WOMEN LEAD THE REVOLUTION
Sudanese man killed in crackdown on anti-coup protests as UN expert arrives


Regular protests have rocked the northeast African country since army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan led a military takeover in October, sparking international condemnation (AFP/Ebrahim Hamid) 

Sun, February 20, 2022

A Sudanese man was shot dead Sunday as security forces cracked down on rallies against last year's military coup, medics said, as a UN rights expert arrived in the country.

Regular protests have rocked the northeast African country since army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan led a military takeover in October, sparking international condemnation.

United Nations human rights expert Adama Dieng is visiting Sudan until Thursday, on a trip initially planned for last month but postponed at the request of Sudanese authorities.

A 51-year-old man was hit Sunday with "a live bullet to the chest", the Sudanese Doctors' Committee said, bringing the death toll in a crackdown on anti-coup protests to 82.

"The martyr was a patient at a hospital in Khartoum North... and went out to get some air after struggling with shortness of breath due to the heavy firing of tear gas which filled the hospital ward," the committee said, adding that he was then shot dead.

Thousands had rallied in the capital Khartoum on Sunday, carrying Sudanese flags and posters of others killed during demonstrations in recent months, an AFP correspondent said.

Security forces fired tear gas and wounded several protesters who were heading toward the presidential palace, the correspondent said, while tear gas was also used in nearby Omdurman and North Khartoum.

"We are ready to protest all year," one demonstrator, 24-year-old Thoyaba Ahmed, told AFP, while another, Wadah Khaled, said: "We want to rectify our country's situation to have a good future."

"We need to make sacrifices to resolve the country's issues," said 25-year-old Arij Salah, another demonstrator.

The October takeover derailed a transition painstakingly negotiated between military and civilian leaders following the 2019 ouster of president Omar al-Bashir.

While Sudan has repeatedly denied opening fire on protesters, Human Rights Watch has quoted witnesses detailing how the security forces have used both "live ammunition" and fired tear gas canisters "directly" at crowds, a tactic that can be deadly at close quarters.

UN special representative Volker Perthes said on Twitter Sunday that he met with rights expert Dieng on "his first official visit" to Sudan.

"Dieng will meet with senior Sudanese government officials, representatives of civil society organisations, human rights defenders, heads of UN entities, and diplomats," the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a statement this week.

Separately, dozens rallied outside a court complex in Khartoum to protest against the trial of several Bashir-era figures, an AFP correspondent said.

Among those on trial is former foreign minister Ibrahim Ghandour, who faces charges over plotting a coup in 2020.

Ghandour's family said last month that he had begun a hunger strike in prison, along with several ex-regime officials.

bur/lg

YOUTH REVOLT
Tear Gas Fired at Sudan Anti-Coup Protest as UN Expert Arrives
February 20, 2022 

Agence France-Presse

Demonstrators march during ongoing protests calling for civilian rule and denouncing the military administration, in the Sahafa neighborhood in the south of Sudan's capital Khartoum, Feb. 20, 2022.

KHARTOUM —

Sudanese security forces on Sunday fired tear gas at protesters demonstrating against last year's military coup, an AFP correspondent said, as a United Nations human rights expert arrived in the country.

Thousands rallied in the capital Khartoum, carrying the Sudanese flags and posters of people killed during anti-coup demonstrations in recent months.

Security forces fired tear gas and wounded several protesters who were heading toward the presidential palace in central Khartoum, the correspondent said.

"We are ready to protest all year," said one demonstrator, 24-year-old Thoyaba Ahmed.

Regular protests have rocked the northeast African country since army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan led a military takeover in October, sparking international condemnation.

The move derailed a transition painstakingly negotiated between military and civilian leaders following the 2019 ouster of president Omar al-Bashir.

"We want to rectify our country's situation to have a good future," demonstrator Wadah Khaled told AFP.

At least 81 people have been killed and hundreds wounded in a violent crackdown on the protests, according to an independent medics group.

"We need to make sacrifices to resolve the country's issues," 25-year-old demonstrator Arij Salah said.

U.N. human rights expert Adama Dieng, meanwhile, is visiting Sudan until Thursday, on a trip initially planned for last month but postponed at the request of Sudanese authorities.

"Dieng will meet with senior Sudanese government officials, representatives of civil society organizations, human rights defenders, heads of U.N. entities, and diplomats," the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a statement this week.

Separately Sunday, dozens rallied outside a court complex in Khartoum to protest against the trial of several Bashir-era figures, an AFP correspondent said.

Among those on trial is former foreign minister Ibrahim Ghandour, who faces charges over plotting a coup in 2020.

Ghandour's family said last month that he had begun a hunger strike in prison, along with several ex-regime officials.

BETTER LIVING THROUGH CHEMISTRY

Once-taboo ketamine booms for US at-home mental care


February 20, 2022

WASHINGTON, D.C.: Americans are paying to get a star of the psychedelic medicine movement — ketamine — shipped to them for at-home mental health treatments that are being called both a breakthrough and a gamble.

A pandemic-spurred easing of prescription rules helped fuel a jump in telemedicine offerings of ketamine, an anesthetic that was once a taboo party drug but has become a buzzed-about tool against depression.

Yet long-term, large-scale studies of ketamine's medical impact are limited, leaving some experts concerned that an unregulated online boom could result in mishaps or a regulatory crackdown.

"This has to be rolled out slowly," said Boris Heifets, a Stanford University assistant professor of anesthesiology. "The risk is that we are scaling the fix but not the solution, which is a much more integrated approach to mental health."

