," he said. Earlier this week, presidential spokesman Ye Htut reportedly accused Britain of interfering in Burma's domestic affairs after the British foreign minister summoned the Burmese ambassador to discuss ongoing restrictions of aid organizations in Arakan State. Press Freedoms, Asean Chairmanship In meetings with Burma's Minister for Information Aung Kyi, Russel said he emphasized the United States' willingness to assist the Burmese government adjust to "the new era of media openness." "We very much welcome the end of censorship laws, we very much welcome the effort to create a legal framework that protects journalists," he said. "I did share our concern about recent cases where journalists have been arrested and imprisoned under what strike us as arcane and obsolete laws." In the latest jailing of journalists in the country, a video reporter from the Democratic Voice of Burma was sentenced on Monday to one year in prison for trespassing after visiting a government education office during office hours and attempting to conduct an interview. Four journalists and the chief executive of Rangoon-based Unity journal are now on trial for allegedly violating the Official Secrets Act after reporting on an alleged chemical weapons factory in the country, while a reporter at Eleven Media Group was sentenced to three months in jail in December for defamation and trespass after writing a story about corruption in the judicial system. Regarding discussions about Burma's chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) this year, Russel said he expected US President Barack Obama to participate in the East Asia Summit to be chaired by Thein Sein in Burma in November. "I made clear to the foreign minister that from the US perspective, Burma's Asean year was off to a great start," he added. Russel traveled to Burma after a visit to Thailand, and he returns to Washington on Friday. In addition to Burmese government officials, he spoke with representatives of INGOs as well as representatives of diplomatic missions and civil society groups. The assistant secretary of state has visited Burma twice in the past, including with Obama in 2012 and with former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2011. The post Senior US Official Raises Arakan Concerns With Thein Sein appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

Police, CCTV to Safeguard Thingyan Festivities Posted: 11 Apr 2014 01:11 AM PDT Police apprehend a water festival reveler during Thingyan, in April 2013. (Photo: JPaing / The Irrawaddy) Police in Burma are implementing precautionary security measures and boosting the presence of law enforcement officers to ensure the safety of revelers participating in the country's Buddhist New Year festivities, also known as Thingyan, which begins next week. A 5,000-strong security force will hit the streets and stand guard at more than 150 pavilions in Rangoon during the "water festival," which is celebrated from April 12 to 16. Win Kyi, a lieutenant colonel from Rangoon's Western District police, told The Irrawaddy on Friday that "4,000 police officers and a thousand members from the local Red Cross, fire stations and town elders, will be standing by for security." Rangoon, Burma's biggest city, each year sees a raucous celebration that brings hundreds of thousands of revelers out in the days leading up to the Buddhist New Year, which is marked on April 17 this year. All manner of splashing, from squirt guns and buckets to firehouses and water balloons, carries on for the better part of a week, but the celebration also has a dark side, with incidents of violence, traffic accidents and fatalities spiking over the period. In an attempt to reduce the negative aspects of Thingyan, several security monitoring posts will be open to supervise the festivities in Rangoon, with headquarters at the Rangoon divisional government office, according to police in the commercial capital. Security forces will be deployed at the 154 registered Thingyan pavilions, better known as pandals, to take action against any violence or threats to safety. Police have required pandal sponsors to install closed-circuit television cameras (CCTV) at each stage, while explosives inspection teams will conduct sweeps of the pandals twice a day. In 2010, 10 people were killed and nearly 180 injured in a series of bomb blasts at a pandal in Rangoon. Private security personnel have also been hired by some pandal sponsors, Win Kyi added. This year's festivities are expected to see more foreign faces amid the crowds, according to a tourism industry source. Tin Htun Aung, the joint secretary of the Myanmar Tourism Association, told The Irrawaddy that services were being provided to visitors in Burma over the holiday. "We are arranging their travels to Rangoon and Mandalay, as well as [provisions] for their security," he said. The MTA official said visitor numbers were up this month ahead of the water festival, which coincides with the tail end of Burma's tourism "high season." A special pandal sponsored by the MTA will be available for tourists to join in Mandalay. Win Kyi said security arrangements for tourists would be in place. "We have distributed the phone number for an emergency contact if something happens. Also, our men will have communication devices on the ground," the lieutenant colonel added. "In case of violence, crimes or bomb threats, special courthouses will be available for perpetrators in each township, so we can take [judicial] action immediately." Win Kyi said authorities have issued a list of 51 Thingyan "dos and don'ts" to be followed by revelers, including a requirement that participants cease and desist with the water play at 6 pm each day. "If people break those rules, electricity and water distribution to them [pandals] will be cut." Nang Sai Nom contributed to this report. The post Police, CCTV to Safeguard Thingyan Festivities appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

