Thursday, June 28, 2018

The Irrawaddy Magazine

The Irrawaddy Magazine

Myanmar Rescue Team Joins Search for Thai Footballers Missing in Cave

Posted: 28 Jun 2018 07:43 AM PDT

CHIANG MAI, Thailand — A Myanmar rescue team on Thursday joined the search for 12 missing Thai youth footballers and their coach, who are believed to be trapped inside Tham Luang Cave near the border between Myanmar and Mae Sai district in Thailand's Chiang Rai province.

The team is participating in the operation at the request of the Thai government.

Thai authorities requested the assistance because exits from the cave are believed to be located on the Myanmar side of the border, in Shan State's Tachileik District.

Also on Thursday, the Myanmar President's Office announced that it had ordered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Shan State government to cooperate fully with Thai authorities in searching for the group.

"Thai authorities said they have heard there are exits on the Myanmar side as well, and asked them to check whether the missing people were in the area. The search is now under way," said U Tun, Thai-Myanmar liaison officer at the Tachileik District Administration Office.

The Myanmar rescue team comprises local officials and workers from the Fire Department, Red Cross and various charities. They have begun the search in a cave that is believed to be connected to Tham Luang Cave, where the group of 13 has been missing for six days.

Meanwhile on the Thai side, volunteers and military teams including 45 Thai Navy SEALs have been deployed at the flooded cave complex, which runs for 10 km (6 miles) under a mountain in the northern province, Reuters reports.

The US military has also sent a search and rescue team at the request of the Thai government.

On Thursday, Thai PBS quoted government spokesman Lieutenant-General Sansern Kaewkamnerd as saying that Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha planned to visit the cave either Friday or Saturday to meet with families of the missing and to give moral support to the rescue teams.

The post Myanmar Rescue Team Joins Search for Thai Footballers Missing in Cave appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Companies Law to Take Effect in Shadow of Rakhine Crisis, Civil War

Posted: 28 Jun 2018 05:58 AM PDT

YANGON — Amid growing concern over the economic policies of the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD), a long awaited Companies Law will take effect on Aug. 1, bringing with it hopes of more foreign investment, greater transparency and improved regulation.

"The Myanmar Companies Law will create equal opportunity for both local and foreign investors. Generally, the law is more positive than negative," said U Zaw Phay Win, an economic adviser.

Approved by Parliament on Nov. 23, the law is seen as one of the NLD government’s major legislative achievements, replacing and incorporating elements of the 1914 Companies Act and the 1950 Special Companies Act.

State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's government has made economic reform a key goal, viewing it as a means to help complete Myanmar’s democratic transition after nearly six decades of isolation under military dictatorship.

According to the Directorate of Investment and Company Administration (DICA), the Companies Law includes important reforms that will allow local companies to accept foreign capital and expertise via joint ventures and make business regulation more efficient and effective.


Number of foreign companies with local branches by year. (Source: DICA)

Key Changes

A review of the new law, DICA's public records and a report by the London-based international law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner reveals a number of key changes that will affect foreign investments.

The 1914 Companies Act defines a foreign company as any company with one or more shares owned by a foreign investor. A local company has to be 100 percent owned and controlled by Myanmar citizens. It also lets foreigners invest only in select sectors such as automobiles, fertilizers and construction materials.

The new Companies Law lets local companies have up to 35 percent of their shares owned by foreigners and expands foreign investment to other sectors including the export and import of finished goods, industrial equipment, pharmaceuticals, and retail and wholesale businesses. It also lets foreign investors trade on the Yangon Stock Exchange.

In its report, Berwin Leighton Paisner notes that the new law maintains a distinction between a "Myanmar company" and a "foreign company" and it says investors should note that foreign investment in certain sectors is still regulated through other laws addressing property ownership and the Myanmar Investment Law.

Until now, foreign companies applying for a certificate of incorporation had to obtain a "permit to trade" that by itself did not actually let them engage in trade with Myanmar. The new law abolishes that permit requirement.

The 1914 Companies Act stipulates that a private company must have at least two directors and that they reside in Myanmar. The new law allows for a single director who is an ordinarily resident — either a permanent resident or a resident for at least 183 days over a 12-month period beginning on the day the new law takes effect or the day the company is incorporated under the new law. If a private company has more than one director, only one of them has to follow the residency requirement.

"It is a completely open door for foreign investment. The economic environment will be more competitive and attractive to investment. More importantly, we need to prepare for the change," said U Than Lwin, senior adviser at Kanbawzaw Bank and a former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Myanmar.

"We need to be ready for modern technology," he said.

It also used to take at least seven people to set up a company with more than one investor, which it defines as a “public” company. Only three people will be required under the new law, one of whom must still be a Myanmar citizen and ordinary resident.

Memorandums and articles of association will also be replaced with company constitutions, charters and other forms.

The new law also includes a set of duties for directors, including the duty to act with care and diligence and in good faith in the company's best interests, not abuse their positions or misuse information, abide by the law and the company’s constitution, and to avoid reckless trading.

The 1914 Companies Act requires companies wanting to reduce their share capital to secure permission from the courts first. The new law does away with the requirement, but the level of approval needed from shareholders will depend on the type of capital reduction.

Relative size of investment by Myanmar citizens by sector as measured by value in 2018. (Source: DICA)

Reregistration

Under the new Companies Law, all existing companies need to re-register electronically with Myanmar Companies Online (MyCO), the company affairs divisions of DICA.

In order to set up the electronic registry system, DICA closed down the divisions on Saturday and will reopen it on July 31.

If a company fails to re-register electronically, it will be struck from the official enterprises list, DICA Director General U Aung Naing Oo said during a press conference on Monday.

All company registration and filing processes will resume on Aug. 1 through MyCO, and companies will have until January to re-register.

According to DICA, there are more than 50,000 local companies and 7,000 foreign companies currently registered.

The NLD government has made earlier efforts to attract foreign investment, including legal reforms that have liberalized the banking sector, loans for small and medium enterprises and new transparency rules.

"The government is working very hard to bring in foreign investment to save our economy. But politics is more important than the economy. The Rakhine and Kachin conflicts have already prevented some potential foreign investment," said U Zaw Phay Win, the economic adviser.

"If we want to improve the country's economy, we must have a decent political image. So I don't expect investment to increase enormously in the short term," he said.

International human rights groups have been urging foreign investors to shun Myanmar both over the violence in Rakhine State and the country’s long-running civil war with various armed ethnic groups.

"The civil war is a part of the problem when we expect foreign investment," said U Myo Min, the CEO of PS Business School.

"If we want foreign investment, we need to promote the country’s image, including stopping the civil war in Kachin and Shan states," he said.

In 2017 the Asia Foundation published research that said the civil war was inherently linked to economic development and that peace was essential to developing a national economy under a government pushing for more foreign investment.

Some of the country’s most ethnically diverse states are also the richest in natural resources, but decades of fighting has kept many potential investors at bay.

Herzfeld Rubin Meyer & Rose closed its Yangon office in February after five years of business here. Eric Rose, who headed the office, told Asia Times that the Rakhine crisis was one reason for the decision to shut down. He said it had ruined Myanmar’s reputation and scared off Western investors.

U Kyaw Kyaw Hlaing, chairman of the Smart Group of Companies, said the Companies Law would attract new investment but added that it was too late for some, nothing that friends of his from Taiwan had already pulled their investments out of Myanmar after losing hope.

"When we talk about investment, we need to think about all the factors including the crisis. Under the current government, Myanmar fell in rank for ease of doing business. For some investors, Myanmar is no longer a place to do business. The Rakhine crisis is one of the reasons they cited," he said.

In the World Bank’s 2018 ease of doing business ranking Myanmar fell one place compared to the year before to 171st out of 190 countries. Fellow ASEAN members Cambodia and Laos ranked 141st and 125th, respectively. Vietnam ranked 68th.

"Because of the Rakhine crisis, I don't expect Western and European investment. Under the new law, only China will come," Soe Tun, a central committee member of the Myanmar Rice Federation, told The Irrawaddy.


Value of total approved investment by country from 1988 to 2018. (Source: DICA)

As of Dec. 31, actual foreign direct investment for the current fiscal year stood at $3.7 billion, with approved foreign direct investment at $5 billion, according to DICA. The largest investor was China.

"The Rakhine crisis is hurting our economy and foreign investment. If the political climate is not good, China will be the winner under the new law," said U Than Lwin. "Although the law is perfect, we need a good political climate."

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Well-Connected ‘Ethnic Affairs Association’ Lobbying to Develop Popular Yangon Park

Posted: 28 Jun 2018 05:05 AM PDT

YANGON – The Myanmar Ethnic Entrepreneurs Association (MEEA) has urged the Ethnic Affairs Ministry to take over Yangon's National Races Village from the Ministry of Agriculture so that the site can be developed with international partners.

The 220-hectare park is located near the Thanlyin-Yangon Bridge in Thaketa Township. It features replicas of houses in the styles of the eight major national races, and of national landmarks such as Mon State's Golden Rock Pagoda (also known as Kyaiktiyo Pagoda); Karen State's Mount Zwegabin; and Htukkanthein Temple in Rakhine State's Mrauk-U Township. Opened in 2002, the site was the brainchild of the then chief of Myanmar Intelligence, Khin Nyunt. Two years later, he was purged and jailed by military dictator Than Shwe.