Ketamine has been available in the United States since the 1970s as an anesthetic called a "dissociative" because of the hallucinogenic effects that have helped make it a rave culture drug.

It's legal for US doctors to prescribe, while some other psychedelics getting renewed attention for mental health uses like LSD or MDMA (also called ecstasy) are classified as having no medical utility and a high risk for abuse.

In this context, recent years have seen an uptick in clinics offering in-person intravenous ketamine treatments for depression, anxiety or chronic pain, though regulations and practices vary across American states.



Philip Markle poses for a photo with a ketamine pill pack at his home in the Brooklyn borough of New York, on January 27, 2022. AFP PHOTO​​​​​​​

Ketamine 'babysitter'

Then came the pandemic, which resulted in US authorities allowing doctors to remotely prescribe drugs like ketamine that previously required an in-person visit.

An increasing number of companies, some already doing in-clinic treatments, began offering to evaluate clients online and to send the drugs for home use to approved candidates.

Nue Life, which launched about a year ago, is one of those firms. Its CEO Juan Pablo Cappello estimated it has served over 3,000 ketamine patients so far.

"If you actually drill down on the sort of potentials for abuse here, you realize of course they exist, but we're creating a standard of care to make that quite unlikely," he told AFP.

For example, he noted clients are instructed to have an adult "babysitter" watch over them for the roughly 90 minutes the drug experience lasts, and he reasoned that people simply looking for ketamine could get it cheaper on the street.

Clients of the service, which costs $1,250 for a package providing six ketamine experiences, are encouraged but not obligated to couple it with therapy, Cappello said.

"The at-home telemedicine model, I would argue, is actually safer and more effective for patients," allowing more patients "to actually take advantage of these therapies," he added.

Heifets, the Stanford researcher, noted that making ketamine more available carries risks — including the chances that authorities would tighten access if an at-home treatment resulted in some sort of tragedy.


Philip Markle poses for a photo with a ketamine pill pack at his home in the Brooklyn borough of New York, on January 27, 2022. AFP PHOTO

'Change your life'

US regulators in 2019 approved a type of ketamine specifically for adults with treatment-resistant depression, though with stringent rules like requiring patients to be monitored by a health care provider for at least two hours after their dose.

Americans have "a hair trigger for problem-solving through litigation," Heifets noted of the potential for lawsuits if things go wrong.

He was part of a team that analyzed the real-world effectiveness of intravenous ketamine therapy -- which can involve higher doses than the at-home services -- and reported most patients improved, though about eight percent said depressive symptoms worsened after treatment.

"We have very, very little evidence for our understanding of how effective ketamine is for depression at scale," he added.

Yet for people like 36-year-old New Yorker Philip Markle, who underwent an at-home treatment with a company called Mindbloom, ketamine is a profoundly useful tool.

Over his long battle with depression, the performer and comedian has tried medication, psychedelics like LSD, and talk therapy since the age of 12, but found something unique in ketamine.

Rather than the short-lived sense of change other treatments provided, ketamine imparted a sense of clarity and of helpful self-acceptance — not the heavy effects he'd experienced with other psychedelics.

"It felt like if any drug could be administered through the mail, and you could do a psychedelic that could change your life, on your own, this would be the one," he told AFP.

CRIMINAL STATE CAPITALI$M

World Bank investment arm complicit in China’s repression of Uyghurs, report says

The International Finance Corporation is supporting firms in Xinjiang that have allegedly violated human rights.

By Jilil Kashgary and Alim Seytoff
2022.02.17

Vehicles drive by the headquarters of the International Finance Corporation in Washington, DC, in a file photo.Wikimedia Commons

The World Bank’s private sector lending arm provided nearly half a billion dollars to four Chinese companies accused of using Uyghur forced labor in China’s far-western Xinjiang region, according to an investigative report issued Thursday.

The International Financial Corporation (IFC) has several investments in the region, where predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities have been subjected to severe human rights abuses that the United States and other countries have said constitute genocide and crimes against humanity.

The nearly 70-page report titled “Financing and Genocide: Development Finance and the Crisis in the Uyghur Region” says significant evidence suggests that four companies that are IFC clients — Chenguang Biotech Co. Ltd., Camel Group Co. Ltd., Century Sunshine Group Holdings Ltd., and Jointown Pharmaceutical Group Co. Ltd., — actively participate in China’s repression of the Uyghurs through forced labor, forced displacement, cultural eradication, and environmental destruction.

The IFC currently has about U.S. $486 million in direct loans and equity investment in these four companies operating in Xinjiang, the report says.

IFC’s failure to adequately safeguard communities and the environment affected by its financing makes the institution complicit in the repression of Uyghur, Kazakh and other members of minority groups, says the report, which was written by U.S. think tank the Atlantic Council, the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice at Sheffield Hallam University in the U.K., and the nonprofit research organization NomoGaia.

The report’s findings are based on publicly available information from Chinese state media, satellite imagery, IFC’s own project documentation, corporate disclosures, and social media posts from local police and labor agencies.

“These four companies all use labor transfers that experts have identified as being forced, and they have all accepted people who have been designated as surplus labor,” said Laura Murphy, a human rights professor at Sheffield Hallam and one of the authors of the report.

Chenguang Biotech has been collaborating with the Chinese government to move Uyghurs off their land so that it can use the land for the production of raw materials, while Century Sunshine and Camel Group are responsible for significant environmental pollution in Xinjiang, Murphy told RFA.

