Monday, February 11, 2019

The Irrawaddy Magazine

The Irrawaddy Magazine

Hundreds More Flee Fighting in Northern Rakhine Over Weekend

Posted: 11 Feb 2019 07:02 AM PST

YANGON — Fighting between the Arakan Army (AA) and the Myanmar military’s Light Infantry Division 22 drove more than 500 residents of Saung Du Village, in northern Rakhine State's Kyauktaw Township, out of their homes over the weekend.

Village official U Kyaw Thaung said fighting erupted in a densely forested area 1 mile from Saung Du on Saturday. Though the mortar shells and bullets did not hit the village itself, he said, they could be heard from the homes, convincing more than half the population to flee to neighboring Ponnagyun Township for safety.

The village official declined further comments because he was busy accompanying soldiers and police on an inspection of the village to find out exactly who had left.

On Sunday the AA also announced that it recently clashed with a column of 200 soldiers in Kyauktaw Township near Taung Minkalar Village and that one of its fighters was killed. It said some Myanmar military soldiers were also killed but did not specify how many.

In the same statement, the AA said it had killed 16 soldiers in a series of clashes in Shin Ma Dein Village, in Chin State's Paletwa Township, on Feb. 4.

The Irrawaddy could not independently verify the claims.

A Saung Du Village resident currently sheltering with 283 others at the Yoe Ta Yoke monastery in Ponnagyun told The Irrawaddy on Monday that most of the displaced villagers want to return home rather than rely on aid donations. But he said they heard that the military detained a 43-year-old farmer who had stayed behind while he was mending a fence and that they were worried the same could happen to them if they went back.

He said about 100 soldiers entered Saung Du after the fighting to search for collaborators, but most of the villagers had fled by then.

"Only the elderly and some men remained in the village to watch their homes. Maybe between 150 and 200 residents stayed in the village to look after their homes," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity out of fear for his safety.

The man said about 300 of those who left were at the monastery while the rest went to stay with their relatives in Kyauktaw or Ponnagyun.

Ko Zaw Zaw Tun, an aid worker with the Rakhine Ethnic Congress who visited the monastery, said the new arrivals told him that the village had been thrown into chaos by the fighting nearby and that residents scattered in many directions.

He said the weeks of fighting have now displaced some 7,000 people and that of those sheltering at the Yoe Ta Yoke monastery 32 were children under 5 years old.

Ko Zaw Zaw Tun said the villagers had a legitimate fear of arrest, noting that 38 ethnic Arakanese were already being held in jail in the state capital, Sittwe, accused of having ties to the AA. He said they were from Sittwe and the townships of Kyauktaw, Rathedaung, Buthidaung, Kyauktaw and Ponnagyun.

The post Hundreds More Flee Fighting in Northern Rakhine Over Weekend appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Namtu River Villagers Urge Foreign Firms to Cancel Participation in Dams

Posted: 11 Feb 2019 05:59 AM PST

Local residents along the Namtu (or Myitnge) River in northern Shan State are urging all foreign companies involved in dam projects on the river to follow the decision of Engie, the French company that pulled out of the Upper Yeywa Dam project.

Nang Lao Kham, a resident of Ta Long village, which would be directly affected if the Upper Yeywa Dam is built, said in a Feb. 11 statement from Action for Shan State Rivers that the Engie company's withdrawal is "a great victory" for the local residents, who fear being submerged if the dam is built.

On the Namtu River, since the early 2010s the government has planned four dams with combined capacity of 1,200 megawatts: the Deedok dam in Kyaukse Township in Mandalay Region, and the Middle Yeywa Dam, the Upper Yeywa Dam and the Namtu Dam in northern Shan State's Nawngkhio, Kyaukmae and Namtu townships, respectively.

According to local residents, public consultations for the Middle Yeywa Dam, site clearing for the Upper Yeywa Dam and road building for the Namtu Dam started last year.

The locals called for the withdrawal of the foreign companies' investment in the dam projects in October. The villagers from the areas delivered a written appeal on Dec. 5 to several foreign embassies in Yangon—including those of China, Japan, Germany, Switzerland, and Norway—asking them to stop involvement in all four planned dams on the Namtu River.

Engie was included in the Burma Campaign U.K.'s "Dirty List" of companies linked to human rights violations in Myanmar in December  but, according to BCUK, the company asked to have their name removed from the list due to concerns of reputation risk, and said their subsidiary—the Germany company Lahmeyer—was no longer involved in the Upper Yeywa Dam project.

