The Irrawaddy Magazine |
- Election Watchdog Has Big Plans, But Are They Big Enough?
- Release Political Prisoners Before Polls, Says Rights Group
- Central Bank Closes Exchange Gap, Further Weakening Kyat
- NLD Patron Tin Oo: ‘I Have Never Wanted to be President’
- Suspects in Attack on Eleven Media CEO’s Car Deny Role
- 165 Bangladeshi Boatpeople Due for July 22 Repatriation: Arakan Official
- Abe to Push Japan Security Bills Through Lower House, Despite Protests
- China Meat Smuggling Crackdown Stokes Risky Underground Trade
- Thailand Confident It Can Avoid US Sanctions as Trafficking Report Looms
| Election Watchdog Has Big Plans, But Are They Big Enough? Posted: 16 Jul 2015 09:01 AM PDT  People count votes at a ballot station during by-elections in Rangoon on April 1, 2012. (Photo: Reuters / Soe Zeya Tun) RANGOON — A coalition of civil society organizations known as the Election Education and Observation Partners (EEOP) will be deployed at polling stations in more than 100 townships to monitor Burma's general election on Nov. 8, according to a board of directors member of one of the organizations involved in the effort. Speaking at an EEOP press conference in Rangoon on Wednesday, New Myanmar Foundation board member Mya Nandar said the effort would cover roughly one-third of Burma's townships. The scale of the coalition's coordination is both impressive and illustrative of the challenges to ensuring a free and fair poll later this year, given that the EEOP will field the country's largest monitoring force and its members will still be absent from two-thirds of Burma's 330 townships. The EEOP was founded in 2014, comprising 24 local election monitoring organizations including several ethnic minority associations and community groups that plan to coordinate their observation work in an effort to ensure a credible vote. Most of those who will be observing the polls will be doing so for the first time, but international election monitoring organizations such as the Carter Center and the Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL) have been providing technical support in the lead up to the election. Cho Mya Oo, joint secretary-2 of the Taunggyi chapter of Cherry Image, an EEOP member, told The Irrawaddy that the upcoming election would be the group's first time observing elections, with many challenges already presenting themselves. "One of the key challenges is the disruptions from local authorities. Some groups disturb us even when we are conducting voter list error awareness with the public in that area," she said, specifically singling out police, Special Branch officers and local administrators as impeding those efforts in some places. Cherry Image hopes to enlist volunteers to fan out to more than 600 polling stations in Shan State, Cho Mya Oo said. Om Ki, director of the Chin State-based RID, also an EEOP member, said his group had similarly faced harassment from local authorities in Chin State when it tried to raise awareness about the need for voters to check voter lists for errors and petition to have any inaccuracies corrected. He added that the EEOP had met with the UEC in Naypyidaw this week and discussed the code of conduct that election observation groups will be expected to follow. EEOP member Kyi Min Thu of the Public Welfare Network told The Irrawaddy on Wednesday that his network planned to mobilize more than 2,500 people to monitor the election, though he acknowledged that those plans were subject to change within the context of Burma's fluid political environment. And while 2,500 sets of eyes may sound like a formidable deterrent against electoral fraud, placing just one of the Public Welfare Network's observers per poll station would cover just over 5 percent of the 47,000 voting locations that the UEC has said will be open on election day. The EEOP plans to write a report of its election day findings following the vote, using a yet-to-be-finalized, standardized questionnaire to talk to voters in an attempt to gauge to what extent the election was free and fair, according to Mya Nandar. The EEOP will have a presence in all seven of Burma's divisions and six of its states, with only Kachin State unmonitored by the coalition. The post Election Watchdog Has Big Plans, But Are They Big Enough? appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
| Release Political Prisoners Before Polls, Says Rights Group Posted: 16 Jul 2015 08:55 AM PDT  A student charged in connection with a sit-in protest in Letpadan, Pegu Division, looks out from a detention vehicle prior to a hearing on March 25, 2015. (Photo: JPaing / The Irrawaddy) RANGOON — A group of former political prisoners has called on Burma's leadership to release all prisoners of conscience before elections slated for November. The Former Political Prisoners Society (FPPS), a collective of rights advocates that served time under Burma's former military regime, appealed to lawmakers and political party leaders in an open letter on Wednesday for a blanket amnesty of incarcerated activists and those awaiting trial on politically motivated charges. "We want all political prisoners and people who face trial for their political actions to have the right to vote freely and participate in the election," FPPS secretary Tun Kyi told The Irrawaddy on Thursday. A similar