The IFC has eight performance standards to ensure the upholding of the human rights of populations affected by its investment projects, according to the report. Among the standards are rigorous oversight of labor conditions, pollution prevention and biodiversity protection, community safety and security, indigenous and cultural rights, and protections against economic or physical displacement.

“IFC sets eight clear standards that all companies that receive loans from them must adhere to, and the companies are required to submit documentation, [and] to do monitoring to ensure that they maintain their conformity with those standards,” Murphy said.

Though IFC typically monitors and inspects investment projects, it has not been able to go to Xinjiang since 2019 to ensure that companies are maintaining its standards, she said.

“The concern we have is that starting in 2017, international governments knew what was happening in that region,” Murphy said. “And despite their knowledge of what’s happening to the Uyghur region [with] the internment of Uyghurs [and] the forced labor, the International Finance Corporation continued to send money into and release new loans to companies in the Uyghur region.

“We’re calling on the IFC to change those policies,” she said.

‘Financing China’s genocide’

World Bank spokesman David Theis referred RFA to the IFC for comment on the report.

An IFC spokesman said in an emailed response that the development financing institution takes allegations of forced labor and poor treatment of vulnerable groups seriously and works to verify and address the charges with its clients.

“Our work in China focuses on the transition to more environmentally sustainable growth and the reduction of inequality,” the spokesman said. “It is driven by the core principle of inclusion, with special consideration for the protection of vulnerable people and communities.”

He also said that while the COVID-19 virus pandemic and travel restrictions have made it difficult in the last two years for the IFC to assess projects on the ground, the institution has dedicated more resources to supervising the companies it works with regarding environmental, social and governance standards.

The standards are legally binding, include protections for workers, communities, and the environment, and expressly prohibit discrimination and the use of forced labor, he said.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a regular press conference on Thursday that the report was a false and “maliciously fabricated.”

“As we have learned, the institution that wrote the report has no staff in Xinjiang,” he said. “And before releasing the report, it did not conduct any field trips or carry out research in a real sense. The content thus lacks factual support and is full of lies and groundless accusations.”

Wang also said that the Chinese government attaches great importance to protecting human rights and worker’s rights and interests.

Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress, a Uyghur rights activist group, said it was unacceptable for the World Bank to provide financing to the four Chinese companies implicated with using Uyghur forced labor amid China’s genocide in Xinjiang.

“This is not simply a matter of financing Chinese companies but rather China’s genocide,” he said. He said the World Bank should immediately suspend its financing of the companies.

Translated by RFA’s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

'Bachelet welcome to visit Xinjiang'

 By Xinhua News Agency
February 21, 2022

BEIJING: China welcomes UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet to visit the country, including a visit to Xinjiang, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Saturday.


WELCOME VISITOR This handout picture posted on the Twitter account of the UN Human Rights organization on Friday, Feb. 18, 2022, shows Dubai's Sheikha Latifa (left) posing for a picture with UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet in Paris recently. AFP PHOTO

Wang attended the 58th Munich Security Conference via video link and made the remarks in response to queries concerning China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

Wang said China has long expressed its welcome to Bachelet and is discussing with Bachelet and her office on the schedule, and Bachelet will see a Xinjiang, where peace and stability are maintained and people of all ethnic groups live in harmony during her visit.

Noting that Xinjiang is adjacent to an area where terrorist and extremist forces are concentrated, Wang said the local government of Xinjiang, in order to maintain the safety of the people, carried out deradicalization work through education, in accordance with the practices of countries including Britain and France and international practices. Such work has fundamentally eliminated the soil of extremism and won the support of the people in Xinjiang, Wang said, adding that in the past five years, there have been no violent terrorist incidents in the region.

The so-called systematic "forced labor" or "re-education camps" are all lies and fabrication, Wang said. China welcomes foreigners to visit Xinjiang to learn the truth of the matter, Wang said, noting that before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, Xinjiang had received more than 2,000 government officials, religious figures and journalists from more than 100 countries and international organizations. "But one thing is certain, people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang do not welcome any investigation based on the presumption of guilt and they firmly oppose all kinds of prejudice and groundless accusations against China's ethnic policies," Wang said.

ECOCIDE

Last Irrawaddy dolphin in northeastern Cambodia dies

Lao residents believe the freshwater mammal was the country’s last one.

By RFA Staff
2022.02.17

In this file photo taken March 2007, an Irrawaddy dolphin, also known as the Mekong dolphin, swims in the Mekong River at Kampi village in northeastern Cambodia's Kratie province. Reuters

 The last known endangered freshwater Irrawaddy dolphin on a stretch the Mekong River near Cambodia’s border with Laos died this week, after it was reported snagged in a fishing net, wildlife officials and villagers in the Southeast Asian countries said.

“We are deeply saddened by the loss of the last dolphin … near the border of Laos,” Cambodia’s Fisheries Conservation Department said on its Facebook page.

Despite international efforts to protect it, the Irrawaddy dolphin sub-population in northeastern Cambodia “still faced serious pressure from human activities, the change of the Mekong water flow, and climate change, causing the total population to gradually decline, and the last individual died on February 15, 2022,” it said.

Listed as critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List, populations of the aquatic mammal, also known as the Mekong River dolphin, survive downriver in Cambodia, in its namesake Irrawaddy River in Myanmar and in Indonesia.

According to the AP news agency, the first census of Irrawaddy dolphins in Cambodia in 1997 put their total population at about 200, a number that fell to 89 in 2020.