Sai Thum Ai, a spokesman for Action for Shan State Rivers, told The Irrawaddy on Monday that they hoped the government will listen to the concerns of local residents, who also sent a letter to President U Win Myint calling for a halt to the dam project.

"We would like the president to listen to the people's voices. And the politicians also should do outreach to the communities and wards. We want genuine peace, not total investment, as the residents of these areas would have to relocate and could become displaced," he said.

He said the villagers had already said no to building dams, but "they told us that the compensation and relocations would not be less than Paung Laung dam projects [some 40 km east of Pyinmana Township near Naypyitaw]," he said, referring to a completed dam which joined the national grid in late 2015.

“At that time the villagers near Paung Laung were given 1 million kyats for an acre of land, but look at their lives now,” the spokesman said, adding, "The residents understand and have observed those situations and we are not that naive."

State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said in Keng Tung during her trip to eastern Shan Sate last week that if local people want the electricity from the hydropower project, she would make it happen.

"With regards to the hydropower, we have to consider it from every side: the technical need, finance, the public desire and the environmental impact. If the public desire is there, we will make it happen using our natural [water] resources," she told Keng Tung residents on Dec. 6.

However, there have been attempts to build more dams on the Namtu/Myitnge River amid locals’ objections. Local communities in Hsipaw, northern Shan State, object to a plan to construct a dam near Hsipaw on the river by a local company known as Unienergy Company Limited, and have urge the company and the authorities to stop the project.

Unienergy has been visiting the area around the Nam Ma and Nam Paung tributaries, which flow into the Namtu River, in Hsipaw and conducted public consultations in Hsaileng village tract in Hsipaw in 2017, and in Jan. 27 and Feb. 2 of this year, said Sai Sar Lu, a resident spokesman for the village tract.

"The company has not shared any information with us yet on how big the dam would be, but we do not think the dam project would be good for us; we are concerned about the negative impacts," said Sai Sar Lu.

He feared that if the dam were built, not only the three villages near the construction area, but a total of 21 villages with farms and orange plantations would become submerged.

The post Namtu River Villagers Urge Foreign Firms to Cancel Participation in Dams appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

The Fortunate Failure of ‘Voluntary Repatriation’ For Rohingya Refugees

Posted: 11 Feb 2019 01:23 AM PST

In 2017 and 2018, between 600,000 and 800,000 Rohingya fled Myanmar following attacks and clearance operations targeting their villages and coordinated by the Myanmar military. The result is the world's largest refugee camp, Kutupalong, situated in a low-lying corner of Cox's Bazar District in Bangladesh. The camp is there because the Bangladesh government saw it as a humanitarian way to deal with the refugee influx and preferable to a military operation. The international community, led by the UNHCR, was invited to receive the refugees and coordinate the establishment of a large camp in the low-lying district.

The initial success of this operation is not in doubt. The Bangladesh government, UNHCR and international partners successfully housed hundreds of thousands — perhaps as many as 1 million — refugees in a manner that recognized their needs for protection in a situation that could otherwise lead to a war involving Myanmar, Bangladesh, and other countries. Mobilizing the international donor community and establishing such refugee camps quickly is indeed what the UNHCR and the international refugee regime is good at, and it is why they are such a positive force in the world for blunting the consequences of acute conflict. In recent decades the UNHCR has done this in the former Yugoslavia, Africa, Latin America, and Asia.

But the next step is a bigger problem. What do you do after the refugees arrive and settle into "temporary" refugee camp life? Traditionally the UNHCR has said that there are three "durable solutions" to a refugee crisis like this. They are voluntary repatriation, local resettlement with the permission of the host government, and third-country resettlement with the permission of another country. Governments inevitably say "not me" to the second and third options, which means it falls on the refugees to "voluntarily" go home and on the sending country to receive them irrespective of local conditions. This was the solution proposed by the UNHCR in the months following the Rohingya flight — and as a result, negotiations immediately opened between Bangladesh, Myanmar, the UNHCR and the largely Western donors. Left out of the equation, as usual, were the refugees themselves, who, when asked, consistently indicated that the "solution" would involve not just return to Myanmar but also second and third country resettlement.