The village was intended to promote national unity by offering a vision of ethnic harmony between the various races of Myanmar.

MEEA currently has 27 core members, including a number of prominent businessmen. Its steering committee includes chairman U Yaw Satt, the owner of the Shwe Leik Pyar Hotel near Kandawgyi Lake and operator of a gem mining business in Mogok; Lahpai Khun Hsar; U Shwe Hein, who operates a business in the Thilawa Special Economic Zone (SEZ); and Rakhine businessman U Aye Win. Dr. Aung Htun Thet, chief coordinator of the Union Enterprise for Humanitarian Assistance, Resettlement and Development in Rakhine, and U Zaw Aye Maung, Yangon Region's Minister for Rakhine Ethnic Affairs and a member of the Arakan National Party, are patrons of the association.

The organization's stated goal is to support traditional ethnic businesspeople both locally and internationally and to act as a business facilitator, rather than seeking to make a profit itself. In particular, it was set up to help ethnic small-business operators find markets in Myanmar and overseas, and to offer them financial and technical support.

However, speaking on condition of anonymity, a credible source close to MEEA told The Irrawaddy: "Let me frankly tell you that this is just trying to exploit the name of the Ethnic Entrepreneurs Association for their own interests. They are always talking about doing business at every single meeting, rather than discussing matters [related to assisting the community]," he said.

The source pointed out that if the leading committee members, mostly wealthy businessmen, were serious about helping ethnic entrepreneurs, they would help to fund the association. To the contrary, far from contributing cash, the wealthy team members are seeking to collect 10 million kyats as a membership fee from each ethnic group, including the Rakhine, Chin, Kachin and Karen. Some members of the steering committee are not satisfied with this move, believing MEEA is beginning to act like a commercial enterprise, the source said.

MEEA executive committee member U Min Banyar San confirmed the plan to develop the National Races Village during a phone interview with The Irrawaddy last week. He is the son of Union Ethnic Affairs Minister U Naing Thet Lwin, whose lackluster performance in the role has drawn criticism that he is not carrying his weight as part of State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's handpicked Union government team.

While some sources on the committee voiced criticisms of the plan to The Irrawaddy, committee member Min Banyar San argued that the association is not asking the Union government to directly hand over the park's large grounds for commercial purposes. If supervision of the park were handed over to the Union Ethnic Affairs Ministry, the association would advise the ministry on running it as a joint-venture project, he said.

The Irrawaddy was shown a document listing the decisions made by MEEA's executive committee at a meeting in the UMFCCI building held early this month. The document includes a proposal to request 6 acres of land situated on Ahlone Road, a prime location near People's Park, from the Yangon government to establish an ethnic people's convention center, and suggests the steering committee make Yangon State Chief Minister U Phyo Min Thein another patron of the organization. It also outlines plans to establish a public bank to represent MEEA in line with Central Bank rules and regulations. Central Bank provisions require interested parties in the establishment of a bank to deposit at least 20 billion kyats. U Min Banyar San also said that a proposal for the location of a new MEEA office was made by patron U Zaw Aye Maung.

"We want to construct an ethnic people's center [on 6 acres] which will contain a theater to exhibit cultural heritage and traditional costumes. Basically, people will have a place to visit where they can try ethnic foods and dress, and see traditional dances in Yangon," U Min Banyar San said.

He confirmed the details of the plan seen in the document but said that they are still being worked out. If the regional government approved the plan for a convention center, the association intends to construct a theater in which to hold cultural exchange programs for various ethnic groups. MEEA would also promote Myanmar's ethnic cultures in the international arena, he said. According to him, the organization has still not been properly registered with the government. It is expected to hold a grand launch ceremony in July. After that it plans to recruit new members from each ethnic region and elect a new steering board and chairman.

Despite the direct involvement of Yangon Region's minister for Rakhine ethnic affairs, U Zaw Aye Maung, in the association, ethnic affairs ministers in Mon and Rakhine states said they were unaware of the organization's structure, goals or business plan. U Aung Myint Khine, Mon State's minister for Karen ethnic affairs, told The Irrawaddy over the phone on Wednesday that he had heard a few things about MEEA, as U Min Banyar San had lobbied businessmen in Mon State a few months ago. He suggested the association prioritize the promotion of ethnic cultural activities and indigenous people's rights, along with boosting small and medium-sized businesses and farms in ethnic regions, instead of going into business itself.

"That association is not under government management. Seeking opportunities under the guise of being a civil society organization or promoting ethnic people's rights seems wrong to me," U Aung Myint Khine said.

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8-Year-Old Boy Killed in Military Shelling in Shan State, TNLA Claims

Posted: 28 Jun 2018 04:57 AM PDT

Mon State — An 8-year-old boy was killed and seven others were wounded in shelling by the Myanmar military in Shan State’s Kutkai Township on Thursday morning, according to the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and Metta Shin, a community-funded emergency response team.

They said the casualties occurred between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. when the military’s Infantry Division No. 88, stationed at a Buddhist monastery on a hill outside the victims’ village, shelled the area.

Metta Shin and the TNLA’s Information Department reported that the 8-year-old boy, Mai Ko Ko, was wounded by the shelling and died on the way to a local hospital. They said the shelling also injured the boy’s parents and 7-year-old brother, who were being treated at a military hospital in Kutkai, and a 50-year-old woman.

Major Tar Aike Kyaw, of the TNLA, told The Irrawaddy that his fighters had not engaged Myanmar military troops for the past two weeks but added that they had clashed near the village before.

"We had no troops in the village. There wasn’t even any fighting. But they shelled the village intentionally,” he said.

U Thein Aung, a township resident who lives near the village, told The Irrawaddy that an artillery shell landed in the boy’s house. He said TNLA troops had slept in the village overnight but left early in the morning before the shelling began.

The TNLA has repeatedly accused the military of shelling civilian villages in the past, sometimes fatally, and always with impunity.

Yanghee Lee, the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, accused the military of violating human rights in Shan State and elsewhere while addressing the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on Wednesday.

Though hostilities between the military and Myanmar’s ethnic armed groups typically ratchet down during the rainy season, clashes do occur, and thousands of civilians in Shan and Kachin states remain displaced by previous rounds of fighting.

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Kyat Slumps Against the Dollar

Posted: 28 Jun 2018 03:22 AM PDT

YANGON — The kyat-dollar exchange rate has weakened by more than 50 kyats so far in June, and the Central Bank of Myanmar expects it may soften further.

The reference rate of the Central Bank has increased by 51 kyats from K1344 per US dollar since June 1 to K1395 on Thursday (June 28).

Director-General Daw May Toe Win of the Reference Exchange Department of the Central Bank told The Irrawaddy yesterday that the rate — K1380 per US dollar on Wednesday — would likely further weaken.

And it did, rising by 15 kyats to K1395 per US dollar on Thursday. Meanwhile, the selling rate in the market is around K1404 per US dollar.

"According to our analysis, the currencies of our trading partners have depreciated more than our currency has. The policy of the United State is the most important factor. As it has increased its interest rate by 0.25 percentage points, its currency has appreciated, and the currencies of others have depreciated. Its currency is strong," Daw May Toe Win said.

The exchange rate has been weakening since the second week of June, said dollar dealers, who blame several factors including the Central Bank's elevated reference exchange rate, a decline in the gold price in the international market, manipulation in the domestic market, and the saving of dollars by potential outbound travelers, plus unconfirmed reports that ministries have been forced to find foreign currency themselves.

"China has devalued its currency. As a result, the currencies of its ASEAN trading partners have also declined," foreign currency dealer U Moe told The Irrawaddy.

"The exchange rate may continue to weaken if the World Bank and the Central Bank of Myanmar do not intervene," he said.

As the country's exports are low at present, the higher rate for kyat-dollar conversion will lead to higher commodity prices, exporters said.

Currency dealer U Khin Maung Win also mentioned online gambling as a possible factor as the World Cup 2018 is currently being played in Russia.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.

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Yangon Parliament Approves New Municipal Law

Posted: 28 Jun 2018 03:20 AM PDT

YANGON — The Yangon regional Parliament approved the new municipal law on Wednesday, successfully barring the Yangon City Development Committee (YCDC) from engaging in business.

The draft law included dozens of controversial provisions including the formation of YCDC-run business parties responsible for construction, the service industry, recreation and others.

"Parliament was able to successfully remove the whole chapter regarding the formation of YCDC-run businesses. YCDC is not allowed to do business. It will only continue to perform in its original duty of providing services to the public," said lawmaker U Hla Htay of Mingalar Taung Nyunt Township.

Experts appointed by the regional government and the Yangon municipality drafted the new YCDC Law following a request by State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in late 2016. The law was intended to replace the existing 1922 City of Rangoon Municipal Act and to supplement the 2013 YCDC Law.

The bill amending the 2013 YCDC Law was put forward to the regional Parliament on Feb. 2. It will be presented in a week to Yangon Chief Minister U Phyo Min Thein, who will sign it into law.

