Thailand: Another controversial rally stirs emotions, points fingers – The Irrawaddy
June 24th, 2011
http://irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21562
BANGKOK/UDON THANI – Thailand’s Democrat Party last night used a controversial Bangkok election rally to focus on the perceived threat posed by former
Adulation for Democrat Party leader and outgoing PM Abhisit (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, while divesting the Government and security forces of responsibility for the deaths and destruction wrought during the March-May 2010 anti-Government redshirt protests.
“If you want to get rid of the poison that is Thaksin, then you should vote for us to get more than 250 seats”, said outgoing Prime Minister Abhisit Vejajjiva, closing-off a five hour rally held at the same Rajaprasong intersection where the redshirts blockaded for much of their 2 month rally last year.
Thaksin Shinawatra won successive elections as head of the Thai Rak Thai party in the early 2000s, but some Thais viewed his governing style as mercurial and overly-authoritarian, with whispers that his popularity, particularly in rural areas in the country’s north and northeast, posed an implicit challenge to the country’s monarchy. He was ousted in a September 2006 coup, and though the party backed by him from abroad formed a Government after a 2007 election, this entity was in turn removed from office after a combination of yellowshirt street protests and court decisions paved the way for coalition partners to defect to the Democrat side. (more…)
4 decades later, Laos bombing takes toll – The Irrawaddy
June 23rd, 2011
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21550
Phongsavath at the COPE Centre (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
VIENTIANE – It should have been one of those rite-of-passage days for any teenager. On their way to school to collect exam results, Phongsavath and two friends noticed an unusual-looking round steel object in the grass nearby. “We picked it up and passed it among us, wondering what it was and looking close”, Phongsavath recalls, a wry half-smile belying the horror story to come.
“I tried to open it”, he says, half-laughing at what in retrospect he says was childish curiosity on the part of him and his school-pals. “We looked at it, we passed it around”, Phongsavath says. “ I tried to open it, but then It blew up”, he says again, losing his hold on his white cane as he speaks. “Now as you see, I have no hands”.
Laos is said to be the world’s most-bombed country on a per-capita basis, with unknown numbers of unexploded material littering the countryside, a legacy of the Indochina wars of the 1960s and 1970s. Laos, officially knows as the Lao Peoples’ Democratic Republic, experienced the heaviest aerial military bombardment in history when the US airforce flew 580,000 bombing runs over the country between 1964 and 1973, targeting the North Vietnamese Ho Chi Minh trail, which looped through Laos, as part of the perhaps-misnamed Vietnam War.
While NGOs and Government agencies are working to educate people about the devices and how to avoid the dangers presented, it seems that not everyone can be covered, so some do not recognise the deadly litter when they find it.
What Phongsavath and his friends found that morning was part of a cluster bomb. Cluster bombs can contain dozens or even hundreds of smaller bombs – known locally as bombies – around the size and shape of tennis balls or beer cans. (more…)
New Refugee Arrests Undermine Recent Progress – The Irrawaddy
June 21st, 2011
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21536
Thai authorities arrest more refugees despite a recent high-profile release, as US cable examines Thailand’s earlier pushback of Rohingya refugees
Ahmadiyah freed on bail from Suan Plu on June 6 (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
BANGKOK – On June 7, the day after 96 Pakistani Ahmadiyah refugees and asylum seekers were freed on bail in what was hailed as a landmark new departure in Thailand’s dealings with refugees, six other Pakistani asylum-seekers and one refugee were arrested in Pathum Thani, north of Bangkok.
The seven were sent to Bangkok’s Suan Phlu Immigration Detention Centre (IDC), site of the high-profile June 6 release, says the UN refugee agency (UNCHR). “We are deeply concerned about these arrests that just increase the sense of insecurity that refugees and asylum seekers already feel”, said Jean-Noël Wetterwald, UNHCR Regional representative and Coordinator fo Southeast Asia.
The June 7 arrests were followed up on June 9 with the arrest of nine more Ahmadiyah asylum-seekers in Ayutthuya, with still more Ahmadiyah detained on June 15. (more…)
Burma’s refugee numbers means census just scratches surface – The Irrawaddy/RTÉ World Report
June 20th, 2011
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21524
audio - http://www.rte.ie/news/av/2011/0619/worldreport.html#
Landmine victim Than Tin recuperating at Mae Tao clinic in Mae Sot. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
MAE SOT/MAE LA – Oblivious to the late afternoon downpour, six children chase around near the roadside fence at Mae La camp, the biggest of nine refugee camps along the Thailand-Burma frontier.
“Please, no photos of the people”, implores a man standing nearby, sheltering against the wall of one the thousands of timber huts running along the roadside. Three of the children are his, though he refuses to give his name, saying only that he crossed to Thailand from Burma’s Karen State “more than one year ago” and has been confined to the camp since.
Acting on the orders of Tak Provincial Governor Samart Loifah, Thai officials started a headcount in Mae La and in Umpiem Mai and Nu Pu, the two other camps in Tak province. The census is ongoing, with roughly 40% of the estimated total 140,000+ Burmese refugee population in Thailand unregistered.
The Thai government stopped screening and registering new arrivals in 2005, meaning that there are around 60,000 unregistered refugees from Burma currently inside Thailand, according to Sally Thompson of the Thailand-Burma Border Consortium (TBBC), a grouping of 12 NGOs that assists the Burmese refugees in the border camps
In total Thailand hosts just over 96,000 registered refugees, according to figures released by the United Nations refugee commission (UNHCR) in its 2010 Global Trends Report, which was published today to mark World Refugee Day. Worldwide, Pakistan, Iran, and Syria have the largest refugee populations at 1.9 million, 1.1 million, and 1 million respectively, numbers swollen due to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. (more…)
“There is no protection for people, how can they go back?” – CNN Go
June 17th, 2011
http://www.cnngo.com/explorations/life/life-burmese-landmine-refugee-536453
Mae Sot, Thailand – With his crutches resting against the clinic bed, Than Tin rolls up his trouser leg, gingerly pointing to a heavily bandaged leg stump. “All I remember was being blasted up in the air”, recalls the 48 year old father of 5, hoisting both arms to suggest the impact of the landmine. “First was no pain, but half my leg was gone, but then it was like so bad burning.”