Fortunately, in the case of the Rohingya, UNHCR programs to return them to Rakhine State were unsuccessful. Despite much publicity, persuasion, and even threats to cut rations, the Rohingya stayed put in the temporary refugee camps in Cox's Bazar. In the meantime, Rakhine itself was pushed into yet another round of military action, this time between the Arakan Army, which is seeking independence, and the Myanmar military. The Rohingya refugees are now watching the new strife from Cox's Bazar, rather than contemplating fleeing back to Bangladesh from the refugee resettlement camps the UNHCR tried to establish for them in Rakhine. In other words, the failure of the UNHCR’s policy means that yet another complication has been avoided.  Paradoxically, the failure of the official "voluntary repatriation" programs should perhaps be counted as an unintended success by the international refugee relief regime. Yet again, the spread of conflict was prevented by the presence of safe-haven refugee camps, albeit inadvertently.

Which brings me to the de facto "fourth solution" to refugee crises, which the UNHCR and international community routinely avoid citing. This solution is to permit "temporary" camps become permanent homes for refugees. This de facto solution has been used repeatedly around the world. The best known example is the Gaza Strip in Palestine, which is really just a 70-year-old refugee camp, as are Palestinian settlements in Lebanon, the West Bank and elsewhere. In Africa, Kenya is home to refugee camps for Somali and South Sudanese, and in Tanzania there are decades-old camps for Congolese, Rwandans and Burundians.

The creeping permanence of such camps are of course not in the interests of anyone — not refugees, home countries, second countries or third countries. But time after time they emerge, often with similar consequences. In such contexts, grievance festers and radicalization occurs.  High birth rates lead refugee camp populations to double within 15 to 20 years, as they did — and continue to do — for some Palestinian populations. Grievance, despair, rapid growth and radicalization are a predictable consequence of letting refugee camp situations fester.

And this is independent of the problems created by premature repatriation plans implemented by the UNHCR and Western donors in recent decades. The most brutal repatriation was the forced expulsion of 2 million Rwandan refugees by Zaire, Tanzania and Uganda in 1996 at the behest of international donors from the West. The result? The immediate deaths of 300,000 to 400,000 refugees in the Congolese forests fleeing westward, and wars triggered in central Africa that killed 4-6 million people by 2004 and continue today. In other words, the world community would have been better served if the camps in Tanzania and Zaire had been left in place and policies leading to multiple peaceful solutions tried. But they weren't, and as a result the financial and humanitarian costs of a poorly managed refugee situation continue to be paid with bills for war, violence and refugees.

The odd thing is that there are indeed good examples of the resolution to refugee crises involving multiple solutions, undertaken more or less voluntarily by refugees. The European refugee crisis that began after World War II was resolved by the late 1950s or so. Crises in Southeast Asia that began after the fall of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in 1975 were by and large resolved by 1995. In both cases, refugees returned to their home countries, resettled in countries of first asylum legally and illegally, or were resettled in third countries. Bangladesh itself was of course born in the context of massive refugee movement, the first in 1947-1948 with the partition of British India, and the second in 1971-1972 with the Bangladeshi Revolution. These refugee movements were not resolved in any one fashion. They were resolved in the longer run by local countries and international donors with local resettlement, second and third country resettlement, and of course sometimes, tragically, with violent death. What each crisis has in common is that there are no longer refugee camps and the survivors and their descendants have integrated into the places where they landed.

What this means is that the Rohingya refugees in Cox's Bazar are probably right. The future for many, if not most, of them is not in Rakhine State. Rather, it is in the burgeoning cities of South and Southeast Asia, and for some in the West. Certainly some may well make their way back to Rakhine or, just as likely, cities like Yangon and Mandalay where there are growing industrial sectors, a solution that will please donors who are aware that, after all, it was Myanmar’s policies on residency and citizenship that led to the crisis in the first place.

But it is also foolish to presume that the best solution is a return to the pre-expulsion status quo. This is neither practical nor desirable. A successful resolution of the Cox's Bazar refugee crisis will involve statesmanship and generosity on the part of many countries both in the region and further afield. This is the only real "durable solution" available. Failure to pursue such durable solutions carries with it the risk of further radicalization of the Rohingya refugee population, instability, and future war.

Tony Waters is director of the Institute for Religion, Culture, and Peace at Payap University, Chiang Mai, Thailand, and a member of the faculty of the PhD program in peace building. He is the author of books and articles about refugees around the world, including Bureaucratizing the Good Samaritan.

The post The Fortunate Failure of ‘Voluntary Repatriation’ For Rohingya Refugees appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

18 Missing after Port Authority Vessel Capsizes off Rakhine Coast

Posted: 11 Feb 2019 01:11 AM PST

SITTWE—At least 18 people are feared dead after a Myanmar Port Authority vessel capsized early Monday morning near Manaung Township in Rakhine State, according to the state Fire Services Department.