request was made to President Thein Sein in early June, but the group has yet to receive a response. Tun Kyi referred to Thein Sein's earlier promise of freeing all prisoners of conscience by the start of 2013. While thousands of prisoners were released since he took office in 2011, observers were quick to point out that he did not meet that goal. A political prisoner scrutiny committee continues to identify wrongful incarnations, though some of the more independent members of that committee were controversially excused from the duty earlier this year. "The President's term will end soon," Tun Kyi said, "so if he takes this opportunity [to release remaining political prisoners], he can meet his own commitments during his term." Hundreds of political prisoners were released in a general amnesty in the lead-up to by-elections held in 2012, including leaders of the 88 generation student movement Min Ko Naing and Ko Ko Gyi. By late June of this year, however, the number of political prisoners in Burma was still at 169, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP). The group said there were an additional 446 activists awaiting trial for political activity, including student demonstrators and farmers rights activists. Almost of half of those in prison or awaiting trial have faced or now face charges under Burma's controversial Peaceful Assembly Law. The law has come under heavy criticism, particularly a clause known as Article 18, which requires advance permission for gatherings. In the latest international condemnation of the law, the US Embassy in Burma released a statement on Thursday expressing concern over continued reports that it was being used to stifle freedoms. "Upholding an individual's ability to exercise his or her basic rights of peaceful expression and assembly is central to any democracy, and fundamental to the on-going reform process," the statement read. "Free exercise of these rights will be particularly important during the upcoming election season as a measure of the election's transparency, inclusiveness and credibility, and we urge authorities to ensure those democratic rights are protected in the coming months and beyond." Aung Myo Kyaw, secretary of AAPP, backed the FPPS's call for amnesty, arguing that unjust sentencing of peaceful political actions undermines the narrative of democratic reform. "If the country is really going through a reform process, it shouldn't sentence people with Article 18. [The government] should release these prisoners and drop those charges," he said. The post Release Political Prisoners Before Polls, Says Rights Group appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
| Central Bank Closes Exchange Gap, Further Weakening Kyat Posted: 16 Jul 2015 04:14 AM PDT  A stack of 1,000 kyat banknotes is seen as employees count money at Yoma Bank in Rangoon. (Photo: Reuters) RANGOON — Following a move this week by the Central Bank of Myanmar to bring its official currency exchange rate in line with the kyat's price per dollar on the black market, illicit currency traders have seen fit to push the unofficial rate further skyward and commodity prices have followed suit, according to Win Myint, chairman of the Myanmar Petroleum Importers Association. On Monday, the Central Bank raised the official exchange rate from 1,115 kyats per US dollar to 1,200 kyats, an acknowledgement that its insistence for months on keeping the kyat at around 1,100 per dollar was not reflective of the local currency's actual strength. The gap between the Central Bank rate and its black market alternative had caused currency exchange counters to stop selling dollars, with many only accepting the greenback in exchange for offering customers kyats. But the move for now appears only to have made acquiring dollars even more expensive, in turn driving up commodity prices. The black market exchange rate reached 1,280 kyats per dollar on Tuesday and Wednesday, while the official Central Bank rate stood at 1,216 kyats per dollar. Exchange rate volatility and the gap between the official and black market rates have seen importers face dollar shortages and attendant difficulty transacting business. Licensed private banks found themselves unwilling or unable to meet dollar demand. In the third week of June, the Central Bank announced that importers of petroleum and cooking oil would be granted unrestricted sales of foreign currencies from private banks at the official rate, at the time about 1,110 kyats per dollar. "Now, because of the new rule, other importers can also buy as much as they need from banks paying 1,200 per dollar, so it's OK but fuel prices have increased at least 10 percent," Win Myint told The Irrawaddy. About 75 companies are members of the Myanmar Petroleum Importers Association. According to association data, about 150,000 to 200,000 tons of diesel and 70,000 tons of petroleum are imported monthly. "On Wednesday, the Central Bank's rate was 1,210 kyats, so the official rate we are buying at from banks has increased at least 100 kyats, so fuel prices have increased too," he said. "For example, the price of one liter of 92 RON petroleum went from 670 kyats to 750 kyats today." "As long as importers are paying more money, ultimately it will reach directly to consumers," he added. State-run daily The Mirror