“The remaining population of ‘critically endangered’ river dolphins in the Cambodia section of the Mekong is now stable, whilst still facing serious challenges,” AP quoted a statement from Lan Mercado, Asia-Pacific director of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) as saying. “This latest river dolphin death highlights how vulnerable these and other species remain.”

The dolphin—described by the WWF as 25-year-old male, 2.6 meters (8.5 feet) long and weighing 110 kilograms (242 pounds) —was reported in local Cambodia media to have been seen last week struggling in a net.

A social media photo from Cambodia's Fisheries Conservation Department shows 

the carcass of the Irrawaddy dolphin Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2022.

Up the river and across the border in southern Laos, residents of the village nearest to the Mekong River freshwater dolphin habitat confirmed news of the death had reached the region and described conditions in recent years that led to the mammal’s decline.

“The one that just died was the last freshwater dolphin in this area,” said a resident of Hang Sadam village. “There will be no more dolphins in Laos because they have run out of food and the ecosystem has been destroyed.”

In last several years, three freshwater dolphins were been found in the Mekong River in southern Laos, but two died last year and Tuesday death finished them off, according to the WWF.

“When they didn’t have food, they’d wander into other territory where people fish or even use explosive to catch fish. That’s why they’ve all died,” added the Hang Sadam villager.

 A fisherman in Hang Sadam village told RFA’s Lao Service the last half decade has brought dramatic change, particularly from dams on the Mekong.

“The Mekong River dams, including Don Sahong Dam in the area, must have had a role in the demise of the dolphin. When the dams hold water, the Mekong River will be dry, or sometimes, the dolphins get caught in people’s nets and die.”

Don Sahong Dam is one of two operational Mekong mainstream dams in Laos, which has three others in the planning or early construction stages as the government looks to generate revenue by selling the electricity from its hydropower projects to its neighbors. China operates 11 mega-dams on the river, with at least two more planned.

 Translated by Max Avary for RFA's Lao Service and Sok-Ry Som of the Khmer Service. Written by Paul Eckert.

 

Vietnamese workers celebrate Tet with strikes demanding pay raises

Laborers took action at nearly 30 sites over five weeks, not always with success.

2022.02.18

Vietnamese factory workers in various locations wage strikes demanding salary increases and other benefits following Tet, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year holiday, February 2022.22Photos courtesy of Vietnemese state media

Thousands of workers staged nearly 30 strikes throughout Vietnam ahead of and over the Lunar New Year celebration, demanding higher wages and other benefits, the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor (VGCL) said Wednesday.

The holiday known as Tet is the most important festival in Vietnamese culture. It fell on Feb. 1 this year. VGCL, Vietnam’s main trade union, said businesses and factories closed for nine days, from Jan. 29 to Feb. 6, to celebrate.

Workers in Vietnam often receive a holiday bonus and pay raises for the new year before Tet. But if they are not happy with the modest bonus and new salary, they post their grievances on social media or take to the streets waging strikes.

The 28 strikes took place in 12 provinces, including Thai Binh, Ninh Binh, Bac Ninh and Nghe An, from Jan. 1 to early February, the VGCL said.

Besides seeking higher pay, workers demanded more allowances for food and fuel and new benefits like seniority pay and support for workers who have contracted the COVID-19 virus.

Some workers returned to their jobs after employers met at least a few of their demands.

For example, employees at Viet Glory Co., Ltd., a Taiwanese-owned footwear manufacturer in central Vietnam’s Nghe An province, returned to work this week after the company agreed to give its 5,000-strong workforce a 6 percent salary increase and extra pay for long-term workers.

But in other cases, company managers only made relatively minor concessions while putting bigger demands like pay raises on hold. VGCL said that companies should clearly explain to employees why they are not able to meet specific demands.

A worker at an apparel factory in central Vietnam’s Ha Tinh province told RFA that most laborers were striking for higher pay. Employers have used the adverse economic impact from COVID to justify not increasing salary levels.

“Companies often increase their base salary at the beginning of a year,” said the woman, who works for South Korea-owned Haivina Hai Duong Co., Ltd. “However, I heard that due to the epidemic, no companies have given a pay rise to their workers, and they have only met some of workers’ demands, not all.”

A second Haivina worker, who also declined to give her name so as to speak freely, said the Viet Glory strike had inspired and encouraged employees in other places to stand up, though it was unlikely that the strikes were coordinated.

“The workers did it spontaneously,” she said. “They did not contact each other.”

Lingering discontent

Nearly all the companies told striking workers they did not increase pay because they were already paying wages higher than regional minimum wages stipulated by law.

Vietnam’s labor laws allow companies to make their own decisions regarding additional allowances. But some workers told RFA that the base salaries set by Vietnam’s labor laws are too low, particularly as the cost of food and other essentials have increased.

On average, most factory laborers earn about 6 million dong (U.S. $256) a month with little or no pay differential for overtime work, workers said.

“We went on strike in hopes of getting a pay raise as our current salary is too low,” said the second Haivina worker. “Even though we take night shifts, we only can earn 7 million dong a month.”

Vietnam sets four regional wage levels, with the highest minimum wage at 4.2 million dong a month and the lowest at about 3 million dong a month. The base wage for workers in Nghe An and Ha Tinh provinces is 3.4 million dong a month.

Employees at factories in Nghe An province staged at least three strikes following the Tet holiday week.

More than 1,700 workers at a factory run by Em-Tech Vietnam Co., Ltd., in central Vietnam’s Nghe An province who went on strike on Tuesday resumed work the following day after the company agreed to pay each employee 50,000 dong (U.S. $2) for COVID-19 virus testing support. The company also pledged to improve meal allowances and virus preventive measures next month, in accordance with government regulations.