The department said it dispatched a 10-member team to conduct a search-and-rescue operation.

The vessel, "Bull Elephant", was transporting 25 people to Let Pet Taw Island in Manaung Township to repair a lighthouse, Fire Services Department head U Thaw Dar told The Irrawaddy. According to another official from the department, seven people had been found alive but no other details were yet available.

It was not immediately clear if the workers were Myanmar Port Authority employees.

"We still don't know why it capsized. A search-and-rescue operation is under way," he said.

According to Rakhine State lawmaker U Bo Nwe, township residents said the vessel capsized after hitting submerged rocks.

"I was at the jetty heading for Sittwe this morning and I heard people say that the vessel capsized after hitting rocks some 4 miles from shore," the lawmaker told The Irrawaddy.

Manaung Township administrator U Myint Hlaing said the only information he had was that there were 25 persons on board the vessel.

The post 18 Missing after Port Authority Vessel Capsizes off Rakhine Coast appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Mall or Park? In Crowded Bangkok, ‘Last’ Open Space Stirs Debate

Posted: 10 Feb 2019 08:49 PM PST

BANGKOK — The fate of a large green space in the middle of one of the world’s most built-up cities is pitting communities and conservationists against developers and cash-strapped authorities in a battle that is increasingly common in Asia.

The Makkasan area in central Bangkok, measuring about 80 hectares — or roughly 80 rugby fields -— houses a train station, a workshop, warehouses and some homes in a green expanse that stands in contrast to the sleek high-rise buildings all around.

Debates around the Makkasan land — owned by the State Railway of Thailand (SRT) — have raged for years as it is the final remaining open space in a city with too few parks.

“It is the last big space we have in Bangkok, and our last opportunity to create a big green space for the people. We must not waste it,” said Pongkwan Lassus, an architect and designer.

“Besides the space, many of the buildings have historic and architectural value. We must conserve this heritage for future generations, not knock it all down for malls,” she said.

Across booming Asian cities, open spaces and older buildings are making way for expressways and modern office and apartment towers that critics say rob them of their character, widen inequalities and magnify the harmful effects of urban sprawl.

Last year, a community of more than 300 people living next to an old fort in Bangkok were evicted and their traditional wooden buildings razed to make way for a public park that critics say is meant only to impress tourists.

Authorities are also clearing vendors and food stalls from the pavements, and removing shops and shanties along the Chao Phraya river in a bid to modernize Bangkok.

Civic groups say the evictions and redevelopment plans mostly target poor communities who have no formal rights over the land or spaces they occupy in the congested city.

Authorities say they are removing encroachers to improve accessibility and liveability for residents.

That promise is being tested as a plan for Makkasan’s redevelopment is finalized.

“We have asked a consultant to study the best use of the land, and we will decide accordingly,” said Siriphong Preutthipan, a deputy governor of SRT.

“We are aware of the various demands for green space, a museum and commercial developments. We will consider all of them and see what makes best sense, the best use of the land,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Traffic snarls

With some 20 million visitors last year, Bangkok was named the world’s most visited city, beating favorites including London, Paris and New York, according to the Mastercard Index.

Yet the Thai capital was ranked a lowly 132 of 231 on a survey of liveable cities, which measures factors such as public transportation, natural environment and air pollution.

Bangkok has another unhappy distinction — among the lowest ratios of green space: just 3.3 square meters per person compared to New York City’s 23.1 square meters and Singapore’s 66, the Siemens-sponsored Green City Index showed.

Everywhere, space is at a premium. While Singapore is clearing cemeteries for highways and apartments, planners in other Asian cities are converting “dead spaces” underneath bridges and flyovers into walkways and bike trails.

The Makkasan land provides a unique opportunity, said Yossapon Boonsom at Bangkok landscape architecture firm Shma.

“It is prime area in the middle of the city, so it has high economic value. But we have to decide: Do we need yet another mall — or a park?” he said.

“We get so few chances to develop a large space like this in the center of the city. It is a chance for us to imagine and plan a better outcome: Can we combine the need for greenery and open spaces with the need to monetize the land?”

A 2005 plan had proposed twin 99-storey towers for offices and apartments, along with malls and conference facilities. There was even talk of locating Thailand’s first casino there.

But the plan was shelved due to concerns about increased congestion in a city already notorious for traffic snarls.

In 2015, the military government asked SRT to lease the Makkasan land to the Finance Ministry to clear some of its debt, as part of a plan to get better returns from state land.