reported on Thursday that the Central Bank has attempted to sell more US dollars through foreign currency auctions in an effort to lessen reliance on black market currency trading. The report said that if the government had continued to ignore the gap in rates, public trust in the Central Bank would fall. The decision, according to The Mirror, was made in consultation with the International Monetary Fund, local and foreign experts, multiple government ministries and officials from the President's Office. In a statement on Monday, the Central Bank noted that the gap between the official exchange rate and the black market rate was only 0.1 percent in 2014, but from early 2015 to late June, the gap had grown to 3.1 percent. While it remains to be seen how responsive to the black market currency trade the Central Bank will be going forward, Soe Tun, chairman of the Myanmar Car Importers Association, said one thing was clear: As long as trade and budget deficits persisted, the kyat was not likely to bounce back from its recent weak performance against the dollar. "The Central Bank's new policy is good, but we don't see any signal that the exchange rate will go down," he said. The post Central Bank Closes Exchange Gap, Further Weakening Kyat appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
| NLD Patron Tin Oo: ‘I Have Never Wanted to be President’ Posted: 16 Jul 2015 03:00 AM PDT  National League for Democracy patron Tin Oo speaks in Rangoon in August, 2014. (Photo: JPaing / The Irrawaddy) With Burma's main opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), expected to perform strongly in the November national election, much intrigue surrounds who the party will back as a presidential candidate. Following recent comments by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi—who is constitutionally barred from assuming the presidency—that the NLD planned to field a presidential candidate from within the party, speculation partly centered on 89-year-old NLD patron Tin Oo. The Irrawaddy's Htet Naing Zaw spoke to Tin Oo about his views on the presidency, the present state of the NLD and on the role of the army of which he was a former commander-in-chief. Aung San Suu Kyi recently announced that the National League for Democracy (NLD) intended to field a presidential candidate. She herself is barred from the presidency under Article 59(f) of the Constitution. You are being tipped as a possible candidate, could you comment? I am not running [for president]. I heard that I am now widely tipped to become a presidential candidate. I respect the leadership of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and I joined the NLD to help her achieve her objectives with my expertise and experience. That's all. My intention remains the same now. I neither want to select nor be selected. I have never dreamt of contesting [for the presidency]. I was under house arrest when the 1988 multi-party democracy election law was enacted and I was asked if I would contest the election. In fact, I did not want to contest. But if I said no, the party [members] would have felt depressed as both the leaders—Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and I—were under house arrest at that time. But I knew that if I said I would contest, I would be put behind bars immediately. I made up my mind and said I would contest the election so that our party would not feel disheartened. Just after I announced this, I was taken early in the morning [the following day] and imprisoned. But the situation has changed now… Yes, the situation has now changed. I have seen many ups and downs and faced various situations in my life. There is a saying that a kite carrying a piece of flesh comes under attack. The attack only ends when the kite lets the flesh fall. I have experienced lots of things and there is nothing I can't let go. I want to work peacefully for my country as much as I can. I always intended to help someone who would develop the country…. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of General Aung San… has charisma. She has taken bold steps and risked her life and because of her actions, I am committed to helping her achieve her aims. I don't want to see a single faction within the party, never. From the very start, I have only intended to help [Aung San Suu Kyi] to achieve her [objectives]. Now, I am widely tipped to become a presidential candidate. But I will never do that. You may not want to do that, but what if Aung San Suu Kyi and the party asked you? No, I wouldn't. I wouldn't even if I was asked… I am 89 now. A person who is around 90 is deteriorating either physically or mentally. It is not easy [to serve as president]. So, I should not do it. This is the present situation. But then, I have never wanted to be president. This job draws attacks. It was the same in the past. Youths and students shouted: "Down with Ne Win and San Yu" and "May Sein Win and Tin Oo: be successful." Since that time, I was at risk. I can't get out of this [political] sphere. I have committed to helping the NLD achieve success. There has never been instability within the party because of me. Everything is fine. And I want it to stay that way so that I can help them all with a clear conscience. What is your view on Aung San Suu Kyi and the state of the NLD today? The