"It is against democracy for a democratic government to engage in business. The municipality is only intended to provide services to the public and all of the lawmakers do not want it to do business," said Daw Kyi Pyar, a lawmaker from Kyauktada Township.

It will be difficult for small and medium enterprises to survive in the market economy if the government engages in business, she said.

The regional government asked for nearly 7 billion kyats in its budget proposal for the 2018-19 fiscal year for the municipality's city bank to expand its banking services.

The new YCDC law also creates a vice mayor position to assist the mayor in managing Yangon. It also abolishes district-level committees and only keeps township-level committees.

It also allows the regional government to form a security and discipline enforcement team. Previously, it had to seek the permission of the Home Affairs Ministry to do so. This suggests that the regional government will be directly responsible for security matters in the future.

Another key amendment is that anyone who is at least 18 years old will be allowed to vote in the municipal poll now. Previously, only one person in a household, usually the breadwinner, was allowed to cast a vote.

The new law also allows anyone who is at least 25 to contest a municipal poll.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.

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Company Developing Taungthaman Lake Guarantees Eco-Friendliness of Project

Posted: 28 Jun 2018 01:34 AM PDT

MANDALAY — A company that is developing a resort and culture park on the eastern bank of Mandalay's landmark Taungthaman Lake has guaranteed its eco-friendliness amid local concern over the environmental impact of the project.

U Khin Maung Tun, an information officer at the Taungthaman Thitsar company, said the business will be loyal to Taungthaman Lake, during the third round of public consultations on the resort project with locals of Ywa Thit village near the lake on Tuesday.

"Ours is a company that will be loyal to Taungthaman Lake. The interests of the region take precedence over those of the company. Not only the company but also local residents will benefit if this area is urbanized," said U Khin Maung Tun.

The Myanmar Investment Commission gave the green light to the project in March. The company is waiting for the approval of the Mandalay City Development Committee to start construction, U Khin Maung Tun told The Irrawaddy.

According to him, the company has obtained 40 acres of land that were previously farmland to build the resort and the park. The wastewater from the project will not be drained into Taungthaman Lake, but into nearby Pan Yan Taw creek.

"We won't sustain ourselves by hurting local people," said public relations officer U Thein Than Oo of the company.

The company will turn the surroundings of the lake into man-made forests in three years, he added.

The company has hired Yangon-based OSHE Services to conduct environmental and social impact assessments as well as a heritage impact assessment, as the site is near Taungthaman Lake and U Bein Bridge, which spans the lake.

Those reports were submitted to the Mandalay Region Environmental Conservation Department last year, said director U Soe Myint of OSHE Co.

The project was given the go-ahead in mid-2015 under the previous government. But the current administration suspended it months after it took office in 2016 due to problems related to the use of farmland for the project, an unknown source of funds, and procedural requirements.

"Only when it is in line with necessary laws and procedures, will a development project last and be beneficial to the people," U Myat Thu, the Mandalay Region planning and finance minister, told The Irrawaddy.

The regional government launched an investigation into the project after local residents of Amarapura Township complained about its impact in September 2016.

Locals have complained that water levels in the lake have risen to unprecedented levels in the past two rainy seasons following the piling soil for foundations by the company in 2016.

Some of the buildings of the project were removed as their height exceeded 40 feet, the maximum height allowed in the ancient cultural zone.

"Locals can report to us if the company doesn't keep its promises. We will do an immediate inspection," said director Dr. Tin Min Maung of the Mandalay Region Environmental Conservation Department.

The project is scheduled for completion in five years and will include a resort, shop-cum-houses, and convention centers, said U Khin Maung Tun.

The culture park intends to revive and promote Burmese culture and history, he said.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.

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Focus on Cities Could Cut China’s Emissions 30 Percent: Researchers

Posted: 27 Jun 2018 09:54 PM PDT

LONDON — China could slash its climate-changing emissions by 30 percent if all its cities cleaned up pollution from their dirtiest power plants and factories, researchers said on Wednesday.

The world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases needs to focus on its urban areas in order to meet national-level targets under the international Paris Agreement to curb global warming, according to scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA).

“To do this successfully you need to have a good idea of how to cut pollution at a local level without devastating local economies,” said lead researcher Dabo Guan.

A world-first analysis of emissions data from 182 cities across China shows the importance of setting emissions control policies for urban areas, Guan told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Improving the efficiency and environmental impact of the top five percent of polluters in cities could see China’s emissions fall by 30 percent, according to Guan, a professor of climate change economics at the UEA.

The analysis revealed a vast discrepancy in the economic growth and carbon footprint of China's cities, which range from high-tech urban hubs to coal-dependent manufacturing bases.

To curb pollution, each city requires a “different low-carbon road map” specifically tailored to its economy, energy industry and carbon dioxide output, Guan said.

Under the Paris Agreement, China pledged to decrease its carbon intensity — the amount of climate-warming carbon dioxide it produces per unit of economic growth — by 60 percent.

China’s wealthiest cities, such as Shanghai, have significantly cut emissions in the past five years by investing in renewable energy and outsourcing energy-intensive production to other regions.

But manufacturing cities in northern Shanxi province, which rely heavily on coal, saw an annual average increase of more than 1.5 percent.

Investment in hi-tech equipment, such as energy-efficient boilers, is the most effective way for China's worst-polluting cities to reduce their emissions, Guan said.

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Rescuers to Drill Hole in Thai Cave in Hunt for Missing Boys

Posted: 27 Jun 2018 09:19 PM PDT

CHIANG RAI, Thailand — Thai rescue workers will drill a narrow shaft into a cave where 12 schoolboys and their soccer coach are believed to be trapped by flood waters, Thailand’s interior minister said on Wednesday, the fourth day of a search that has been hampered by heavy rain.

The boys, aged between 11 and 16, and their 25-year-old assistant coach, went missing on Saturday after soccer practice when they set out to explore the Tham Luang cave complex, even though it is known to be prone to flooding in the rainy season.

Thai volunteers and military teams, including 45 navy SEAL unit members, have been deployed at the flooded cave complex, which runs 10 km (6 miles) under a mountain in the northern province of Chiang Rai.

“Tomorrow we can drill into the mountain but we won’t drill too deep. Just enough to allow people through,” interior minister Anupong Paochinda told reporters in Bangkok.

“We are trying every way to find the children,” he said.

While distraught relatives and friends gathered at the mouth of the cave, rescue workers pumped out water, but persistent heavy rain has slowed their progress.

“Water is the biggest challenge. There is a lot of debris and sand that gets stuck while pumping,” Army officer Sergeant Kresada Wanaphum told Reuters.

“We have to switch out units because there is not enough air in there,” he said before heading back down the cave.

According to messages the boys exchanged before setting off, they had taken flashlights and some food.

Apart from some footprints and marks left by their muddy hands near the cave entrance, nothing has been seen or heard of them since Saturday evening, and the race to find them has dominated Thai news.

“I’m confident all are still alive,” Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha told reporters.

"Massive Amounts" of Water

Vern Unsworth, a British cave explorer based in Chiang Rai who has joined the search, said a lot of water was seeping into the cave from two directions.

“There is a watershed inside, which is unusual. It means there is water coming in from two directions,” Unsworth told Reuters. “The biggest challenge is the water. Massive amounts.”

Three divers coming from Britain were expected to reach Thailand on Wednesday evening to join the search, the interior minister said.

The US military has sent a search and rescue team at the request of the Thai government, Lieutenant Commander Nicole Schwegman, a spokeswoman for the US Indo-Pacific Command, told Reuters.

Thailand has asked the United States for survivor detection equipment, Tourism Minister Weerasak Kowsurat said.

“We hope this equipment will allow us to locate the spots that we need to reach faster,” Weerasak told reporters.

A guidebook described the Tham Luang cave as having an “impressive entrance chamber” leading to a marked path. It then described the end of the path and start of a series of chambers and boulders.

“This section of the cave has not been thoroughly explored. After a couple of hundred meters the cave reduces in size to a mud floored passage 2 meters wide and 3 meters high,” author Martin Ellis wrote in “The Caves of Thailand Volume 2.”

Nopparat Kantawong, the head coach of the team who did not attend practice on Saturday, said the boys had visited the caves several times, and he was hopeful they would stick together and stay strong.

“They won’t abandon each other,” Nopparat told reporters.

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UN Rights Envoy Urges Myanmar to End Discrimination Against Rohingya

Posted: 27 Jun 2018 09:13 PM PDT

GENEVA — The United Nations human rights investigator on Myanmar called on the government on Wednesday to “dismantle the system of discrimination” against the Rohingya Muslim minority and to restore their rights to citizenship and property.

Yanghee Lee, addressing the UN Human Rights Council, said conditions were not ripe for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh to return to Myanmar’s northern Rakhine State.

“The refugees' return to Myanmar must occur in full respect of the norms and standards of international refugee law and international human rights law,” she said.

U Myint Thu, permanent secretary of Myanmar’s foreign ministry, told the UN council that his government could not work with Lee “because of her lack of objectivity” and called for her replacement.

Myanmar’s government was taking “concrete steps” on humanitarian access to Rakhine State, accountability for alleged human rights violations and implementing the recommendations of the Rakhine Advisory Commission, he told the Geneva forum.