A Happy Burmese New Year for the ‘Big Four’? Posted: 11 Apr 2014 01:04 AM PDT A Happy Burmese New Year for the 'Big Four'? The post A Happy Burmese New Year for the 'Big Four'? appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

Tin Aye’s Plan to Cheat the Game Posted: 10 Apr 2014 11:05 PM PDT Since democratic reforms began in Burma, political observers and pundits in the country have struggled to determine who are the genuine reformists and remaining hardliners in the ruling party and government. But now, after three years, things are finally becoming clear. It appears the political situation has reverted to a more familiar black and white, as key officials begin to show willingness to cheat during the political race ahead of the 2015 elections. Perhaps this clarity is for the better. This week, Tin Aye, a former general and now chairman of Burma's Union Election Commission, said that the involvement of the army in Burmese politics is necessary to prevent a military coup. "The military MPs make up 25 percent of Parliament. To be clear, we have them because we don't want a coup. The military is in Parliament not because of power, but for negotiation," he said. He added to his condescending view that the military will leave politics "only when democratic standards are high in the country." Unsurprisingly, the perception that Burmese people do not deserve to have democracy is still widely held among the former military leaders. Tin Aye was a lieutenant-general and top ranking leader of the former State Peace and Development Council and a protégé of ex-junta chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe. He is also close to the current President Thein Sein. The general turned national election commission chairman addressed the issue of the 2015 elections—which is supposed to Burma's first democratic elections in 25 years. He assured reporters, "For the 2015 election, I promise it will be systematically free and fair." Tin Aye, however, then went on say he wants to hold a national election in "disciplined democracy style," a term used by the army to describe its intention to tightly control the pace of Burma's democratic transition. His election commission, he said, will only allow politicians to campaign in their own constituencies, a move that will significantly affect opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party. The hugely popular leader has been touring the country in recent months, rallying people to support her call for amendments to the military-drafted 2008 Constitution and shoring up popular support for her party. The NLD won a landslide victory during the by-elections in 2012, when the party contested seats in 44 of 45 constituencies up for grabs. Before the election, Suu Kyi traveled to those townships and campaigned on behalf of her party members, who then won 43 of the 44 seats. The idea behind Tin Aye's new measure is simple: To break the leg of a rival ahead of the marathon—that is, the 2015 national election. That's how the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) also won the rigged election in 2010; there was no one else running against them. After the election, former dictator Than Shwe handed over power to USDP candidate Thein Sein, who formed a nominally-civilian government. Tin Aye himself won a seat in the Lower House of Parliament, representing Mandalay Division's Tada-U Township as a member of the USDP. Conveniently, President Thein Sein nominated him as chairman of the election commission in 2011—so all is set up for a repeat of the 2010 elections. As if his announcement wasn't enough to indicate his disdain for the Burmese voters, the election commission chairman went on to remark that the NLD campaign for the 2012 by-elections—which were praised United States and the European Union—resembled an unruly public demonstration. NLD rallies that year that saw thousands of people in NLD T-shirts come out to show their support, often waving the party's flag to welcome Suu Kyi in the first exercise in free democratic campaigning in more than two decades. Yet Tin Aye saw these events differently. "Those campaigns were so free that they looked rather like the '88 uprising revisited," he said, referring to the 1988 pro-democracy uprising against the dictatorship of Gen. Ne Win, which was brutally crushed by the Burma Army. With his remarks, the former general in charge of overseeing the all-important 2015 elections has shown his true colors. If he doesn't want to hold the national elections, it is better that he simply asks the military to take over power and shut the country's democratic process down again. But if he wants all political leaders to play fair, he shouldn't put crippling restrictions on the opposition. Tin Aye's remarks are a telling sign of this government's insincerity towards the democratic reforms, in spite of all the praise that the international community has heaped on President Thein Sein and his cabinet. Tin Aye's planned measure and crude remarks