Mae La refugee camp, north of Mae Sot (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
He was logging in the forests around Myawaddy, a trading town on Burmese side of the border with Thailand and close to one of the world’s longest-running civil wars. Unknown numbers of landmines litter the hilly jungle terrain, on and off the beaten tracks close to where Government soldiers fight ethnic minority rebel militias and beleaguered civilians hide out in their tens of thousands, or make the hard trek to a precarious refuge in Thailand. (more…)
A Grim Trade: Burma’s ethnic women trafficked to China – The Irrawaddy
June 14th, 2011
http://irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21486
BANGKOK – A mix of unscrupulous traffickers, Burma’s economic decline and militarisation, and a shortage of males caused by China’s one-child policy contribute to the trafficking of women from the Palaung region of Burma into China, says a locally-based activist group.
“Since 2007 we documented 72 cases of actual and suspected trafficking involving 110 people” said Lway Moe Kam of the Palaung Women’s Organisation (PWO), adding that her research showed that 11 children under ten years of age were among the victims.
25% of the women trafficked were forced to marry Chinese men and 10% of the caseload were coerced into the sex trade, according to the PWO, which grimly concluded that 90% of trafficking victims do not escape. (more…)
Thai Developer Touts Burma Port Project – The Irrawaddy
June 8th, 2011
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21452
Premchai Karnasuta talks to journalists in Bangkok on Wednesday (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
BANGKOK — “A gateway to Indochina and south China” and “a short-cut pioneer of global transformation”—that is how the Thai conglomerate responsible for developing the Dawei (known as Tavoy in Burma) port project in southern Burma described the complex in Bangkok on Wednesday.
Speaking at a conference organized by the Italian-Thai Development Public Company, which was selected to run the US $8 billion project on Nov. 2, 2010, the company’s president, Premchai Karnasuta, painted an impressive picture of what it will mean for Thailand and the region.
“When completed, Dawei will save time and money, cutting four to five days off import and export calendars,” said Premchai.
As things stand, Thailand’s overseas exports are sent around Singapore via the Strait of Malacca—a narrow and congested sea lane through which 50 percent of the world’s maritime trade passes—before being shipped to the West and elsewhere. (more…)
Ahmadiyah release offers hope for Rohingya – The Irrawaddy
June 7th, 2011
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21444
Overjoyed Ahmadiyah embrace as they get ready to depart Suan Plu detention centre (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
BANGKOK – “We are so happy this day to be released”, said Haraan Sidique, boarding a bus at Bangkok’s Suan Plu Immigration Detention Centre on Monday morning, after spending almost 7 months behind bars at refugee prison in central Bangkok.
He is part of a group of 96 Ahmadiyah refugees and asylum seekers from Pakistan that have been released from detention by Thai authorities, a landmark development in a country that does not formally recognise refugees. Thailand is currently coming to the end of its tenure as President of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.
The released Ahmadiyah are members of a minority Muslim group that is oppressed in Pakistan, where they are not recognised as Muslims and are often victims of sectarian violence. As women carried infants and ushered older children toward the waiting buses, males in the group thanked Thai officials and police at the IDC, all clearly relieved at being released from the IDC. (more…)
Territorial Hissings – The Irrawaddy
June 6th, 2011
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21433
BANGKOK—A rare public protest held on Sunday in Vietnam’s capital Hanoi illustrates how seriously the country’s government takes what it describes as Chinese violations of its sovereignty.
On Sunday morning in Hanoi, hundreds of protesters gathered for half an hour outside the Chinese Embassy, not far from a landmark statue of Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin, in the center of the capital. Some apparently came after rallying calls made on social networking sites such as Facebook, despite the latter being officially blocked in Vietnam. After being turned back by police, some of the gathering paraded through city’s streets as far as Hoan Kiem Lake near the old town, chanting anti-Chinese slogans and carrying placards in Vietnamese and English with slogans such as “Protesting Against China Causing Trouble.” In Ho Chi Minh City, the sprawling commercial capital in the south, demonstrators converged on the Chinese consulate on Sunday. (more…)
Promises and pitfalls with investing in Vietnam – Sunday Business Post/RTÉ World Report
May 29th, 2011
http://www.rte.ie/news/av/2011/0529/worldreport.html#
James Galvin and developer Chau Luu work on Cork Jazz festival iPhone app (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
By Simon Roughneen in Ho Chi Minh City. By the end of 2012 James Galvin hopes to employ 150 staff at Glandore Systems’ Vietnam operation. This will almost double the current 90 web developers working at the company’s office, a 40 minute drive from the centre of Ho Chi Minh City through frenetic motorcycle-addled traffic.
With headquarters in Cork, the company’s operation in the city known informally as Saigon focuses on software development, including iPad/iPhone applications. Part of the attraction is Vietnam’s low salary structure, with an experienced developer paid US$600 month at Glandore – above the local average according to James Galvin. “Unlike most European-based software operations, we can maintain enough staff to be able to to respond quickly to new opportunities and avoid being overstretched”, he added.
Speaking last week at the Ireland-Southeast Asia Business Seminar, Nguyen Trung Tin of the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee said that the trade and investment relationship between Ireland and Vietnam is low, when weighed against the potential links between the two countries. (more…)