He did not elaborate further.

More than 700,000 mostly Muslim Rohingya have escaped Buddhist-majority Myanmar since last August, when attacks by Muslim insurgents triggered a military offensive that the United Nations has likened to ethnic cleansing.

Myanmar denies the accusations and has said it waged a legitimate counter-insurgency operation.

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AI Calls Out Myanmar Military Chief, Subordinates for Crimes Against Humanity

Posted: 27 Jun 2018 06:08 AM PDT

YANGON — Myanmar Military chief Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing and several of his subordinates should be tried for crimes against humanity for the military’s actions against Rohingya in northern Rakhine State last year, Amnesty International says in a new report.

"We will Destroy Everything: Military Responsibility for Crimes Against Humanity in Rakhine State, Myanmar," released today, names 13 officials, including the military chief and his deputy Vice Senior General Soe Win, as having command responsibility for the murder, rape and deportation of Rohingya.

The report says Amnesty International "has evidence that responsibility for these crimes extends to the highest levels of the military, including Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the commander-in-chief of the Defense Services.”

Some 700,000 Rohingya have fled to neighboring Bangladesh in the wake of a military clearance operation in northern Rakhine triggered by a coordinated attack on 30 police posts and a military base by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) in late August. The Myanmar government has denounced the group as terrorists.

The report calls for Myanmar to be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for investigation and prosecution. It coincides with the ICC's consideration to open a case against the country over the allegations of forced deportation across international borders.

"The UN Security Council should immediately refer the situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court (ICC), so that the Office of the Prosecutor can begin investigating crimes under the Rome Statute," the report says. It adds that the referral should cover crimes across the country as the military has also committed crimes under international law elsewhere, including in Kachin and northern Shan states, dating back to at least 2011.

Reacting to the ICC's request last week that Myanmar weight in on a possible investigation or prosecution, government spokesperson U Zaw Htay said: "The ICC has nothing to do with Myanmar and whatever [steps toward] prosecution the ICC has made, Myanmar has no reason to respond."

Names on the list

The list of accused by Amnesty International, besides Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing and Vice Snr. Gen. Soe Win, includes senior commanders with responsibility for units that allegedly committed many of the worst atrocities such as Brigadier General Khin Maung Soe, commander of Military Operation Command 15; Brigadier General Aung Aung, commander of the 33rd Light Infantry Division; and Brigadier General Than Oo, former commander of the 99th Light Infantry Division.

The list also includes Lt. Gen. Aung Kyaw Zaw, commander of the Bureau of Special Operations No. 3; Major Aung Myo Thu, a field commander with the 33rd Light Infantry Division;  Major General Maung Maung Soe, commander of the army’s Western Command, which oversees Rakhine State; and Brigadier General Thura San Lwin, commander of the Border Guard Police during the time of the alleged crimes. Both the 33rd and 99th light infantry divisions were deployed in northern Rakhine State in mid-August.

On Monday, the European Union imposed sanctions on seven senior officials of the Myanmar Army, including six people on Amnesty International’s list. That night, only hours after the sanctions were announced, the  army said in a statement that Maj. Gen. Maung Maung Soe had been fired from the military earlier in the day for underperformance in responding to Rohingya militant attacks, and that Lt. Gen. Aung Kyaw Zaw was "given permission to resign" in May.

Amnesty International’s report also names several low-level commanders and soldiers who played a critical role in specific incidents. They include the commanding officer of the Taung Bazar Border Guard Police base, Tun Naing, who committed and ordered torture and other ill-treatment; Border Guard Police Corporal Kyaw Chay, who committed torture and other-ill treatment at the Zay Di Pyin Border Guard Police base; and Staff Sergeant Ba Kyaw, one of the principal perpetrators of the massacre in Maung Nu village.

Amnesty International said it sent letters earlier this month to Myanmar authorities including the state counselor, commander-in-chief, minister of defense and chief of police. The letters requested specific information about any criminal investigations and judicial proceedings related to the security forces' operations in northern Rakhine State around Aug. 25.

"The State Counselor's Office confirmed receipt on 13 June. At time of publication, Amnesty International had not received any response from the civilian or military authorities," it said.

Neither the government nor the military were immediately available for comments on Wednesday.

Last month Amnesty International released another report with evidence of a massacre of Hindus by ARSA in Rakhine State last year, making it the first international rights group to shed light on what it called "the largely under-reported human rights abuses" by the militant group. Reacting to that report, the military issued a statement praising Amnesty International for its neutrality and encouraging other international organizations and media to follow its example.

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Army Maintains ‘Divide and Conquer’ Approach to Ethnic Alliances

Posted: 27 Jun 2018 05:44 AM PDT

MON STATE — The Myanmar Army and government continue to pursue a policy of attempting to split alliances of ethnic armed groups in the north of the country, believing that peace will be more easily attained once the blocs have collapsed.

The Federal Political Negotiation and Consultative Committee (FPNCC), the largest of the political groups, has seven members. A spokesperson for the State Counselor's Office, U Zaw Htay, told reporters that the government would allow the United Wa State Army (UWSA), Kachin Independence Army (KIA), Shan State Progress Party (SSPP), and National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA) to attend the upcoming Third Session of the 21st Century Panglong Peace Conference, but not the bloc's other three armed groups, the Arakan Army (AA), Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA).

FPNCC leaders see this as a test by the Myanmar Army (or Tatmadaw) and government, who seek to divide the block's united political and armed forces.

This "divide and conquer" method has been successfully deployed by Tatmadaw and government against ethnic armed organizations in the past. For example, the United Nationalities Federal Council, an alliance of political groups based in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand, collapsed recently.

The AA, TNLA, and MNDAA are currently worried that the other FPNCC members will abandon them and attend the peace conference.

The UWSA, the nation's largest ethnic armed group, will play an important role in deciding whether the alliance attends the conference. The KIA is the alliance's second-most important armed group.

The UWSA serves as the chair of the FPNCC, and has built liaison offices for all member groups at a base in Pangsan, the capital of Wa region. The TNLA became the first FPNCC member to open liaison office in Pangsan last month, and other armed groups will open theirs later, according to a source from the alliance.

The FPNCC has historically maintained the stance that it will only attend the peace conference if all of its members are invited. China brokered the participation of the FPNCC at the Second Session of the peace conference after the Myanmar Army initially refused to allow representatives of the AA, TNLA and MNDAA to attend.

U Mg Mg Soe, a political and military analyst, believes China will try again to secure the participation of all FPNCC members at the upcoming Panglong session. China is expected to pressure the Myanmar Army and the government to allow it, possibly by making some type of deal.

The Irrawaddy tried contacting leaders of a number of armed ethnic groups to find out whether the FPNCC will attend the upcoming Panglong peace conference, which is due to begin on July 11. But the government has not yet invited them, according to some of the leaders.

Col Naw Bu, a spokesperson for the KIA, said his group's senior leaders had not instructed him yet on what to say regarding whether the KIA will attend the peace conference. Therefore, he could not comment, he told The Irrawaddy.

FPNCC members will make a decision on whether to attend when they receive an invitation from the government, according to an alliance source.

The TNLA, AA and MNDAA are relatively new armed groups, established when the country embarked on political reform under the government of former President U Thein Sein. The Myanmar Army refuses to recognize new armed groups set up during the new era of democratic government. Its position is that it is time for these groups to fight for ethnic rights in Parliament, or outside Parliament within the law.

The Army insists the three groups must disarm as a prerequisite for participating in the peace process, but they have refused.

China wants Myanmar to invite all members of the FPNCC to attend the peace conference. But even Beijing understands that it will never convince the Myanmar Army to allow it to play a major role in the peace process.

China's efforts at brokering the peace process in Myanmar have not been fully successful, Brig-General Tar Phone Kyaw of the TNLA said via social media through a channel of the PSLF/TNLA Communications Department.

The TNLA has an estimated 6,000 fighters, while the AA and MNDA have an estimated 4,000 fighters each. They would sooner fight than disarm as a prerequisite for talks, according to their leaders. These three armed groups have grown rapidly, are militarily strong and put up a strong fight in recent clashes with the Myanmar Army in Rakhine and northern Shan.

Some experts on ethnic issues believe the Tatmadaw is taking the wrong approach by demanding that the three groups disarm. Instead, they say, the Army should sit down with them and negotiate peace.

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NLD Struggles to Field Female Candidates for By-Election, Aims for 2020

Posted: 27 Jun 2018 05:17 AM PDT

YANGON — The Central Women’s Affairs Committee of the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) says it has little chance of fielding female candidates in November’s by-elections but would push to have them on the ballot in 2020.

"We have few women in the ethnic regions where the by-election will be held, and also our choice of candidates comes directly from the bottom up," said Daw May Win Myint, who chairs the committee and represents Yangon's Mayangone Township in the Lower House of the Union Parliament.

Thirteen vacant seats are to be filled in the by-election in Nov. 3 in Chin, Kachin, Shan and Rakhine states and in Mandalay, Yangon, Bago and Magwe regions. The NLD, the opposition Union Solidarity and Development Party and ethnic parties in Shan, Kachin and Rakhine states are making preparations for the contest.