are not the only steps this government has taken to tip the political balance in their favor. It is suspected that the violence against Muslims and certain international aid groups working Burma's conflict zones are engineered by some powerful elements in the establishment. Thein Sein recently proposed asking Parliament to consider approving the interfaith marriage law, which would restrict women from marrying those with other beliefs. These campaigns are designed to pave way for security forces and army to play a key role ahead of the elections, as well as to garner support from radical Buddhist clergy and Buddhist nationalists. The message that Tin Aye has sent is clear: the political game will not be played fair, they will seek to injure a rival ahead of the game—cowards. The post Tin Aye's Plan to Cheat the Game appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

Credit Bureau Delayed by ‘Second Thoughts’ About Foreign Stake Posted: 10 Apr 2014 09:53 PM PDT Women stand at an ATM in Rangoon. (Photo: JPaing / The Irrawaddy) RANGOON — Although financiers in Burma have been trying since 2012 to form the country's first credit bureau, concerns about how much foreign involvement in the process should be allowed have delayed their efforts, bankers said this week. The Central Bank of Myanmar aims to form the credit bureau to allow lenders to check the backgrounds of prospective borrowers, with assistance from the Credit Bureau Singapore, according to Ye Min Oo, the managing director of Asia Green Development Bank. "Though the Central Bank of Myanmar and bankers have been trying to form a Myanmar credit bureau since then [2012], now it's been delayed by organizers because the CBM is having second thoughts about how to form it. [It is] considering whether or not to allow foreign participation," he said. Under the initial agreement made in 2012, the Credit Bureau Singapore was to take a 40 percent stake in shares of the yet-to-be-formed bureau, and Burma's Central Bank, along with domestic private lenders, were to take the remaining 60 percent. "With this credit bureau, the Central Bank of Myanmar must participate, and private banks too, so now it's been delayed because of the CBM's second thoughts on allowing foreign contribution," Ye Min Oo said. Phone calls by The Irrawaddy to the spokesperson for the Central Bank of Myanmar went unanswered on Thursday. A credit bureau collects information from a range of sources to provide consumer credit information on individuals, which is used for a variety of purposes, including determining loan eligibility. Credit information, such as a person's previous loan performance and bill-paying habits, is used to predict future behavior and gauge credit worthiness. In Burma, proponents hope the bureau will help boost lending to people who otherwise would be denied loans due to their inability to meet the collateral requirements currently in place by banks as a form of insurance against defaults. Zaw Lin Htut, deputy managing director of Kanbawza Bank, said that in addition, Burma's banking sector needed to form the credit bureau before the government would allow the issuance of credit cards by private banks in Burma. "It's difficult to collect customers' credit history without a credit bureau, so we need to form a kind of bureau first. I heard that the government has been trying to form this, but it's been delayed. If we have a bureau, it will be easy to issue credit cards," he said. "If we have this credit bureau in Burma, we can get history—information on people about whether they can be trusted to pay back loans. We can check out information through the bureau, that's why bankers have been trying to form this bureau, but I have no idea why the Central Bank of Myanmar is delaying its formation," Zaw Lin Htut added. Acceptance and use of credit cards in Burma remains limited, and only a few major hotels and shops that cater to foreign tourists will even consider taking Visa or MasterCard, much less cards issued by the Japan Credit Bureau (JCB) or China Union Pay—all of which have had the green light to do business in Burma since October 2012. Despite the Central Bank's reluctance to give consumers credit cards, the Myanmar Payment Union (MPU)—which includes 14 of Burma's 19 privately owned banks—is moving forward with plans to work together with Japan's JCB to expand its network of domestic debit-card users. The post Credit Bureau Delayed by 'Second Thoughts' About Foreign Stake appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

In Moulmein, a Hospital Continues its Long Battle With Leprosy Posted: 10 Apr 2014 08:51 PM PDT Saw Silver (88) enjoys a morning read in one of the ulcer care wards of the Mawlamyine Christian Leprosy Hospital. Click on the box below to see more images. (Photo: Jeroen de Bakker / The Irrawaddy) MOULMEIN, Mon State — The Mawlamyine Christian Leprosy Hospital is a long-established institution in Mon State, southern Burma, that treats leprosy, a highly stigmatizing disease that has long been endemic in Burma and was only brought under control a decade ago. Despite its reputation, leprosy can be cured, although many patients suffer life-long physical deformities, such as a loss of fingers and toes, and continue to be shunned by many members of Burmese society. In 2003, the national prevalence rate of leprosy in Burma dropped to less than one case in every 10,000 people, the World Health Organization's elimination target. According to Dr Saw