NLD has now shifted from a centralized system to a democratic one. But we have not yet totally shifted to it because of circumstances. We have to try to help our party thrive. We are old now and plan to relinquish our power to youths. The NLD has formed a central committee to ensure an electoral victory and youths are assigned duties. Win Htein has also been mentioned as a possible presidential candidate. U Win Htein is not in good health. He is not even as strong as me. So we can't [assume the presidency]. As a former commander-in-chief, what is your attitude toward the existing army now? What do you want to say about the military taking a lead role in politics? In fact, the military is sine qua non for any country. But the military must serve the interests of the people. Now, the [Burmese] military is seeking [to protect] its own interests [rather] than the interests of people. This must be addressed. U Ne Win could have laid a good foundation for the military at the beginning. But then, he changed later as his ego grew. U Ne Win himself took an oath to safeguard the 1948 constitution. All the commanders did so at the commanders' conference. U Ne Win said he would take harsh actions against those who violate the constitution. But then, he himself was the first to violate it. Each country [considers] the military in [formulating] policy. Our country holds a very strategic position and is sandwiched between two big countries. Our country is rich in resources, though they have been used up now. Such a country is at risk. And therefore, there must be a military strategy suitable to our country. It is wrong to say that only they [the military] will save or are capable of saving the country. For a soldier to be able to fight in a war, people have to support him from behind for everything he needs. Therefore, if we are to defend our country, we can only defend with the masses, only with the strength and the unity of the people. The post NLD Patron Tin Oo: 'I Have Never Wanted to be President' appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
| Suspects in Attack on Eleven Media CEO’s Car Deny Role Posted: 16 Jul 2015 02:52 AM PDT  Police in Rangoon have named taxi driver Ti Kaung a suspect in an attack on the car of Eleven Media Group CEO Than Htut Aung. (Photo: Facebook / Rangoon Division Police Force) RANGOON — Two suspects arrested in connection with an attack on a vehicle driven by the chief executive officer of a popular Burmese-language daily have not confessed to the crime, the commander of Rangoon Division's East District Police Force told The Irrawaddy. According to the district commander, Deputy Police Col. Myint Htwe, the attack in Rangoon occurred at the junction of U Chit Maung Road and Min Street on Tuesday evening as the car of Than Htut Aung, CEO of Eleven Media Group, was stuck in traffic. From close range, two slingshot-wielding assailants fired six metal nuts at the driver's side window of the vehicle, where Than Htut Aung was seated. The attack damaged the glass of the window, but Than Htut Aung was not harmed. The assailants escaped along with their apparent accomplices, who were waiting in a car in the opposite lane, according to an Eleven Media statement. Myint Htwe said despite the two suspects denying any involvement in the assault, police are confident that they have the right men. "We are still investigating their motive and if there are more accomplices," said Myint Htwe. One of the suspects, a taxi driver named Ti Kaung (a.k.a. Yan Naing), was arrested the same night of the attack along with what police are calling the getaway car. Subsequently A Nge Lay (a.k.a Myo Myint Aung), the alleged hirer of the car, was apprehended at a guesthouse in North Okkalapa Township the following morning, according to the Rangoon Division Police Force. "Since we are a media group, I think it could be connected to those who suffer from our investigative reporting and those who do not want to relinquish power," Wai Phyo, the chief editor of Eleven Media, told The Irrawaddy. Wai Phyo said Eleven Media would try to find out which individuals or organizations were behind the attack, but added that the incident would not affect the editorial stance of the group. Eleven Media has been a consistent critic of Burma's government as well as the business dealings of the country's crony class, and currently finds itself embroiled in a legal row with the Ministry of Information over a story the newspaper wrote alleging corruption in a privatization bid involving a sizeable media property. The widely read daily last year squared off with the same ministry after it claimed to have uncovered a misuse of funds in the purchasing of printing presses. The post Suspects in Attack on Eleven Media CEO's Car Deny Role appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