"We take the stance that those contesting in the ethnic regions must be indigenous candidates residing in the region, so in Shan State the NLD candidate would be Shan and likewise in Chin State,” Daw May Win Myint told The Irrawaddy early this week.

“As for female participation, even though we don't use the quota system, we have to push to have more candidates, especially for the general election in 2020.”

She said more than 30 percent of the NLD’s candidates were women in the 2012 by-elections but only about half as many were women in the general elections of 2015, when the party swept to national power. The proportion of female candidates the party fielded in last year’s by-elections was lower still.

Also, only three women currently serve on the party’s preeminent Central Executive Committee: Daw Aung San Suu Kyi; Daw May Win Myint; and Karen State Chief Minister Nang Khin Htwe Myint.

The NLD has 27 women in leading roles on its 177-member Central Committee. And among the 44 people elected to the committee at a recent party congress, there were six women.

To boost those numbers and help empower the women it has, the NLD will hold a three-day meeting of its female members in Naypyitaw starting Saturday.

Daw May Win Myint said some 780 women from all levels of the party will join and receive training in leadership, management, peacebuilding and the law. She said the party would also invite women’s advocacy groups including the Women’s Organization Network, the Gender Equality Network and the Myanmar National Committee for Women’s Affairs to discuss their work and share information.

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Bogus ‘Crime Reporters’ Arrested for Extorting Villagers in Sagaing

Posted: 27 Jun 2018 04:48 AM PDT

MANDALAY – Four members of a controversial "crime reporters" group were arrested in Banmauk Township in Katha District of Sagaing Division on June 25 on suspicion of extorting money from villagers, the Ministry of Home Affairs said Tuesday.

Zaw Lin Tun, chairman of the Katha district sub-office of the Myanmar Crime Reporters Association in Banmauk, and three others were found to have extorted 500,000 kyats from four residents of Aung Thar Gone village, according to the ministry.

The officers who arrested the crime reporters told The Irrawaddy that villagers from Aung Thar Gone had purchased wood to make furniture for a village school. The reporters told the villagers that if they didn't pay the reporters, they would take them to police and accuse them of possessing illegal logs.

"The locals just bought old pieces of wood for their village school. However, they paid the 500,000 kyats, as they felt threatened," said the duty officer at Banmauk Police Station.

"It happened on June 22. Villager U Aung Tun reported the case and we arrested the reporters on June 25 and seized the money, the vehicles they used to follow the locals and their [Crime Reporters Association] uniforms," the duty officer explained.

According to the police, the four members of the association illegally detained the locals at their office. The "reporters" are currently in custody and police plan to file lawsuits against them under the penal code for illegally detaining and threatening the locals.

The accused face one to 10 years' imprisonment.

Most Myanmar Crime Reporters Association members work for journals specializing in crime-related news. The association was founded in 2016 and opened many branch offices across the country. Its members wear uniforms whose color and logos resemble those on police uniforms.

The association has attracted much criticism nationwide, especially from genuine news reporters, who fear their professional image could be damaged by the activities of some of the association members. In remote parts of the country, some of these "crime reporters" are notorious for extorting money from "sources" and for threatening locals with lawsuits. Such cases have been increasing lately.

The Ministry of Home Affairs issued a warning on June 16 that reporters, including those from the Myanmar Crime Reporters Association, must not wear uniforms that could be mistaken for those of police or other security forces, act as brokers at the courts, or extort others. It threatened to take legal action against anyone who did so.

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The President’s Office Denies Army Chief Threatened a Possible Coup

Posted: 27 Jun 2018 04:03 AM PDT

NAYPYITAW — Contrary to what an article in the Bangkok Post said, Myanmar Military Chief Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing did not threaten to stage a coup during a meeting early this month with the president, state counselor, vice presidents, and the deputy army chief, according to the President's Office Director General U Zaw Htay.

On June 23, the paper published 'UN Envoy Averts Possible Military Coup in Myanmar' by Larry Jagan. The article mainly stated that during a meeting with State Counselor Daw Aung Suu Kyi, the army commander reacted angrily over the government's handling of Rakhine issue and he even threatened a coup, quoting several anonymous sources close to the army top brass.

The story came at a time when the government and military were at odds over the state counselor's decision late last month to form an independent three-person commission of inquiry to investigate rights abuses in Rakhine State since the militant attacks in August. On June 11, military representatives in the Union Parliament objected to plans to include a foreign expert among the three, claiming it would make the country vulnerable to foreign interference and put its sovereignty at risk. As military appointees, their remarks can be interpreted as coming from the commander-in-chief.

"It is totally incorrect what Larry Jagan wrote in his article," U Zaw Htay told the media in Naypyitaw on Wednesday.

U Zaw Htay, who acts as the government spokesperson, added that the June 8 meeting focused on [Myanmar's] relations with the international community, the formation of a commission to investigate the Rakhine issue, and security in Rakhine State and along the border.

"There was no bitter argument during the meeting. They discussed these topics comprehensively and made recommendations. There was no angry expression at all that day. [The army chief] did not talk about staging a coup if the government fails to manage properly. And the meeting did not end in a clash. It ended peacefully and with understanding," he said, adding that he was present in the room on the day of the meeting.

The spokesperson said the government explained in detail during the meeting how it would respond to the actions of international agencies.

"First, we discussed [Myanmar's] relations with the United Nations and actions of the ICC [International Criminal Court].  [The government] also clarified its intention to form a [Rakhine] investigation commission and include a foreigner on it. The army chief and the deputy army chief showed understanding," he said.

"The military also is not very pleased with [Larry Jagan's] story," he added.

During the meeting on June 8, State Counselor's Office Minister U Kyaw Tint Swe and Vice Senior-General Soe Win made presentations first, followed by a speech by President U Win Myint. This was followed by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the military chief's discussions.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.

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Civilian Shot in Rakhine State

Posted: 27 Jun 2018 02:32 AM PDT

SITTWE, Rakhine State — A civilian was shot by a military column on patrol in Rakhine State's Maungdaw Township on Monday around noon.

U Aung Hla Sein, 68, an ethnic Arakanese local of the village of Kaing Gyi in Maungdaw Township, was shot while he was fishing with his son in a creek in the west of the village.

"The two said that they were shot at five times. The man was injured in his right thigh and was hospitalized," administrator of Kaing Gyi village U Maung Than Cho told The Irrawaddy.

The creek where the two were fishing originates in the Mayu Mountains and empties into the Bay of Bengal. The pair was shot at by a military column of Light Infantry Battalion 551, which was patrolling in the area.

The mouth of the creek is off limits to the general public because it is adjacent to the Bay of Bengal and could be used by illegal immigrants and terrorists to enter Rakhine State, said Maungdaw Township administrator U Myint Khaing.

"The military has prohibited people from going to that area for security reasons. But the two went fishing there. Security personnel on guard shot in the air and called for them to come in but they didn't. So, they shot at them. One of them was hit in his thigh," he said, adding that the wound was not serious.

U Aung Hla Sein is still receiving treatment at Buthidaung Township hospital for the wound.

There are two Kaing Gyi villages in Zaw Ma Tet village tract in Maungdaw – one inhabited by ethnic Arakanese and the other by ethnic Mro.

There are 73 households with a population of 314 people in the Kaing Gyi village where ethnic Arakanese live.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.

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Govt Incentivizes Public to Inform on Drug Dealers

Posted: 27 Jun 2018 01:04 AM PDT

NAYPYITAW — The President's Office has created an anti-drug department, encouraging public participation in the fight against drug production and dealing.

Speaking at a ceremony to mark the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking in the administrative capital Naypyitaw on Tuesday, President U Win Myint announced the establishment of the Drug Abuse Reporting Department.

"We have formed a department to which reports can be made about drug producers and dealers," said the president.

"We need to educate people that all individuals have to share the responsibility in countering the drug menace as a national task," he added.

According to the President's Office, the department was formed on June 22 so that the public may provide information related to the abuse of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, without fear of repercussion or threat to personal safety.

The government will give cash awards to those who file reports to the department about drug dealers, said the president.

"We will give decent cash awards to informers and their confidentiality will be maintained for their safety. We'll also not levy tax on their cash awards," he added.

"Generally speaking, it is a good initiative. But drug dealers work in gangs, usually have arms and are financially strong. So, it is a good initiative only when the government can guarantee the safety of informants," said political analyst and writer Than Soe Naing.

There are cases in which arrested dealers gave money to witnesses to testify in their favor at court, said Sai Wan Hline Kham, a Shan ethnic lawmaker in the Upper House of Parliament.

"[Witnesses in drug cases] have been fatally shot across northern Shan State. So I doubt the public will dare to inform," he said.

The President's Office offered telephone and fax numbers and an email address on its Facebook page on Wednesday for the public to file reports.

Meanwhile, the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control under the Home Affairs Ministry has also formed anti-narcotics special forces to speed up its anti-drug campaigns, said minister Lt-Gen Kyaw Swe.

The anti-narcotics special forces are tasked with investigating and punishing anyone involved in the drug supply chain, said the minister, who is also the chairman of the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control.