Hsar of Moulmein's leprosy clinic, about 250,000 people were cured in the decade since. Some 3,000 cases, however, are discovered every year and new cases in remote, isolated areas remain difficult to detect. Dr Saw Hsar noted that, "Myanmar has not reached elimination of leprosy in some districts or regions. Where there is civil war going on, we cannot say that we have reached the elimination target. We can only say that [these populations] 'can’t be reach', because there are no correct figures for such places." The clinic in Moulmein was founded by American Baptist missionary Susan Haswell "in 1898 with the vision to build and sustain organizational and technical capacity to empower and assist persons affected by leprosy, disability and other significant stigmatizing diseases," according to the hospital's Facebook page. The clinic in Moulmein treats about 200 leprosy patients and many more stayed there after treatment out of fear for discrimination upon their return to their home villages. Some have married other patients, building families within the hospital compound. In total, about 2,000 people live in and around the hospital. Many are amputees or have become disabled due to the disease. Of all the residents, about 700 are children, and doctors help give them an education. Saw Silver, 88, has been living at the Moulmein clinic since he was 14 years old, when his parents sent him there after he got bitten by a snake. "When I was young and got leprosy I felt lonely and different from other kids. One of my friends said I should let a viper bite me, it would either cure or kill me. I thought it was good advice and tried it," he said. The snake did not kill nor cure him but this was the moment for his parents to send him to this hospital. In Moulmein, he became a respected church leader and a member of the hospital's board. Jeroen de Bakker is a Dutch documentary photographer covering the different sections of Burmese society during the country's democratic transition. The post In Moulmein, a Hospital Continues its Long Battle With Leprosy appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

Australian PM Confident Sounds Are From Flight 370 Posted: 10 Apr 2014 10:52 PM PDT Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak (L) and Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott appear at a briefing on the search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 at RAAF Base Pearce near Perth April 3, 2014. (Photo: Reuters) PERTH, Australia — Australia's prime minister said Friday that authorities are confident that a series of underwater signals detected in a remote patch of the Indian Ocean are coming from the missing Malaysia Airlines plane. Tony Abbott told reporters in Shanghai, China, that search crews had significantly narrowed down the area they were hunting for the source of the sounds, first detected on Saturday. "We have very much narrowed down the search area and we are very confident that the signals that we are detecting are from the black box on MH370," Abbott said. "Nevertheless, we're getting into the stage where the signal from what we are very confident is the black box is starting to fade," he added. "We are hoping to get as much information as we can before the signal finally expires." The plane's black boxes, or flight data and cockpit voice recorders, could help solve the mystery of why Flight 370 veered so far off course when it vanished on March 8 on a trip from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing. But the batteries powering their locator beacons last only about a month—and it has been more than a month since the plane disappeared. The Australian ship Ocean Shield, which is towing a US Navy device to detect signals emanating from the beacons on a plane's flight data and cockpit voice recorders, first picked up two underwater sounds on Saturday that were later determined to be consistent with the pings emitted from the flight recorders, or "black boxes." The ship's equipment detected two more sounds in the same general area on Tuesday. "We are confident that we know the position of the black box flight recorder to within some kilometers, but confidence in the approximate position of the black box is not the same as recovering wreckage from almost 4 ½ kilometers beneath the sea or finally determining all that happened on that flight," Abbott said. An Australian air force P-3 Orion, which has been dropping sonar buoys into the water near where four sounds were heard earlier, picked up another "possible signal" on Thursday, but Angus Houston, who is coordinating the search for Flight 370 off Australia's west coast, said in a statement that an initial assessment of the signal had determined it was not related to an aircraft black box. Houston said the Ocean Shield was continuing on Friday to use its towed pinger locator to try and locate additional signals. The underwater search zone is currently a 1,300-square-kilometer (500-square-mile) patch of the ocean floor, about the size of the city of Los Angeles. "It is vital to glean as much information as possible while the batteries on the underwater locator beacons may still be active," Houston said in a statement. "The AP-3C Orions continue their acoustic search, working in conjunction with Ocean Shield, with three more missions planned for today." The Bluefin 21 submersible takes six times longer to cover the same area as the ping locator being towed by the Ocean Shield and would take six weeks to