Not everyone was pleased about the outcome because the company did not agree to any wage increases.

“If they don’t give us a pay raise, they should tell us why,” said a factory worker. “They haven’t given any explanations so far.”

“Although the pay raise issue has not been resolved, we still have to get back to work; otherwise, we will be fired,” she added.

Also on Wednesday, about 700 workers from Nam Thuan Nghe An Joint Stock Company, an apparel and garment maker and exporter, returned to work after a one-day strike. Other employees remained off the job because they were not satisfied with the company’s response to their demands.

Workers asked managers to address 14 issues, including unequal pay increases, a small gasoline allowance and unreasonable salary reductions.

‘Labor union is useless’

Some trade union activists expressed frustration not only at their employer but with VGCL and its regional branches, which they do not think have fought hard enough for worker interests.

The first worker at Haivina said she has always paid her monthly labor union fee, even though the labor group has not been an effective ally.

“During the last strike, the provincial labor union came to negotiate with the company but to no avail,” she said. “Our labor union hasn’t resolved anything. I don’t know about other companies, but at this company the labor union is useless.”

Bui Thien Tri, chairman of the Vietnam Independent Union, a nonprofit organization that aims to improve workers’ rights, told RFA via email that the workers themselves remain their best advocates.

“Almost all the strikes in Vietnam so far have been spontaneous and not led by labor unions which are grassroots-level representatives of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor,” he said.

“This shows the very small role of government trade unions in representing workers’ rights at the grassroots level, as well as the irresponsibility of government trade union leaders in not fulfilling their responsibility while still being paid by the workers’ contributions,” Tri said.

Vietnam’s new labor law that went into effect on Jan. 1, 2021, permits the creation of worker organizations not affiliated with the VGCL. But the lack of additional government guidance has meant workers have yet to establish their own representative organizations.

District and provincial branches of the government labor union do not intervene in worker demands until strikes occur, at which stage they act together with local government officials and police to resolve the conflict and get workers back on the job as soon as possible, Tri said.

“They attribute the strikes to the grassroots-level labor unions being new and inexperienced, even non-existent in some companies, so workers have nowhere to turn,” he said.

Translated by Chau Vu for RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Myanmar junta rejects push for Asean envoy to meet opponents

Asean has been at the forefront of diplomatic efforts to end the crisis. 

PHOTO: REUTERS

YANGON (AFP) - The Myanmar junta on Sunday (Feb 20) rejected a regional special envoy's request to meet with a group of ousted lawmakers - which it had branded a terrorist group - amid attempts to break a year long political stalemate since the coup.

Myanmar has been in chaos, its economy paralysed and more than 1,500 civilians have been killed in a military crackdown since the putsch in February 2021, according to a local monitoring group.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations - a 10-country bloc - has been at the forefront of diplomatic efforts to end the crisis which triggered mass protests and a brutal crackdown on dissent, including 12,000 people arrested

Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn, the new Asean special envoy to Myanmar, told a meeting of the bloc's foreign ministers Thursday that he planned to visit in March and meet with top junta officials.

With backing from Malaysia, he has also sought to meet with members of a "National Unity Government" (NUG) dominated by lawmakers from Aung San Suu Kyi's ousted party that is working to overthrow the junta.

Myanmar's Foreign Ministry issued a statement late on Sunday saying it would promote "constructive cooperation with Asean including the special envoy".

However, it could not agree to the special envoy engaging with "unlawful associations and terrorist groups" because they were "perpetrating violence and pursuing (a) total destructive path".

The ministry said the suggestion was "contrary to the principles of the Asean charter but also undermines Asean's counter-terrorism efforts".

"The Ministry again urges the two members not to use Asean platforms to make such comments and encourages (them) to condemn the terrorist acts," the statement said.

In May last year the junta declared the NUG "terrorists" and has jailed several high-ranking members of Suu Kyi's party.

Most NUG members are in exile or in hiding and Prak Sokhonn gave no details on where or when any future meeting might take place.

Myanmar's top diplomat was barred from Thursday's meeting in Phnom Penh over a lack of progress in defusing violence, although Prak Sokhonn said junta representatives had been allowed to listen in on discussions.

Myanmar junta adds arson to its arsenal with proxy forces that torch opposition areas

The junta is pitting Pyu Saw Htee forces against opponents – ‘just like setting up cockfights,’ says one fighter.

2022.02.20

An aerial view of Chaung Oo village, in Sagaing region's Pale township, where junta troops and Pyu Saw Htee fighters burned more than 300 homes, Dec. 18, 2022.

The torching of hundreds of homes in Myanmar’s Sagaing region Friday highlights a brutal weapon in the junta’s scorched-earth campaign in the parts of the country that have resisted the year-old military regime: the secretive Pyu Saw Htee militia.

The pro-junta forces are the year-old military regime’s answer to the People’s Defense Force (PDF) militias that have sprung up across swathes of Myanmar to resist the military takeover.  

In a recent measure of their impact, the research group Data for Myanmar reported that pro-junta forces burned down a total of 4,571 homes between seizing power in a military coup on Feb. 1, 2021 and Feb. 14 this year.

Friday’s arson attack in volatile Sagaing’s Pale township followed a pattern of escalating junta responses to response to PDF actions.