| 165 Bangladeshi Boatpeople Due for July 22 Repatriation: Arakan Official Posted: 16 Jul 2015 12:44 AM PDT  More than 700 boatpeople were discovered by the Burma Navy off the coast of Irrawaddy Division on May 29. (Photo: Ministry of Information) The Burmese government says next week it will repatriate 165 out of what it claims are more than 500 Bangladeshi nationals who were found abandoned at sea off Burma's coast in May and have been living at temporary camps in Arakan State. Soe Naing, deputy director of the Maungdaw District Immigration and Population Department, told The Irrawaddy that the Bangladeshi consul had informed the department that his government would take back 165 out of 544 so-called "boatpeople" being sheltered at camps in Taung Pyo Let Wai village in Maungdaw Township. "Only 165 out of 544 Bengalis have been verified and [the Bangladeshi consul] said that they would take them back first. At present, we plan to send them on 22 [July], but it may be postponed one or two days," said Soe Naing. State-run daily The Global New Light of Myanmar carried an announcement in a report on Thursday saying "discussions are underway" to send the 165 verified Bangladeshis back to the neighboring country on July 22. A ceremony is planned for the handover, to be held at the friendship bridge linking the two countries, according to Soe Naing. On May 21, the Burma Navy discovered a boat in the Bay of Bengal carrying 208 migrants, 200 of whom were determined to be Bangladeshi and sent to Taung Pyo Let Wai village, on the border with Bangladesh. Another boat, crammed with 733 people, was found on May 29 off the coast of Irrawaddy Division. The boat was held offshore for days before being towed to Maungdaw, where passengers were transferred to border holding facilities and scrutinized to determine their origins. Of the more than 900 boatpeople, 150 of them were officially handed over to Bangladesh on June 8 and another 37 on June 19. Local authorities and some international agencies have taken responsibility for providing the boatpeople with food and other necessities at the camps while the verification process plays out. "Along with the verification process, continuous efforts are being made for the remaining boat people to be repatriated expeditiously back to the place of origin based on neighbourliness relations between Myanmar and Bangladesh," The Global New Light of Myanmar reported. Those "neighbourliness relations," however, have appeared at times strained by the tide of boatpeople that have come ashore in Burma and other Southeast Asian nations since a May crackdown on human trafficking sent traffickers into hiding, leaving much of their human cargo load stranded at sea. Neither Burma nor Bangladesh has welcomed the return of the boatpeople, a mixture of Bangladeshi economic migrants and minority Rohingya Muslims fleeing state-sanctioned discrimination in Arakan State. At a press conference on June 4, Bangladesh's ambassador to Burma pushed back against Burmese officials' tendency to lump all the boatpeople into one group—that being Bangladeshis due for repatriation as soon as possible. At issue, in part, is the Burmese government's official line on the Rohingya: That they are illegal "Bengali" interlopers from Bangladesh, despite the fact that many trace their presence in Arakan State to generations of ancestors born in Burma. Soe Naing said "Bengalis" living in Arakan State were among the boatpeople rescued by the navy in May and those individuals had been sent back to their places of residence. Even as the government prepares to send 165 Bangladeshis back next week, state media reported on Tuesday that the Burma Navy had found 102 more "Bengalis" near an island in Tenasserim Division's Kawthoung Township in late June. The government is taking steps to deport them to Bangladesh, the report added. Maungdaw Township authorities said they do not yet know if the boatpeople found in southeast Burma this week would be sent to Arakan State because Arakanese Buddhists had staged demonstrations against the sheltering on Arakanese soil of boatpeople who were detained outside of Arakan State. The post 165 Bangladeshi Boatpeople Due for July 22 Repatriation: Arakan Official appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
| Abe to Push Japan Security Bills Through Lower House, Despite Protests Posted: 15 Jul 2015 10:28 PM PDT  Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, right, reviews Japan Self-Defense Forces' troops during the annual ceremony at Asaka Base near Tokyo on Oct. 27, 2013. (Photo: Reuters) TOKYO — Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's coalition was set on Thursday to approve legislation in the lower house of parliament that could see troops sent to fight abroad for the first time since World War II, despite thousands of protesters overnight chanting and holding up placards reading "No War, No Killing." A lower house panel approval on Wednesday of the unpopular bills, which would drop a ban on collective self-defense or fighting to defend a friendly country like the United States, sparked a huge demonstration and more are planned. The protest was reminiscent of those that toppled Abe's grandfather from the premiership 55 years ago after he rammed a revised US-Japan security pact through parliament. Crowds of protesters—organizers said 100,000—gathered near parliament. Many stayed well into the night, chanting and holding up placards reading "Abe, quit," "No War, No Killing" and "Scrap the War Bills." Passage of the bills by the full lower house is virtually assured given the ruling bloc's big majority, although opposition parties were expected to boycott the vote. The bills will then go to the upper house, and if no vote is taken after 60 days they will be returned to the lower