two months to canvass the current underwater search zone. "On the information I have available to me, there has been no major breakthrough in the search for MH370," he added. "I will provide a further update if, and when, further information becomes available." The searchers are trying to pinpoint the location of the source of the signals so they can send down a robotic submersible to look for wreckage and the flight recorders from the Malaysian jet. Houston said on Friday that that decision could be "some days away." Houston's coordination center said the area to be searched for floating debris on Friday had been narrowed to 46,713 square kilometers (18,036 square miles) of ocean extending from 2,300 kilometers (1,400 miles) northwest of Perth. Up to 15 planes and 13 ships would join Friday's search. Thursday's search of a 57,900 square kilometer (22,300 square mile) area of ocean in a similar location reported no sightings of potential wreckage, the center said. The sonar buoys are being dropped by the Australian air force to maximize the sound-detectors operating in the search zone. Royal Australian Navy Commodore Peter Leavy said each buoy is dangling a hydrophone listening device about 300 meters (1,000 feet) below the surface and transmits its data via radio back to a search plane. Houston has expressed optimism about the sounds detected earlier in the week, saying Wednesday that he was hopeful crews would find the aircraft—or what's left of it—in the "not-too-distant future." Separately, a Malaysian government official said Thursday that investigators have concluded the pilot spoke the last words to air traffic control, "Good night, Malaysian three-seven-zero," and that his voice had no signs of duress. A re-examination of the last communication from the cockpit was initiated after authorities last week reversed their initial statement that the co-pilot was speaking different words. The senior government official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to the media. The post Australian PM Confident Sounds Are From Flight 370 appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

Flaws Found in Thailand’s Human-Trafficking Crackdown Posted: 10 Apr 2014 10:44 PM PDT Akram (R) and two other Rohingya men who cannot walk, rest on a makeshift bed at a mosque near Songkhla, close to Thailand's border with Malaysia in February, weeks after they escaped a trafficking camp. (Photo: Reuters) SATUN, Thailand — After a two-hour trek through swamp and jungle, Police Major General Thatchai Pitaneelaboot halts in a trash-strewn clearing near Thailand's remote border with Malaysia. "This is it," he says, surveying the remains of a deserted camp on a hillside pressed flat by the weight of human bodies. Just weeks before, says Thatchai, hundreds of Rohingya Muslim refugees from Burma were held captive here by one of the shadowy gangs who have turned southern Thailand into a human-trafficking superhighway. With Thatchai's help, Thailand is scrambling to show it is combating the problem. It aims to avoid a downgrade in an influential US State Department annual report that ranks countries on their anti-trafficking efforts. But a Reuters examination of that effort exposes flaws in how Thailand defines human trafficking, exemplified by its failure to report the lucrative trafficking of thousands of Rohingya confirmed in Reuters investigations published in July and December. In March, Thailand submitted a 78-page report on its trafficking record for 2013 to the State Department. Thai officials provided a copy to Reuters. In the report, Thailand includes no Rohingya in its tally of trafficked persons. "We have not found that the Rohingya are victims of human trafficking," the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. "In essence, the Rohingya question is an issue of human smuggling." The distinction between smuggling and trafficking is critical to Thailand's assertion. Smuggling, done with the consent of those involved, differs from trafficking, the business of trapping people by force or deception into labor or prostitution. A two-part Reuters investigation in three countries, based on interviews with people smugglers, human traffickers and Rohingya who survived boat voyages from Burma, last year showed how the treatment of Rohingya often constituted trafficking. Reporters found that hundreds were held against their will in brutal trafficking camps in the Thai wilderness. A record 40,000 Rohingya passed through the camps in 2013, according to Chris Lewa, director of Arakan Project, a humanitarian group. The Rohingya's accelerating 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. After arriving by boat to Thailand, criminal networks transport Rohingya mainly into neighboring Malaysia, a Muslim-majority country viewed by Rohingya as a haven from persecution. Many are held by guards with guns and beaten until they produce money for passage across the Thai border, usually about $2,000 each—a huge sum for one of the world's most impoverished peoples. Thailand faces an automatic downgrade to Tier 3, the lowest rank in the US government's Trafficking In Persons (TIP) Report, unless it makes "significant efforts" to improve its record, according to the State Department. The agency is expected to release its findings in June. "Grievous Rights Abuses" A Tier 3 designation would put the Southeast Asian country alongside North Korea and the Central African Republic as the world's worst centers of human