Residents of Pale’s Chaung Oo village told RFA’s Myanmar Service that around 20 soldiers and Pyu Saw Htee fighters stormed the area in an early morning raid, torching more than 300 of the tract’s 350 homes, following an attack on their joint training camp near Zee Pyu Kone by pro-democracy militias on Feb. 14.

“Pyu Saw Htee forces and soldiers came from the northwest of the village and burned our homes. The wind was coming from the west, and it fanned the flames,” he said.

The source said that while the fires had since gone out, residents were still unable to return to the village due to the ongoing threat of an attack.

Internet service has been shut down for nearly six months in Pale, but sources in the area say that pro-junta forces have burned at least 1,000 homes in the township’s Hlaw Gar, Inn Ma Htee, Pan, and Mwe Tone villages–sending thousands of refugees scrambling for shelter in nearby forests.

Asked about Friday’s arson attacks, junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun said the military was not responsible for burning the homes.

“PDF troops are organizing terrorist activities in Sagaing. Because of instability in the region, local people are forming the militias to resist against [the shadow National Unity Government (NUG)] and the PDFs,” he said.

“The PDFs have attacked these villages and burned down the houses. The military is protecting civilians who had to flee their villages because of this. There is no reason the military would do such a thing because they are there to protect civilians.”

Pyu Saw Htee fighters train at a shooting range under the tutelage of junta soldiers, 

Feb. 11, 2022. RFA

‘Widely viewed as military stooges’

Zaw Min Tun also dismissed reports of the Pyu Saw Htee’s existence, although he acknowledged that the military is currently “forming native militia groups” in response to “internal insurgency movements” in play since Myanmar gained its independence from Britain in 1948.

“The groups located in areas with heavy insurgent activity are in a challenging situation.” he said, adding that all militia groups working with the military will surrender their guns at the “end of their mission.”

Pyu Saw Htee is derived from Pyusawhti, the legendary founding king of the Pagan Dynasty, the first Burmese kingdom.

Sources told RFA that Myanmar’s military is not only responsible for arson attacks against civilians, but that the junta has been secretly organizing citizen militias to disrupt, detain, or even kill activists that oppose its rule.

In areas where the PDFs were the strongest, such as in Magway and Sagaing regions in the north and west, the junta armed and trained groups of citizens who support military rule, forming the militia groups now known as the Pyu Saw Htee. The groups were given carte blanche to make arrests, seize property, kill PDF members, and destroy villages, sources said.

The online news outlet The Irrawaddy in June reported that the groups are “widely viewed as military stooges,” but were responsible for assassinations of the elected politicians deposed in the 2021 coup, burnings of schools in Yangon and other cities, and disinformation campaigns to discredit junta opponents.

“The groups consist of active and retired military personnel, civil servants, members of the military proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party, ultranationalists and people hired for a wage of 5,000 kyats (about US$3) per day,” the independent outlet reported.

The military party’s crushing loss to Aung San Suu Kyi’s ruling party in November 2020 elections the military claims were rigged triggered the army coup d’état three months later.

Stealing cattle

Soe Lay of Gangaw township in the region of Magway, which has also targeted by arson attacks, said the military and their proxies work in lock step and also steal livestock.

“They provided military training. They are even building bunkers in our villages. Some even have machine guns. The Pyu Saw Htee are gaining strongholds in the largest villages of Gangaw township,” Soe Lay told RFA.

“They came in alongside a military regiment and they slaughtered our cattle and took it away,” he said.

Soe Lay’s village has been able to mount an effective defense so far, but he said he worries that the Pyu Saw Htee or the military could one day use a stronger force to overrun the village.

RFA has been unable to independently verify the total number of Pyu Saw Htee groups throughout Myanmar. A Facebook account that claimed to be linked to the group’s headquarters wrote in May that it had formed on March 5, 2021 and counted veterans and members of the pro-military Ma Ba Tha nationalist groups among its personnel. 

A PDF member in Pale township told RFA the military has armed the Pyu Saw Htee to crush the junta resistance and sow conflict. 

“I have witnessed atrocities committed by these militia groups. They brutally killed three civilians near Min Taing Pin village a week ago and afterwards they robbed a gold shop, a clothing store, and a mobile phone store in the market for no reason,” he said.

A resident of nearby Khin-U township, who declined to be named for security reasons, told RFA that villages where the USDP party enjoys strong support, people are forming Pyu Saw Htee groups to seize property that could be used to support the resistance movement.

“When they are short of food supplies and cash, they raid the villages nearby and rob the local people,” he said. “They even took away truckloads of rice supplies.”

Another resident of Khin-U said Pyu Saw Htee members “live like ordinary citizens” when the military regiments are away but when junta troops are present, they act as informants and assist in raids or robbing civilians.

Destroyed homes in Chaung Oo village, Feb. 18, 2022. RFA

‘Setting up cockfights’

When asked about reports of ties between the USDP and the Pyu Saw Htee, party spokesperson Nandar Hla Myint told RFA he was unsure.

“First, we made it crystal clear [to them] that we never condone violence. We do not condone armed resistance movements which target civilians and schools,” he said.

“Second, we, as a political party, have instructed our members to respond to armed violence with armed defense, in accordance with the law,” said Nandar Hla Myint.

The military is known to have a set of protocols to form militias as part of its standard operations, political analyst Than Soe Naing told RFA.

“They don’t have secret militia-raising activities in majority Bamar regions since there was no major armed resistance movement there before,” he said.

“They mostly work in areas where the armed ethnic groups are based. But right now, the PDFs have intensified their presence in the Sagaing and Magway regions. That’s why the military is bringing in these militia groups.”