At the time, the Finance Ministry said two-thirds of the land would be used for roads and commercial developments, with the remainder reserved for a rail museum and a green zone.

But a year later, SRT said it would redevelop Makkasan by itself. A plan will be finalized this year, said Siriphong.

Train cemetery

It is an unusual conundrum for SRT, said Ruth Banomyong, head of the logistics and transport department at Thammasat University in Bangkok.

“Public agencies, especially land-owning agencies, are something of an oxymoron: they do not always consider the public need for sustainable and responsible development versus the need for monetization,” he said.

The Makkasan land was gifted to the railway authority by revered King Chulalongkorn more than 100 years ago. The country’s first railway line was inaugurated during his reign.

Today, Makkasan station connects to the airport rail line and is one of the stops on the proposed high-speed railway that will link three major airports in one of the country’s biggest infrastructure projects.

At the large workshop, a few hundred people build, paint and repair coaches. The facility might be relocated when the land is redeveloped, said Siriphong.

Much of the rest of the land is largely abandoned, except for several rusting wagons, which have earned the area the nickname “train cemetery.”

A group of Bangkok residents had launched a social media campaign called the Makkasan Hope project to push for a park, a rail museum and the preservation of many of the old buildings.

If developed as a park, it would be Bangkok’s biggest.

“The land was intended for public purpose and public good; we cannot subvert that and make it all for commercial gain, especially when we have no open spaces left,” said Pongkwan.

“This could be Bangkok’s own Central Park. What can be a better use of the land?”

The post Mall or Park? In Crowded Bangkok, ‘Last’ Open Space Stirs Debate appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Thai Election Commission to Rule on Princess Running For PM After King’s Rebuke

Posted: 10 Feb 2019 08:11 PM PST

BANGKOK — Thailand’s Election Commission will consider on Monday the surprise nomination of a Thai princess as a prime ministerial candidate for March elections after her brother, King Maha Vajiralongkorn, called it “inappropriate” and unconstitutional.

The commission will also consider a complaint seeking to ban the populist party that stunned the nation by nominating Princess Ubolratana Rajakanya Sirivadhana Barnavadi, 67, for the role.

The election on March 24 is the first since a military coup in 2014.

Thailand has been a constitutional monarchy since 1932, but the royal family wields great influence and commands the devotion of millions.

Ubolratana’s nomination last week was a shocking move by the Thai Raksa Chart party, made up of supporters of ousted ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra, and broke with a longstanding tradition of members of the royal family staying above politics.

She gave up her royal titles after marrying an American and she has starred in soap operas and an action movie.

But in a statement read out on all television stations within hours of her candidacy, King Vajiralongkorn said it was “inappropriate” for members of the royal family to enter politics.

The Election Commission has until Friday to rule on the princess’s candidacy. Its members are unlikely to disregard the wishes of the king, who while a constitutional monarch, is considered semi-divine in Thai society.

On Sunday, an activist said he would file a petition to disqualify the Thai Raksa Chart party.

“The royal announcement made it clear that the party violated electoral law,” Srisuwan Janya, secretary-general of the Association for the Protection of the Constitution, told Reuters.

Thai Raksa Chart’s Executive Chairman Chaturon Chaisaeng declined to comment on Sunday on the request to disband the party. In a statement, the party said it “will move forward into the election arena to solve problems for the country.”

Electoral law forbids parties from using the monarchy in campaigns.

Thai Raksa Chart is one of several pro-Thaksin parties contesting the election.

The junta leader, Prayuth Chan-ocha, is also contesting the race for prime minister as the candidate of a pro-military party. Prayuth was the Thai army chief in 2014 and led the coup that ousted a government led by Thaksin’s sister.

Parties loyal to former telecommunications tycoon Thaksin have defeated pro-establishment parties to win every election since 2001, but since 2006 each of their governments have been removed by court rulings or coups.

The gambit to nominate a member of the royal family could backfire on Thai Raksa Chart, said Titipol Phakdeewanich, dean of the faculty of political science at Ubon Ratchathani University.

“Things are now more unpredictable," Titipol told Reuters.

If the party is dissolved, it could give more seats to anti-Thaksin affiliated parties, he said, although there are other parties loyal to the ex-premier contesting the election.

Thaksin, himself ousted in a coup in 2006, lives in self-imposed exile after being convicted by a Thai court of corruption in absentia.

The post Thai Election Commission to Rule on Princess Running For PM After King’s Rebuke appeared first on The Irrawaddy.
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