trafficking, and would expose Thailand to US sanctions. If Thailand is downgraded, the United States, in practice, is unlikely to sanction the country, one of its oldest treaty allies in Asia. But to be downgraded would be a major embarrassment to Thailand, which is now lobbying hard for a non-permanent position on the United Nations Security Council. Reuters asked New York-based Human Rights Watch to review the report that Thailand recently submitted to the State Department. The watchdog group, which monitors trafficking and other abuses globally, said it was concerned that two-thirds of the trafficking victims cited in the report were Thai nationals. "Any examination of trafficking in Thailand shows that migrants from neighboring countries are the ones most trafficked," said Brad Adams, the group's Asia director. "Yet Thailand's identification statistics show far more Thais than migrants are found as victims." He added that the numbers were also flawed due to the absence of Rohingya among the list of trafficking victims. Thailand failed to recognize "the grievous rights abuses the Rohingya suffer in these jungle camps, and the fundamental failures of the Thai government to do much about it." The State Department said it is examining Thailand's submission. "We have received the information from the Thai government, and it is currently under review," Ambassador at-Large Luis CdeBaca of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons said in a statement to Reuters. "Plight of the Rohingya" The next TIP Report will appraise Thailand's anti-trafficking efforts in 2013. That year ended with the State Department and the United Nations calling for investigations into the findings of a Dec. 5 report by Reuters. That article uncovered a secret Thai policy to remove Rohingya refugees from Thailand's immigration detention centers and deliver them to human traffickers waiting at sea. Thailand made "significant progress" in combating human trafficking in 2013, said its foreign ministry, citing data included in the recent 78-page report Bangkok submitted to the State Department. According to the Thai report, Thailand convicted 225 people for human trafficking in 2013, compared to 49 people in 2012. (According to the State Department, Thailand convicted only 10 people in 2012.) The report said Thailand identified 1,020 trafficking victims in 2013, compared to 592 in 2012, and almost doubled the government's anti-trafficking budget to 235 million baht ($7.3 million). It identified victims by nationality, counting 141 people from Burma among the victims. But none were Rohingya, who are mostly stateless. The Burmese government calls the Rohingya illegal "Bengali" migrants from Bangladesh. Most of the 1.1 million Rohingya living in Burma's western Arakan State are denied citizenship. In January 2013, said the Thai report, more than 400 Rohingya illegal migrants were found in rubber plantations near the Thai-Malay border in Thailand's Songkhla province. Seven Thai suspects were arrested and charged with smuggling and harboring of illegal migrants, and were later convicted. The Thai report describes this group of Rohingya as being smuggled, not trafficked. However, the Reuters article in December documented a clandestine Thai policy to remove those Rohingya from immigration detention centers and deliver them to human traffickers and smugglers waiting at sea. Many Rohingya were then ferried back to brutal trafficking camps in Thailand, where some died. The official Thai report said the government "has taken every effort to suppress the smuggling of Rohingyas over the years and to reduce the risk of Rohingyas being exploited by transnational trafficking syndicates." "The plight of the Rohingyas who left their homeland is essentially one of people smuggling, not one that is typical of human trafficking," said the report. Pongthep Thepkanjana, the caretaker deputy prime minister, said he would not speculate on whether Thailand's efforts were enough for an upgrade on the US trafficking rankings. "We don't do this just to satisfy the United States," Pongthep, who chairs Thailand's national committee to implement anti-trafficking policy, told Reuters. "We do this because trafficking in persons is a bad thing." Huntsville, Thailand The anti-trafficking efforts of Police Major General Thatchai are part of that undertaking. At the abandoned camp he recently examined, Thatchai said scores of Rohingya were beaten until relatives agreed to pay for their release and onward passage to Malaysia. Other Rohingya have died of abuse or disease in nearby trafficking camps whose locations were revealed by the Dec. 5 Reuters report. Thatchai took charge of the region's anti-trafficking efforts in October. He has vowed to shut the trafficking camps, break up the gangs and jail their leaders. "They torture, they extort, they kill," said Thatchai, 46, who speaks in an American accent picked up while earning a doctorate in criminal justice in Texas. "It's too much, isn't it?" His campaign has freed nearly 900 people from camps and other trafficking sites and unearthed new detail about criminal syndicates in southern Thailand. Well-oiled Rohingya-smuggling networks are now being used to transport other nationalities in large numbers, said Thatchai. He said he has identified at least six smuggling syndicates in southern Thailand, all run by Thai Muslims. This year, along with hundreds of Rohingya, he has also detained about 200 illegal migrants