In a meeting with Lt-Gen Kyaw Swe earlier this month, President U Win Myint urged the formation of anti-drug committees at the township, district, regional and state levels comprised of regional authorities, civil society and civilians.

In February, the Myanmar government and the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC) launched a new national drug control policy, which aims to contribute to safe, secure and healthy communities through a policy that addresses all aspects of the drug problem.

From April 1 to June 19, police handled 2,241 drug cases and arrested 3,175 individuals. The value of seized drugs totaled US$187.6 million, according to the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.

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The Shock Troops Who Expelled the Rohingya from Myanmar

Posted: 26 Jun 2018 11:26 PM PDT

YANGON, Myanmar/COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh — In early August last year, a young lieutenant named Kyi Nyan Lynn flew to Rakhine State, with hundreds of other Myanmar soldiers. They were about to launch a campaign that would drive hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims from their homes and leave the region in flames.

First, however, Lieutenant Kyi Nyan Lynn of the 33rd Light Infantry Division did what any young man might do: He wrote a Facebook post.

“In our plane, we got to eat cake,” read the Aug. 10 post. “Are you going to eat Bengali meat?” commented a friend. Many Burmese refer to Rohingya as “Bengali” or use the pejorative term “kalar.”

“Whatever, man,” replied the lieutenant.

“Crush the kalar, buddy,” urged another friend.

“Will do,” he replied.

Kyi Nyan Lynn was part of what some Western military analysts refer to as Myanmar’s “tip of the spear:” hundreds of battle-hardened soldiers from two light infantry divisions — the 33rd and 99th — famed for their brutal counter-insurgency campaigns against this nation’s many ethnic minorities.

When Rohingya militants launched attacks across northern Rakhine State in August last year, the 33rd and 99th spearheaded the response. Their ensuing crackdown drove 700,000 Rohingya into neighboring Bangladesh. The United Nations has said the army may have committed genocide; the United States has called the action ethnic cleansing.

Myanmar denies the allegations.

It has been widely reported that Myanmar soldiers committed mass killings and burned down Rohingya villages. But a Reuters investigation is the first comprehensive account of the precise role played by Myanmar’s 33rd and 99th light infantry divisions, how they executed the assault across northern Rakhine State, and the longstanding ties between Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the commander in chief, and the army’s elite troops.

Reuters spoke to scores of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and Buddhists in Rakhine State, and conducted rare interviews with members of the Myanmar security forces, to reconstruct the actions of these two elite divisions. Interviews with Rohingya, Rakhine witnesses and policemen implicate troops from the two light infantry divisions in arson and killing.

The military is so secretive that even its official spokesmen rarely speak to the media. But Facebook is hugely popular in Myanmar, and Reuters found accounts of soldiers who posted about military life, troop movements and the crackdown in Rakhine State. The Facebook accounts of two members of the elite infantry divisions reveal a raw ethnic hatred.

Kyi Nyan Lynn, the soldier from the 33rd division, told Reuters that the army’s reaction was justified because soldiers were under attack from “Bengali terrorists.”

“They terrorized us first,” he said. “So we were given the duty to crack down on them. As we cracked down, whole villages fled.” He said he wasn’t involved in any killings or arson.

The military and government did not respond to questions from Reuters. In the past, the government has denied allegations of ethnic cleansing in Rakhine and said the security forces mounted legitimate counter-insurgency operations against Rohingya militants. The Ministry of Home Affairs, which is responsible for the police, told Reuters it rejected allegations that policemen had been involved in torching Rohingya villages.

Rakhine State was already an ethnic tinderbox before the light infantry divisions arrived. Years of violence between its two main groups — Rohingya Muslims and Rakhine Buddhists — had killed hundreds and left thousands homeless, most of them Rohingya. Attacks by Rohingya militants in 2016 had rattled Myanmar’s security forces, who blamed ordinary Rohingya for harboring “terrorists.”

The arrival of the light infantry divisions in early August 2017 marked a dramatic military build-up. Photos from that period show soldiers arriving at the airport in Sittwe, or crowded onto boats.

The government of Nobel laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said in a statement at the time that the deployment would bring “peace, stability and security.” But the influx of heavily armed combat troops with a long history of alleged human rights abuses had the opposite effect: It stoked fear and tension across a volatile region, according to Rohingya villagers.

Then, on Aug. 25, came attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA). The Rohingya militant group ambushed dozens of police posts and an army base in Rakhine. Already in place, the 33rd and 99th, along with other security forces, responded with a brutal campaign that effectively herded masses of Rohingya civilians north and west into Bangladesh.

Rohingya regard themselves as native to Rakhine State. But Myanmar has denied most of them citizenship, saying they are not an indigenous group, and the country’s Buddhist majority reviles them. Police and Rakhine Buddhist villagers told Reuters how they coordinated with troops from both divisions to burn down Rohingya villages, giving the residents no homes to return to.

The Reuters investigation of the light infantry divisions and their commanders comes at a time when global calls for accountability over the mass expulsion of the Rohingya are growing. The European Union and Canada on June 25 imposed sanctions on seven senior Myanmar military and police officers, including the commanders of the 33rd and 99th. The seven face asset freezes and are banned from traveling to EU countries. So far, the United States has sanctioned only one Myanmar general for abuses during the Rakhine campaign.

The new sanctions didn’t target the man with ultimate authority over the 33rd and 99th: Myanmar’s commander-in-chief, Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing.

He is a diminutive figure who often wears round, rimless spectacles and looks more like an office clerk than the leader of one of the region’s largest standing armies. His rise through the ranks was intertwined with the bloody history of Myanmar’s light infantry divisions.

Thaung Wai Oo is a military historian who served as a colonel in the 33rd and held lesser ranks in two other light infantry divisions. When asked who had ultimate authority over the light infantry divisions, he said: “Senior General Min Aung Hlaing. That question is very easy.” While he refused to discuss the army’s operation in Rakhine, Thaung Wai Oo added that only the commander-in-chief can deploy the light infantry divisions in major assaults. “Final decisions come from Senior General Min Aung Hlaing.”

Earlier in his career, Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing led the 44th Light Infantry Division. In 2009, as a special operations commander, he oversaw the deployment of the 33rd in a campaign to drive armed rebels from an enclave of eastern Myanmar; some 37,000 people fled across the border into China. He became commander-in-chief in 2011.

Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing was the public face of the crackdown in Rakhine State. Days before the 33rd and 99th were deployed, he held a widely publicized security meeting with ethnic Rakhine leaders. In the midst of the crackdown, on Sept. 1, he said: “The Bengali problem was a long-standing one which has become an unfinished job.” And on Sept. 19 he visited Sittwe, the state capital, and – according to his Facebook page – he received a detailed briefing from senior officers on the progress of the military operation in Rakhine.

The military did not respond to Reuters request for comment from Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing.

Past military offensives waged by the 33rd and 99th have gone largely unnoticed by the world. But the impact of their Rakhine crackdown has been far-reaching.

It created an ongoing refugee emergency that Bangladesh, one of the world’s poorest countries, is ill-equipped to deal with. And it damaged Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s global image as a democracy icon. Human rights activists accuse her of not standing up more forcibly for the long-persecuted Rohingya, then supporting the military’s version of events. Her office had no comment.

In December, the international aid group Médecins Sans Frontières estimated that at least 6,700 Rohingya were killed in the first month of the crackdown alone.

The military had no comment on the death toll in Rakhine or on the specific allegations of abuses described in this article. In November, it said that 13 members of the security forces were killed in the conflict, and it recovered the bodies of 376 ARSA militants between Aug. 25 and Sept. 5, when the offensive officially ended.

“If They’re Bengali, They’ll Be Killed”

Three photos distributed by Myanmar Pressphoto Agency show soldiers arriving at the airport in Sittwe on Aug. 10. Two of the photos also show military planes: a Chinese-made Shaanxi Y-8 capable of transporting more than 100 soldiers; and a smaller, French-made turboprop. In the third photo, at least 30 soldiers are lined up on the tarmac in front of a fleet of army trucks. One soldier’s shoulder clearly bears the badge of the 33rd.

Flying to Rakhine, although not necessarily on one of these planes, was Lieutenant Kyi Nyan Lynn of the 33rd Light Infantry Division. He identified himself on Facebook as Mai Naung Lynn. His homepage address, and a photo he posts of his wedding, name him as Kyi Nyan Lynn. He is 24.

On Aug. 11, he posted a smirking emoji on Facebook. “If they’re Bengali,” he assured his friends, “they’ll be killed.”

The soldiers in the photos taken at Sittwe airport are, by the standards of the Myanmar military, well-equipped and heavily armed. They wear helmets and flak jackets, and carry rifles and mortars.

Photos published in August 2017 on Facebook show troops and trucks packed into a navy landing craft. The use of aircraft and boats to transport the soldiers showed that a joint operation by Myanmar’s air force, navy and army was underway, said three analysts who have studied the military’s command structure, and two experts in international criminal law.

A joint operation and the deployment of troops from outside the region “indicate central command at the highest levels,” said one of the experts, Tyler Giannini, co-director of the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School.

