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Category: Laos

  • Health authorities on alert as anthrax infects 14 in southern Laos

    More than a dozen people have been infected by anthrax in two districts in southern Champassak province and authorities have responded by placing restrictions on the movement and slaughtering of some farm animals, several officials told Radio Free Asia. 

    Provincial health officials announced on March 12 that anthrax – a rare, serious infectious disease caused by bacteria – was found in the carcasses of 97 cows, buffaloes and goats. 

    Three people in Champassak tested positive for anthrax last week, but that number jumped to 14 on Tuesday, according to the provincial Health Department.

    The 14 patients all have large, dark scabs and are receiving treatment, a health official told RFA. Authorities believe they contracted anthrax – or what’s known as “black blood disease” – by eating meat from infected cows or buffaloes..

    Anthrax usually affects livestock like cattle, sheep and goats, but humans can be infected if they are exposed to contaminated animal products or animals. 

    According to the World Health Organization, anthrax isn’t generally considered to be contagious between humans, although there have been some cases of person-to-person transmission.

    The provincial health department has issued a notice asking local medical centers and authorities to report any new cases and urging anyone who develops black bumps on their body to see a doctor as soon as possible.

    “We’re concerned. We have stopped eating meat,” a Soukhoumma district resident told RFA. “Now, we eat only pork and fish.”

    Transporting and slaughtering farm animals has been temporarily banned, and people are required to properly bury their dead animals, the department said.

    A slaughterhouse worker told RFA that they are complying with the order and have stopped buying animals from local farmers. 

    An agricultural official in Pathoumphone district said authorities have stepped up surveillance efforts and have officially warned the public not to eat locally slaughtered meat.

    Translated by Max Avary. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Lao.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Laos’ highest court aims for special court in lawless Golden Triangle

    Laos’ highest court is working to set up a special court in the notorious Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone to directly clamp down on an area that has attracted scam-related businesses and human trafficking, a government official told Radio Free Asia.

    Lao state media reported last week on the planned special court. A government official who works in the zone said the idea was first proposed several months ago.

    “There is now an agreement to open the People Court’s office in the zone,” he said on condition of anonymity for security reasons. 

    An office site and a place where court officials would live has already been selected, he said. Relevant officials in nearby Bokeo province have agreed to coordinate in forming the new court. 

    The Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone, or SEZ, was established in 2007 in the northern province of Bokeo on a 3,000-hectare (7,400-acre) concession along the Mekong River where Laos, Myanmar and Thailand meet. 

    It’s become a gambling and tourism hub catering to Chinese citizens where investors – exempt from most national-level economic regulations – have built hotels, restaurants, casinos, a hospital, markets and factories.

    But it has also earned a reputation as a haven for criminal activities, including prostitution and drug trafficking.

    In August, a report from the International Crisis Group called for a “coordinated regional approach” – including through law enforcement – to combat the outsized impact illicit businesses have in the Golden Triangle SEZ and across the river at another special economic zone in Myanmar’s Shan state.

    Lao authorities currently do not have the right to enter special economic zones to conduct investigations.

    In June, however, the Golden Triangle SEZ management board handed oversight of a detention and rehabilitation center located inside the zone to Bokeo provincial police. And in January, officials from the Office of People’s Supreme Prosecutor visited the zone to discuss logistics for establishing a prosecutor’s office.

    ‘Money is god there’

    Laos’ judicial system includes a People’s Supreme Court that is located in Vientiane as well as local People’s Courts and Military Courts throughout the country. The special court would be directly overseen by the People’s Supreme Court.

    A former Lao government official told RFA that the special court could speed up criminal cases, which would help authorities tackle the zone’s large volume of crime.

    “This zone has almost become its own country already,” he said. “There are too many people who break the law.”

    But a resident of Bokeo province said a better approach would be to strengthen the current system of transferring criminal cases to the local People’s Court in Bokeo province.

    A lawyer in Vientiane said that court officials located inside the zone would be even more unlikely to resist bribes from wealthy Chinese business people who dominate the zone.

    “Everything will be difficult,” he told RFA. “In Laos, officials are afraid of rich people. If the rich people committed crimes in the zone, who would sue them in this court? It seems impossible to do so.”

    Another Lao resident of Bokeo province agreed with this sentiment. 

    “I have seen that when something bad happens in the zone, law enforcement’s response is weak,” he said. “These days, money is god there.”

    RFA contacted the People’s Supreme Court in Vientiane for comment on the planned special court, but a relevant official said he wasn’t able to comment.

    Translated by Phouvong. Edited by Matt Reed.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Lao.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Laos hotel apologizes for waitress ‘ring toss’ game | Radio Free Asia (RFA)


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • ‘Waitress game’ controversy in Laos | Radio Free Asia (RFA)


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  • Despite eradication efforts, opium poppy cultivation persists among Hmong in northern Laos

    Ethnic Hmong villagers in remote areas of northern Laos are continuing to grow opium poppies despite government eradication efforts, due to long-held beliefs about the crop’s medicinal properties, according to officials and residents.