house, where Abe's coalition can enact them with a two-thirds majority. Abe says a bolder security stance, welcomed by ally Washington, is essential to meet new challenges, such as those from a rising China. Opponents say the revisions could entangle Japan in US-led conflicts around the globe and violate pacifist Article Nine of the US-drafted, post-war constitution. Abe, who returned to office in 2012 pledging to bolster Japan's defenses and reboot the economy, has seen his support slip to around 40 percent on voter doubts about the legislation. Some analysts have begun to draw parallels to Abe's grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, a wartime cabinet minister who was premier from 1957 to 1960 and resigned on July 15, 1960 because of a public furor over the US-Japan security pact. Other analysts say that although Abe's ratings will take a hit, he is likely to survive and win re-election in September for another three-year term as leader of his Liberal Democratic Party, given weak opposition inside and outside of the party. The changes, reflected in new US-Japan defense cooperation guidelines, would also expand the scope for Japan's military to provide logistics support to friendly countries, relax limits on peace-keeping operations and make it easier to respond to "gray zone" incidents falling short of war. The post Abe to Push Japan Security Bills Through Lower House, Despite Protests appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
| China Meat Smuggling Crackdown Stokes Risky Underground Trade Posted: 15 Jul 2015 10:11 PM PDT  Police officers pour gasoline on confiscated smuggled meat before setting it on fire during a massive destruction campaign in Hekou county, Yunnan province, China, July 8, 2015. (Photo: Reuters) SHANGHAI/HONG KONG — On a dusty industrial lot in northern Hong Kong, a group of travelers sheltered in the shade away from the pressing July heat, packing old cloth bags and backpacks with Styrofoam to protect a more precious cargo: smuggled meat. Crowded amid the warehouses of Sheung Shui, a remote suburb near the mainland border, the group of around 40 are about to take frozen Brazilian beef into China to feed a growing demand for meat that is unsated by local produce or approved imports. The part-time smugglers, known as "feet" within the trade, are part of an underground industry that has boomed since Beijing launched a crackdown on meat smuggling last year. "Before they used trucks, but those were for high-quality beef from Japan and New Zealand and maybe America," one Hong Kong smuggler Alan Wong, 36, told Reuters, explaining that smugglers could earn 200-300 yuan (US$30-50) per trip. The meat now being carried across the border was of lower quality, he added. Wong's story, along with interviews with a dozen customs agents, anti-smuggling officials and traders, paints a picture of an illegal trade along China's borders with Hong Kong and Vietnam, where smugglers are taking bigger risks with food safety as the crackdown drives them deeper underground. The scale of the smuggling has infuriated legitimate exporters from countries such as Australia, who say black market meat is 30-60 percent cheaper due to high import duties, while the methods now being used raise consumer health concerns. "You have people stuck with meat on the Vietnam side of the border they can't sell. They start taking it up and down the river and breaking it into smaller units to bring it in," said a Shanghai-based meat industry advisor. "It's more underground and therefore more dangerous." 'Zombie Meat' China is the world's top meat consumer, but the mainland has long kept a tight grip over imports, often citing safety worries such as mad cow disease as the main reason behind bans on major producers such as the United States and India. Consequently demand has run ahead of domestic production, creating an opportunity for smugglers. US officials said in March "huge" amounts of beef were still getting into China. Seizures of smuggled meat have jumped close to threefold this year and generated headlines that have alarmed consumers even in a country wearily familiar with food scandals. Local media reports said in June authorities had seized 100,000 tonnes of smuggled frozen meat, some of it so-called "zombie meat" up to 40 years old. Customs officials and police told Reuters the oldest meat found this year had been 4-5 years old, but said chicken feet dating back to 1967 had been seized in 2013. The greater scrutiny means customs agents often no longer turn a blind eye to refrigerated trucks coming into China, forcing smugglers to take more hazardous routes. "People are bringing over one box at a time, just like ants moving home," a customs official in the city of Changsha, surnamed Huang, told Reuters. In Hong Kong, Reuters reporters saw people repackaging cases of meat labeled "Boi Brasil" and "Cargill". A spokesman for Boi Brasil said the Brazilian company had no knowledge of smuggling of its produce into China and had no further comment. Cargill spokesman Mike Martin said the US agribusiness giant sold beef to well-established, government-regulated distributors in Hong Kong. "Once the beef is received by distributors, we have no control over subsequent sales and movement of the beef," he said. Night Raid In one of a spate