Ko Khant, the spokesperson of local North Yamar PDF group, which is active in Sagaing’s Yinmabin township, told RFA that the military arms the Pyu Saw Htee to agitate anti-junta forces and goad them into clashes.

“It’s just like setting up cockfights. They are using these militia groups as part of their military strategy, but our resistance movement will not fail, no matter what strategy they use. We will not give,” he said.

Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung. Written in English by Eugene Whong and Joshua Lipes.

UAE explores economic cooperation with Cuba

The Abu Dhabi and the Cuban chambers of commerce met at the Expo 2020 Dubai event, and a Cuban minister visited an Emirati renewable energy company.

Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt launches a fun run at Expo 2020 Dubai Site on Nov. 13, 2021 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. - Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images for PepsiCo

Al-Monitor Staff
February 18, 2022 —

The United Arab Emirates’ capital city is interested in doing business with Cuba.

Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and Industry chairman Mohamed Al Mazrouei met with president of the Cuban Chamber of Commerce Antonio Carricarte Corona at the Expo 2020 Dubai yesterday. Mazrouei noted the “eagerness” of Abu Dhabi businesses to learn more about trade with and investment in Cuba. He called for business-focused exchanges between the two areas. The chairman also said the chamber is ready to support trade between Cuba and the United Arab Emirates, the official Emirates News Agency reported.

The Expo 2020 Dubai is a cultural and business forum with participants from across the UAE, the Middle East and the world. The event has yielded several agreements on the part of Emirati businesses. The Emirati technology firm Group 42 signed yesterday a memorandum of understanding with the Serbian government to develop joint cloud and artificial intelligence tools.

Other Emirati entities are also interested in doing business with Cuba. Yesterday, Cuba’s Trade Minister, Rodrigo Malmierca Diaz, met with the Abu Dhabi-based renewable energy company Masdar to discuss potential cooperation, Masdar tweeted.

Cuba has good relations with Iran and Syria in the Middle East. Cuban and Iranian scientists jointly developed a COVID-19 vaccine last year. Syrian and Cuban officials also discussed vaccine cooperation late last year.

The UAE is a close ally of the United States. However, the US places several sanctions on Cuba and maintains a trade embargo on the Caribbean island in opposition to its communist government.

Trove of inscribed pottery reveals details of daily life in ancient Egypt

A joint German-Egyptian archeological mission has found a large number of pottery fragments inscribe with revealing texts about daily life in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods.

A general view of the ruins of a 3,000-year-old lost city on April 10, 2021, in Luxor, Egypt

. - Mahmoud Khaled/Getty Images

Hagar Hosny
Archaeology
February 19, 2022 —

CAIRO — A joint German-Egyptian mission has discovered more than 18,000 pottery shards called ostraca dating to the Ptolemaic period and the beginning of the Roman era. The discovery, announced Feb. 8, was made during excavations in the area of ​​Sheik Hamad near the Temple of Athribis, in the west of Sohag governorate.

According to researchers at the University of Tubingen, Germany, the 2,000-year-old inscriptions on pottery fragments of broken jars offer details of ancient Egyptian life. They include lists of deities, menus and trade information, as well as grammar exercises and arithmetic problems for children, including lines apparently written as punishment by misbehaving students.

More than 80% of the inscriptions discovered were written in the Demotic script (a cursive form of Egyptian hieroglyphics), one of the three ancient scripts found on the Rosetta Stone. Others included hieroglyphs, hieratic, ancient Arabic and Coptic.

Many of the pottery pieces originated from an ancient school, according to University of Tubingen professor Christian Leitz, who led the excavations along with a team from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. “There are lists of months, numbers, … and a 'bird alphabet,'” Leitz said in a press release.

Egyptology researcher and tour guide Bassam el-Shammaa told Al-Monitor that the ostraca inscriptions outweigh temple ruins in terms of historical importance. He explained, “A temple would not reveal the daily details of customs, transactions and problems of the ancient Egyptian society. Despite their artistic and architectural importance, temples remain a royal mouthpiece for these periods, whose purpose is mostly to glorify the kings, while the ostraca are notepads.”

Hundreds of pottery pieces shared a single repeated symbol, according to the mission's press release. The archeologists believe it is evidence that "misbehaved students" were forced to write as punishment.

Other findings included a child's drawing of three human figures as well as pictorial representations of deities, geometric figures and creatures such as scorpions and swallows.

The University of Tubingen's press statement read that it is very rare to find such a large trove of ancient pottery. A similar amount was discovered only once before, during excavation at an ancient settlement of craftsmen in Deir el-Medina, near the Valley of the Kings in Luxor.

Shammaa said, “These pottery pieces may not be impressive in terms of shape compared to other archeological finds, but they are rich in information about ancient Egyptian life.” He continued, “This discovery comes in second place in importance in the 21st century, after the Wadi Al-Jarf papyri discovery near the western shore of the Gulf of Suez. The ostraca are more revealing about ancient Egyptian history and people than the papyri.”

Shamma added, “The time has come to rewrite history based on ostraca and not on temples. I believe the texts written on the ostraca are true because whoever wrote them did not, in my opinion, need to lie because he did not write them for the purpose of documenting history.”

The Temple of Athribis is located near the present-day city of Sohag on the west bank of the Nile. The University of Tubingen and the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities began work there in 2003, searching for a temple built by Pharaoh Ptolemy XII. The wider archeological site includes the remains of a tomb, quarries and a settlement.