The navy craft landed in Rathedaung, one of the three townships that make up northern Rakhine State. From here, both light infantry divisions headed north, according to more than 40 Rohingya interviewees who described multiple sightings. The 33rd advanced mainly on the east side of the Mayu mountains, a jungle-clad range that roughly divides Rathedaung and Maungdaw townships. The 99th moved on the west side.

The interviews with Rohingya placed the 33rd or 99th in at least 22 village tracts in northern Rakhine State.

The deployments rattled the region. On Aug. 14, a Rohingya religious scholar named Abdul Zalil counted about 350 soldiers marching through his village in Tha Win Chaung. “They walked along the main road and everyone saw them,” he said.

The 33rd and 99th also announced their arrival in a series of meetings that Rohingya attendees said left them anxious and fearful. Officers from the two divisions called at least 14 such meetings, according to Rohingya leaders who attended. They said leaders of the local Rakhine community sometimes came, too.

The meetings, held in venues such as schools and police stations, delivered similar messages. The officers said they had come to “clear” the area and root out “terrorists” and “criminals.” They accused Rohingya of harboring “bad people” and threatened to burn down villages and shoot anyone they deemed suspicious, according to Rohingya who were present.

Reuters interviewed three Rohingya who said they attended a meeting in mid-August called by a 99th commander in Taungpyoletwea, on Myanmar’s border with Bangladesh. Arif, a local elder who was present, said the commander was guarded by dozens of soldiers. “If we find any terrorists,” Arif recalled him saying, “we’ll burn your village to ashes. Your future generations won’t last.”

On the other side of the Mayu mountains, in Chut Pyin village, Abdul Baser and other Rohingya leaders attended a meeting called by a 33rd commander. He told them he had recently been fighting another ethnic war in northern Myanmar.

“Before we came here, we were on the Kachin State frontline,” the commander said, according to Abdul Baser. “We behaved very badly in Kachin – and they’re citizens. You’re not citizens, so you can only imagine how we’ll be.”

Many Rohingya interviewees referred to the troops of the 33rd and 99th as “new soldiers,” to differentiate them from those already garrisoned in the region. Over the decades, they said, Rohingya had bribed or negotiated with local military and police, thereby maintaining an edgy status quo. But Noor Alom, a Rohingya building contractor, said the “new soldiers” were different.

Alom was building a government school in Ah Htet Nan Yar, a village in Rathedaung. When hundreds of soldiers arrived on a rainy morning in mid-August, his workers fled. Alom, who had good relations with the local battalion, said he stood his ground.

Minutes later, he said, he was curled in a fetal position as soldiers from the 33rd kicked and beat him, and demanded the truth about the “terrorists” hiding in his village. Alom, who is now in a refugee camp in Bangladesh, said one soldier told him: “The central government sent us specially to kill you Bengali people.”

The assault on Noor Alom couldn’t be independently confirmed. But Thura San Lwin, chief of the paramilitary police in Rakhine at the time, told Reuters that the 33rd and 99th had been sent to villages including Ah Htet Nan Yar.

ARSA Attacks, the Crackdown Begins

In the early hours of Aug. 25, groups of Rohingya, led or mobilized by the militant group ARSA, launched attacks on 30 police posts and an army base. The attacks killed 10 police, one soldier and one immigration officer, said Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s office in a statement the same day.

In Myin Hlut, a collection of villages on Maungdaw’s coast, a Rohingya mob attacked a police post with sticks, stones, arrows and Molotov cocktails, said a police officer who repelled the attack with nine other officers. He asked Reuters to withhold his name.

Two police were killed and one injured while repelling the mob, said the officer. “When they tried to break the gate, we started shooting them,” he said. “They dragged away the men who were hit.”

ARSA claimed responsibility on its Twitter account on Aug. 25 for multiple attacks, without mentioning Myin Hlut. The Myanmar government and Amnesty International said ARSA was behind the killing of dozens of Hindu residents from another remote Rakhine village. ARSA denied this. The group did not respond to questions from Reuters.

Reading early reports of such attacks was Sai Sitt Thway Aung, a soldier with the 99th. At that time, his Facebook posts suggest, he was still at the 99th’s hometown of Meiktila in central Myanmar.

“Please send us quickly to Rakhine where the terrorists are,” he wrote. “I want to fight, please. I cannot control my patriotic urge for revenge.”

His wish was granted. He later posted a photo on his account that he said showed him en route to northern Rakhine.

“The debt of people’s blood I will collect with much interest,” he wrote on Aug. 27 in a warning to “Muslim dogs.” More than a thousand people “liked” the post. “Kill those fucking people,” commented one.

Sai Sitt Thway Aung told Reuters that “Muslim dogs” referred only to ARSA militants, and that he had “many Muslim friends.” He also said he hadn’t shot or killed anyone while in Rakhine State.

By this time, his counterpart in the 33rd, Kyi Nyan Lynn, was already in action, according to his Facebook posts. “I didn’t get to sleep again because I had to go and help surround a kalar village,” wrote the lieutenant on Aug. 26. “But when we reached there, the kalar were all gone.”

He then recounted a grueling hike through the mountains to the village of Inn Din, on Maungdaw’s coast. There, he ate well and called his wife. “Relaxing peacefully,” he wrote.

For the Rohingya residents of Inn Din, the village was now a war zone. They had already begun fleeing for nearby forests. Within days of the 33rd’s arrival, soldiers and police joined with local Rakhine Buddhists to burn down most Rohingya houses in Inn Din, Reuters reported in February.

On Sept. 1, soldiers detained 10 Rohingya men and boys, Reuters reported in February. The next day, with the help of Rakhine villagers, they shot or hacked to death the Rohingya men, then dumped their bodies in a shallow grave.

Like Lieutenant Kyi Nyan Lynn, some of the soldiers in Inn Din hailed from the 11th battalion of the 33rd light infantry division, according to two policemen. “I wasn’t involved in the Inn Din killing,” Kyi Nyan Lynn told Reuters. “I absolutely haven’t committed any other killings, either.”

Two Reuters reporters were arrested in December after the police learned they had been reporting on the Inn Din massacre. The following month, the military admitted its soldiers had taken part in the killings, and said seven soldiers had been given 10-year jail sentences. The military didn’t identify their names, ranks or divisions.

The Reuters reporters, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, remain behind bars, accused of breaching the Official Secrets Act. If charged, they face jail sentences of up to 14 years.

On Aug. 30, in north Maungdaw, soldiers also tore through the village of Min Gyi, also known as Tula Toli, according to Rohingya residents who are now in the camps in Bangladesh. Investigators with Human Rights Watch say a massacre took place at Tula Toli. Soldiers shot fleeing Rohingya and rounded up hundreds of others, said Human Rights Watch in a report. The soldiers then “systematically murdered the men over the course of several hours,” before killing and raping many Rohingya women and children, it said.

Reuters interviews with two Rakhine villagers place the 99th in the village. Interviews with Rohingya survivors implicate the division’s soldiers in atrocities there.

The Rakhine population saw the 99th as saviors, Maung Hla Sein, a local resident, told Reuters. “If they hadn’t arrived, the kalars would have killed everyone,” he said. Maung Hla Sein said he heard gunfire and explosions coming from Tula Toli but didn’t see what happened there.

Aung Kyaw Thein, the ethnic Rakhine chairman of the village, said more than 100 soldiers from the 99th conducted a “clearance operation” in Tula Toli. “I don’t know exactly how many Muslims were killed because we didn’t dare leave our village,” he told Reuters in November. He also credited the 99th with protecting Rakhine villagers.

Reuters spoke to three Rohingya women who said Myanmar soldiers wearing 99th badges on their arms had raped them at Tula Toli.

A woman surnamed Begum was one of the three. She says soldiers took her to a house in Tula Toli with 11 other women and girls, including her little sister. She said six soldiers with 99th badges pushed her into a room full of bodies. Then one of the soldiers slit her sister’s throat. “I could not bear to see it so I turned my face away,” she said, sobbing and trembling as she spoke.

Begum said she was kicked and beaten until she blacked out. When she came to, it was dark. Her back and legs were in flames and her head throbbed. Around 10 other women lay burning and unconscious around her as she crawled out.

Begum’s account couldn’t be independently confirmed. Her body bore burn marks when Reuters interviewed her. Rakhine residents told Reuters in November that soldiers from the 99th were still in Tula Toli, and that all the Rohingya homes had been razed.

“The kalar are quiet now,” Sai Sitt Thway Aung, the 99th soldier, posted on his Facebook page on Sept. 5. “Kalar villages have burned.” He told Reuters he was in northern Maungdaw at the time, but didn’t commit arson. He said Rohingya burned their own homes and then blamed the military.

Sept. 5 was the day Myanmar’s military campaign in Rakhine officially ended, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said in a speech two weeks later. Yet arson attacks on Rohingya villages continued for weeks, satellite images show. During that period Reuters reporters in Bangladesh saw smoke rising daily from the Myanmar side of the border.

According to one witness — the police officer who survived the attack on his base in Myin Hlut — the 33rd and 99th were among those responsible. After the attack, the police officer told Reuters, he was ordered to join soldiers from the 33rd and 99th on “clearance operations” in now-deserted Rohingya villages. Part of his account was reported by Reuters in February.