from Bangladesh, as well as nearly 300 people claiming to be Turks but believed to be Uighur Muslims from China's restive province of Xinjiang. Like officials in Bangkok, Thatchai generally characterized the transporting of Rohingya through Thailand as human smuggling, not human trafficking. At the same time, he said his aim was to disrupt the camps through raids and use testimony from victims to unravel the networks. He hopes to gather enough evidence to convict southern Thailand's two main people-smuggling kingpins on human trafficking charges. One target lived in Ranong, a Thai port city overlooking Thailand's maritime border with Burma. This suspect, Thatchai said, sells Rohingya to the other syndicates. They then resell the Rohingya at marked-up prices to Thai fishing boats, where bonded or slave labor is common, or take them to camps to beat more money from them—usually a sum equivalent to about $2,000. The Ranong kingpin made about 10 million baht ($310,000) a month this way, alleged Thatchai, and owned dozens of pick-up trucks to move his human cargo. "There Was Torture" The second suspect was a leader of a syndicate in the province of Satun. That gang is believed to operate a string of camps along the province's border with Malaysia—including the abandoned camp Reuters visited with Thatchai on March 27. At least 400 Rohingya, including many women and children, were held at that camp for up to a month, said Thatchai. The Rohingya were guarded by armed men and fed two meals of instant noodles a day. "Today we have proved that what the victim said is true," Thatchai said after the site visit. "There was a camp. There was torture and kidnapping." But Thatchai also said he thinks no amount of raids and arrests in Thailand will staunch the flow of Rohingya out of Burma's Arakan State. Deadly clashes between Rohingya and ethnic Arakanese Buddhists erupted in Buddhist-majority Burma in 2012, leaving hundreds dead and thousands homeless, most of them Rohingya. Since then, about 80,000 Rohingya have fled Burma by boat, according to the Arakan Project. More look set to follow, after attacks by ethnic Arakanese mobs in late March forced foreign aid workers to evacuate the state capital of Sittwe. This has jeopardized the delivery of food and water to tens of thousands of Rohingya. The post Flaws Found in Thailand's Human-Trafficking Crackdown appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

Philippines: Invite All Southeast Asia to Pacific Pact Posted: 10 Apr 2014 10:37 PM PDT A protester raises his fist during a rally against Japan participating in rule-making negotiations for the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership in Tokyo on March 15, 2013. (Photo: Reuters / Issei Kato) WASHINGTON — A US-backed Pacific free trade pact could cause resentment in Southeast Asia as it would leave some nations in the region better positioned to access America's market than others, a top Philippine official said Thursday. Philippine Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima proposed inviting all 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership, even if most of them can't for now meet the conditions for joining. He said that would demonstrate a clear pathway for entering the pact, without lowering standards. Asean is itself striving to reduce trade barriers among its members, but only four of them are in TPP. They are Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam. Those outside TPP are Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Burma, the Philippines and Thailand. "If there's a lag between the joining of the others in a high-quality agreement such as TPP, there can be resentment especially as we continue to integrate," Purisima told the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. He said countries like the Philippines would be at a major handicap for products where they compete for the US market with the four other countries. But he said this would incentivize reforms. The Philippines would have little choice but to make constitutional or legislative changes needed for coming into TPP if exclusion from the pact was hurting businesses and jobs, he said. Twelve nations, including the United States and Japan, that account for about 40 percent of the global economy are negotiating TPP. It is intended to cut tariffs, ease regulatory barriers, protect intellectual property, and set labor and environmental standards. The pact is a key pillar of President Barack Obama's effort to deepen US engagement in Asia. Obama will be looking to demonstrate his administration's commitment to the region when he visits the Philippines and three other Asian nations this month. The deadline for completing TPP keeps slipping and finalizing it still appears far off. There is political opposition in the United States among many of Obama's fellow Democrats, and the US and Japanese negotiators are also struggling to narrow differences. Purisima voiced preference for the more "inclusive" approach of a planned trade pact between Asean, China and four other nations. Members of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership can drop trade policies with which they disagree and exclude sensitive industries from competition. It is widely seen a rival pact to TPP, which does not include China. The post Philippines: Invite All Southeast Asia to Pacific Pact appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

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