Hussein Abdel Basir, director of the Antiquities Museum at Bibliotheca Alexandrina, told Al-Monitor via phone that ancient writing on pottery was more “widespread because it was cheaper than papyri and easily accessible.” He added, “The demotic script was the common script for commoners. It appeared in the 25th Dynasty, continued through the end of the Pharaonic eras and extended into the Ptolemaic and Roman eras.”

Abdul Basir explained, “The large number of pieces that were found, particularly the ones with repeated symbols, will contribute to the study of ancient scripts. They will help us translate demotic texts, the scarcity of which has made them difficult to decipher.”

Hamas targets Sufis in Gaza

Sufis have opposed the way the Hamas government came to power, prompting the movement to shut down their institutions and restrict their religious activities.

Whirling dervishes perform during a festival at the mosque of Nabi Musa, where the tomb of Prophet Moses is believed to be located, in the Judean Desert near the town of Jericho, West Bank, April 8, 2016. - Abbas Momani/AFP via Getty Images

Hadeel Al Gherbawi
@hadola_gh
TOPICS COVERED
Gaza
February 6, 2022 —


A number of Sufi mosques are spread across the Gaza Strip, and each sheikh practices his own way of Sufism. But they all participate in performing the weekly “session,” which is a Quranic session in which prophetic invocations and praises are chanted.

Sufism in Palestine can be traced back to the Mamluk era, and some Sufi families in Gaza have become well known, such as the Sa’afin and Khalidi families.

Sufism has always raised controversy among some Muslims, but it remains a very important issue as many have studied Sufism in an attempt to reach a conclusion about Sufi thought. However, many Sufis refused to talk to Al-Monitor for fear of repercussions from Hamas.

One sheikh of the Alawiyya order told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, “The origins of our order [religious institution] go back to Sheikh Ahmad bin Alawi. Sufism is one of the foundations of Islamic beliefs. The weekly session we hold is a clearing of worries and sins; followers gather to remember God and the verses of the Quran without distortion as some describe it and without holding celebrations and drumming.”

He said that he keeps good relations with the Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip, but the order’s rejection of Hamas’ rule is based on the movement’s insistence to rule by force of arms. “There is nothing in the Book of God or the sunna that motivates me to fight those who oppose me with weapons, for God says, ‘And speak kindly to all people.’”

A Sufi affiliated with the Ahmadiyya order told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, “Society’s negative view of Sufism stems from the new generation’s ignorance of the true meaning of Sufism. Our only goal is to restore the time of the Prophet Muhammad, and Sufism serves to reform oneself away from the inclinations and malice of political parties and their only interest to assume political positions.”

When Hamas assumed power in 2006, it shut down many Sufi zawiyas (meeting places) on the pretext that they posed a danger to society.

Nasser al-Yafawi, a Gaza-based historian who opposes Hamas’ actions against Sufis, told Al-Monitor, “The Sufis are wonderful. I have visited the Qadiriya, Jaririyah and Rifa’i orders, and I witnessed a full weekly session with them. There is no difference between the orders. Their session is a spiritual imagining of God and their celebrations are considered a religious dance to draw closer to God.”

He said, “At the beginning of its rule, Hamas closed many Sufi zawiyas, claiming Sufis pose a danger to Gazan society. This is a major false accusation because Hamas wants to monopolize the leadership of the Islamic movements. I do not support Hamas’ point of view and unjustified actions. It wants to rule so-called Islamic movements and disagrees with all parties, not just Sufis.”

Yafawi noted, “Some rumors spread about Sufis practicing freemasonry rituals and that they carry out acts that violate social values. Hamas closed some zawiyas of the Ahmadiyya, Shadhiliyya and Alawiyya orders, restricting their movements and preventing them from holding religious ceremonies and weekly sessions. This is a violation of freedom of expression. I have personally verified this and discovered that it’s all malicious rumors and false arguments.”

Meanwhile, many support shutting down Sufi zawiyas. Saleh al-Raqab, a professor of Islamic faith at the Islamic University of Gaza and a former minister of endowments, told Al-Monitor, “Sufism in Gaza is made up of groups affiliated with sheikhs outside the enclave, such as the Shadhiliyya and Alawiyya orders, and they have many heresies and myths, as we see in their many zawiyas, such as dancing in mosques. They have very corrupt beliefs, but in the Gaza Strip they apply them without understanding their meanings, such as begging for the Prophet Muhammad to fulfill their needs.”

He said, “There is also a lot of polytheism, which is exemplified in their book 'The Unity of Being' by Ibn Arabi. This person is an atheist since he sees all existence as one and believes there is no difference between a Creator and a creature. The Sufis here in Gaza practice rituals without the slightest understanding. They kneel to their sheikhs as we kneel to God. They even kiss the sheikhs’ hand and this represents polytheism and disbelief in God. The Sufis do not offer anything to Islam, but separate religion from politics. They are using social media nowadays to attract the younger generation, and this is a disaster.”

Raqab noted, “Dozens of young people are joining Sufism in the Gaza Strip because they have a great spiritual void that needs to be filled. I am not aware of the fact that Hamas closed Sufi zawiyas, nor about restricting their movements and celebrations, because I have seen many zawiyas opening. But they must be closed before they spread further.”

Raqab explained that his doctoral thesis was about Sufi sects from an ideological point of view, and he also teaches these topics to university students as he believes that Sufism in the entire Arab world has major deviations and contradicts Islam altogether.

I OF COURSE DISAGREE FOR EXACTLY THESE SAME REASONS 

SEE: 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: My Favorite Muslim 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for SUFI 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for SUFISM