Each operation involved five to seven police and at least 20 soldiers, he said. Police surrounded the Rohingya houses while soldiers searched and then set them alight. The houses had leaf roofs and bamboo walls, and burned easily. “There was no need to use fuel,” he said. The officer said the houses were burned “mainly for security reasons,” to stop the Rohingya from returning and launching fresh attacks.

The military has denied burning houses in Rakhine and says Rohingya militants set the homes alight. The police officer described how the 33rd and 99th used arson routinely and systematically. “We’d go to a village and burn it down,” he said. “The next day we’d go to another village. And in the evening we’d go to another village.”

A Hero’s Welcome

The Myanmar government has banned journalists and other foreign observers, including UN investigators, from freely visiting most of northern Rakhine State.

What happened in Rakhine is an “internal issue,” Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing told UN Security Council envoys who visited him in Naypyitaw in April, according to an account of the meeting published on his official Facebook page. “Bengalis will never say that they arrive there happily,” he said, referring to the mass exodus of Rohingya. “They will get sympathy and rights only if they say that they face a lot of hardships and persecution.”

Military observers note that some officers involved in the Rakhine crackdown were recently removed from active service.

One of them was Lieutenant General Aung Kyaw Zaw. As chief of the special operations bureau for western Myanmar, he would have coordinated the Rakhine operation from army headquarters in Naypyitaw, according to veteran observers of the Myanmar military. Lt-Gen Aung Kyaw Zaw, who was a commander of the 33rd earlier in his career, was “given permission to resign” in May, according to the military.

Major General Maung Maung Soe, who led the Western Command, was removed from the military on June 25, the army said. Maj-Gen Maung Maung Soe was sanctioned in December by the United States. The military didn’t respond to a Reuters request for comment from Lt-Gen Aung Kyaw Zaw and Maj-Gen Maung Maung Soe.

Brigadier General Than Oo, commander of the 99th, and Brigadier General Aung Aung, commander of the 33rd, were both named on the sanctions lists released June 25 by the EU and Canada.

Myanmar’s soldiers have received a warm welcome in the towns of the Bamar heartland where most of the light infantry divisions are based.

Photos of military homecomings can be found on many Facebook accounts. These show soldiers from the 33rd and 99th marching through garrison towns, where people give them flowers or laurel leaves — symbols of victory and good luck.

On Dec. 6, Sai Sitt Thway Aung posted photos of himself and other 99th soldiers marching through homecoming crowds in Meiktila. He is garlanded with flowers and smiling.

That same day, he also posts a selfie, in uniform. A friend weighs in with a comment: “I’m proud of you for kicking out the kalar dogs.”

The post The Shock Troops Who Expelled the Rohingya from Myanmar appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Myanmar Rejects Citizenship Reform at Private Rohingya Talks

Posted: 26 Jun 2018 09:33 PM PDT

YANGON — A senior Myanmar official has told Western diplomats that a proposal to review a citizenship law that effectively renders most Rohingya Muslims stateless could not be implemented, five people present at the meeting in Denmark in early June told Reuters.

At a meeting in Copenhagen on June 8, Myanmar’s Social Welfare Minister Win Myat Aye told a group of diplomats, analysts and members of a commission chaired by former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan that eight of its recommendations – including one that asks authorities to take steps to amend the 1982 law – were problematic in the current political climate and could not be immediately fulfilled, the people present said.

“He made it very clear that citizenship reform was a non-starter,” said one of the people at the meeting. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because Myanmar had requested the talks be confidential.

Win Myat Aye and government spokesman Zaw Htay did not answer calls seeking comment.

Amending the law, which largely restricts citizenship to members of what it terms “national races” – the 135 ethnic groups deemed by the state to be indigenous – was a key recommendation of the Annan commission.

Buddhist-majority Myanmar does not recognize the Rohingya as an indigenous ethnic group and refers to them as “Bengalis," a term they reject as it implies they are interlopers from Bangladesh, despite a long history in the country.

The Annan commission was created by Myanmar leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in 2016 to find long-term solutions to deep-seated ethnic and religious divisions in Rakhine. A day after the panel issued its report in August 2017, Rohingya insurgents launched attacks on security forces, provoking a military crackdown the UN has called a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing."

The admission by Win Myat Aye, who is overseeing plans for reconstruction in violence-ravaged Rakhine State, casts further doubt on plans to repatriate the roughly 700,000 Rohingya currently sheltering in crowded refugee camps in Bangladesh.

Many Rohingya refugee leaders say they won’t return without guarantees of citizenship.

However, Myanmar’s National Security Adviser Thaung Tun, who was also at the meeting in Denmark, told Reuters authorities were implementing the Annan commission’s recommendations “to the fullest extent possible and as expeditiously as we can."

“Over 80 recommendations have been carried out in less than 10 months,” he said in an email.

Referring to the recommendations that had not been implemented, he said they were “also being looked into."

Annan’s spokesman referred questions to the Myanmar government.

Refugees have reported killings, burnings, looting and rape by members of the Myanmar security forces and Buddhist vigilantes in Rakhine. Myanmar has rejected accusations of ethnic cleansing, and dismissed most accounts of atrocities.

“Path to Citizenship"

In January, Myanmar and Bangladesh signed a deal to repatriate the refugees within two years, but disagreements have held up the implementation of the plan.

Many Rohingya refugees say they will not return unless the 1982 law is changed.

People who identified themselves as Rohingya were excluded from Myanmar’s last nationwide census in 2014 and many had their identity documents taken or nullified, blocking them from voting in a landmark 2015 election.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who before coming to power said the government should have the “courage” to review the law, is now urging Rohingya to accept the National Verification Card, a residency document that falls short of full citizenship.

However, many Rohingya refuse to accept the document, which they say classifies life-long residents as new immigrants and does not allow them to travel freely.

The military, with whom Daw Aung San Suu Kyi shares power, flatly rejects Rohingya calls for citizenship. In a speech in March, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing said Rohingya “do not have any characteristics or culture in common with the ethnicities of Myanmar” and that the current conflict had been “fueled because the Bengalis demanded citizenship."

Diplomatic Difficulties

At the Copenhagen meeting, diplomats were about to break for lunch when Win Myat Aye said Myanmar had begun implementing only 80 of the 88 recommendations made by the commission, due to political and practical differences with the remaining eight, one of those present said.

According to a second person present, Annan responded: “You said you’re having difficulties with eight – which are those? Let’s get back to this after the break.”

Win Myat Aye then listed the recommendations he said Myanmar was struggling to implement. They included commitments to create an independent body to review complaints about citizenship verification, empower community leaders and civil society, and establish a mechanism for feedback on government performance.

“In diplo-speak when you say that something is difficult it tends to be a rejection,” the second source said. “That is how I understood this.”

The post Myanmar Rejects Citizenship Reform at Private Rohingya Talks appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Rescue Teams Battle High Water to Find Boys Missing in Thai Cave

Posted: 26 Jun 2018 09:24 PM PDT

CHIANG RAI, Thailand — Thai soldiers, volunteers and members of a navy “seal” unit including a team of divers worked through the night to try to find a group of young soccer players trapped inside a cave, as the search for the team entered a fourth day on Wednesday.

Rescue workers took turns pumping water from inside the cave amid difficult weather conditions including heavy rain overnight which caused water levels to rise inside the Tham Luang cave complex in the country’s northern Chiang Rai province.

“Last night we worked non-stop in order to drain water out of the cave as much as possible,” Major Buncha Duriyapan, commander of the 37th Military District in Chiang Rai, told Reuters.

The boys, aged between 11 and 16, and their 25-year-old assistant coach, went missing on Saturday after soccer practice.

Messages exchanged between the team members showed they planned to explore the cave and had taken flashlights and some food.

Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha told reporters on Wednesday that foreign divers would join the search effort, adding that he hoped for good news.

“We will have three foreign divers join the search effort,” Prayuth said. “I hope to have good news soon.”

Sergeant Kresada Wanaphum from the Royal Thai Army said high water levels inside the cave is the biggest challenge, along with low oxygen levels.

“Water is the biggest challenge. There is a lot of debris and sand that gets stuck while pumping,” Kresada told Reuters.

“We have to switch out units because there is not enough air in there,” he added, before entering the cave.

A guide to the caves of northern Thailand describes the Tham Luang cave as having an “impressive entrance chamber” leading to a marked path. It then describes the end of the path and the start of a series of chambers and boulders.

“This section of the cave has not been thoroughly explored. After a couple of hundred metres the cave reduces in size to a mud floored passage 2 m wide and 3 m high,” writes Martin Ellis, author of “The Caves of Thailand Volume 2.”

Vern Unsworth, a British cave explorer based in Chiang Rai who has joined the search operation, said water was entering the cave from two directions.

“There is a watershed inside, which is unusual; it means there is water coming in from two directions,” Unsworth told Reuters. “The biggest challenge is the water. Massive amounts.”

Nopparat Kantawong, the team’s head coach, who did not attend soccer practice on Saturday, said he believes the boys are still alive.

“I believe up until this very moment that my team members and my assistant coach still have some light left. They will not abandon each other,” Nopparat told reporters.

The post Rescue Teams Battle High Water to Find Boys Missing in Thai Cave appeared first on The Irrawaddy.
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