of recent raids, anti-smuggling agents surrounded a 20-tonne container truck in the early hours of June 1 in Changsha, in southern Hunan province. What they found churned stomachs in China and beyond—rotting, expired beef, originally from India, that had been smuggled in small batches from Vietnam. "When we opened the container it reeked because it hadn't been put back into cold storage," said Changsha's Huang. The meat typically enters China through border towns like Dongxing, in coastal Guangxi province, separated from Vietnam's Mong Cai by the narrow Ka Long River. Smuggler gangs take the meat in container trucks from Vietnamese ports such as Haiphong to bonded warehouses in towns like Mong Cai, where shipments are broken into small parcels, breaking the "cold chain" and allowing to meat to thaw. "They then stick it onto 50 or so motorbikes which slowly drip it out along the border where it's carried on small sampan boats to a truck waiting on the other side," said Hanoi-based Scott Roberton, who has investigated border smuggling for the Wildlife Conservation Society. Supply Chain Once in China, the meat is transported, often in unrefrigerated trucks, to massive wholesale markets across the country's south, where it is finally put back in cold storage and sold on to supermarkets, processing plants and rural markets across the country. Among the biggest is the Red Star cold meat market in Hunan, site of one recent bust, whose sprawling warehouses cover an area the size of 17 football pitches. Changsha customs say around one-third of the 800,000 tonnes of meat that goes through it every year is from "unclear origins" outside mainland China. Su Weijun, the market's deputy general manager, said that was "nonsense". "Perhaps before a small amount of meat got through, but now we are inspecting much more strictly," he said. But a steady stream of food scandals in recent years, from tainted infant formula to fox meat passed off as donkey, have made traders and consumers wary. Tang Ming, 23, a student from China's southwestern Guizhou province, said she now avoids low-end food stalls and opts for better-known brands. "In wet markets I try now to avoid buying frozen meat—you just don't know how long it's been kept." The post China Meat Smuggling Crackdown Stokes Risky Underground Trade appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
| Thailand Confident It Can Avoid US Sanctions as Trafficking Report Looms Posted: 15 Jul 2015 10:02 PM PDT  A policeman takes pictures of bodies of trafficking victims retrieved from a mass grave at an abandoned camp in a jungle in Thailand's southern Songkhla province on May 2, 2015. (Photo: Reuters) BANGKOK — Thailand will likely avoid US sanctions even if it stays on the lowest tier of an annual State Department human trafficking report, Thailand's defense minister said on Wednesday, days before the crucial progress report is due out. The United States automatically downgraded Thailand, one of the oldest US treaty allies in Asia, to the lowest "Tier 3" status in its 2014 Trafficking in Persons Report after Thailand stayed on the report's so-called Tier 2 Watch List, the second-lowest rank, for four consecutive years. Washington said Thailand, a regional human trafficking hub, had not met the minimum standards for the elimination of the illicit trade. A Tier 3 rating would normally trigger a range of sanctions from the United States but President Barack Obama waived the sanctions in Thailand's case. Thai Defense Minister Prawit Wongsuwan said he was confident Thailand would again avoid sanctions. "I don't think there will be sanctions because Thailand has done things according to the rule of law, so we can rest easy," Prawit told reporters. "Thailand has done its most. Even if we stay on Tier 3, we have done our best," he said. An official at the US Embassy in Bangkok declined immediate comment. Businesses in Thailand will also be hoping there will be no sanctions, as Southeast Asia's most export-dependent economy after Singapore struggles to revive its economy. A new US report card on Thailand's anti-trafficking efforts is due out next week. Thailand is hoping that a crackdown by Thai police on trafficking gangs in May and June this year will help sway any decision by the United States. Some officials say that is unlikely as the report only covers the year to March 2015 and so does not include the latest crackdown. A Reuters investigation this month raised questions about the long-term effectiveness of Thailand's crackdown on the lucrative trafficking syndicates. The crackdown on trafficking camps along its border with Malaysia made conditions too risky for people smugglers to land their human cargo, so they simply set them adrift. Many landed in Indonesia, Malaysia and Burma. In an unexpected move, the United States is upgrading Malaysia from the lowest tier on its list of worst human trafficking centers to the so-called "Tier 2 Watch list," a status that could smooth the way for an ambitious US-led free-trade deal with Malaysia. The decision comes despite Malaysia's slow pace of convictions in human trafficking cases. The post Thailand Confident It Can Avoid US Sanctions as Trafficking Report Looms appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
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