    In recent weeks, Lao authorities announced that they had destroyed 2,590 square meters (two-thirds of an acre) of Hmong-grown opium poppy fields in Luang Namtha province, which lies along the border with China and Myanmar, and another 11,000 square meters (2.7 acres) in Xieng Khouang province, on the Vietnamese border.

    However, they acknowledged that there are many poppy fields that are too remote to access in other areas of Xieng Khouang, as well as in Phongsaly province, which borders China and Vietnam.

    In its World Drug Report 2023, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, or UNODC, said it had documented 5,700 hectares (14,100 acres) of opium poppy cultivation in Laos, mostly in the country’s seven northern provinces of Phongsaly, Hua Phane, Luang Prabang, Oudomsay, Bokeo, Xieng Khouang, and Luang Namtha. Opium can be used to make heroin.

    An official from the National Defense Unit in Luang Namtha who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns, told RFA Lao that the cultivation and consumption of opium remains common among the Hmong in rural northern Laos, and is “difficult to control.”

    “There is a lot growing for local consumption and even though the region has set up rehab centers for people, there aren’t enough,” he said. “There are also still a lot of people who use opium as a medical treatment when they are sick.”

    The official said that the Hmong communities that continue to grow opium poppies and smoke opium are extremely remote, preventing authorities from accessing them or regularly patrolling the areas.

    “The areas where they live are far from other communities; 30-40 kilometers (19-25 miles) off the main roads, and only motorbikes can navigate the paths, so it’s hard to carry out inspections” he said. “It’s mostly ethnic villagers living there.”

    Use in treating sickness

    An official from the Natural Resources and Environment Unit in Xieng Khouang said that part of the reason ethnic communities still grow opium poppies and smoke opium in the province is due to their belief that it can help cure them when they are ill.

    Opium has a long history of medical use in relieving pain, inducing sleep, and treating bowel conditions.

    ENG_LAO_OpiumFields_02092024.2.jpg
    A Hmong tribesman takes a puff of opium at his village in Houaphan province, northern Laos, June 27, 2018. (Aidan Jones/AFP)

    The official said ethnic communities in Xieng Khouang mostly grow opium for personal consumption, and not in large quantities.

    While the overall amount that is grown can vary, he said, “the Hmong grow opium for use, not for sale.”

    A villager from Hua Phane told RFA that cultivation of opium poppies had decreased significantly in the province in recent years due to government and NGO campaigns educating residents about the dangers of opium.

    But he said that while the use of opium is down in Hua Phane, “that doesn’t mean it has ended.”

    “Some [ethnic] groups … grow it in remote areas, far away from the cities,” he said. “They grow it to use as medicine for their families.”

    Laos was the third-largest illicit opium poppy producing country in the world until 1998, but the UNODC says eradication efforts by the government and international partners “have reduced cultivation to marginal levels.”

    Nonetheless, the agency said, the northern part of Laos remains known as one of two opium producing countries in Southeast Asia, with the main driver of cultivation in the region being “primarily related to poverty.”

    Translated by Sidney Khotpanya. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Matt Reed.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Lao.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Laos to reap little profit from growth of farm exports

    A 20% year-over-year increase of agricultural exports from Laos in 2023 was largely on the back of Chinese plantations, according to trade officials, meaning that the country will reap few of the profits.

    Members of the business community told RFA Lao that the government needs to review its approach to foreign investment while improving its agricultural output to avoid a deepening trade deficit and improve the living standards of farmers in Laos.

    The Lao Ministry of Industry and Trade recently reported that last year Laos exported 9.5 million tons of agricultural products worth US$1.4 billion – an increase of just over 20% from 2022.

    However, the ministry acknowledged that most of the exported goods were produced by Chinese investors who leased land and grew vegetables and fruit in Laos to sell to China.

    Produce exports from Laos are largely cassava, potatoes, coffee, bananas and sugar. The country exports most of its products to China, Vietnam and Thailand, respectively.

    Chinese nationals run 933 projects in the agricultural sector in Laos, and their investments in the country are on the rise. Most of the projects adhere to what the Lao government refers to as the “2+3 System,” in which Laos provides land and labor, while foreign investors supply capital, expertise and a market for goods.

    Laborers at a Chinese-invested banana plantation in the Sing district of Luang Namtha province in northern Laos, in May 2019. (RFA)
    Laborers at a Chinese-invested banana plantation in the Sing district of Luang Namtha province in northern Laos, in May 2019. (RFA)

    An official with the Ministry of Industry and Trade confirmed to RFA that most agricultural products in Laos – including cattle, vegetables and fruit – are produced by Chinese nationals for export to China, rather than by Lao farmers.

    “China won’t allow goods produced by Lao farmers to enter China,” said the official who, like other sources interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. “They only accept goods produced by Chinese factories and investors that meet their quality standards.”

    The Lao government will only receive a small portion of the US$1.4 billion in exports last year through taxes, tariffs, land concession fees and transportation fees, he added.

    Real value of foreign investment?

    A Lao businessman in Luang Prabang province said the government and the people of Laos “will only get 10% of [the export value] because most goods were produced by the Chinese.”

    He questioned whether the Lao government – and by extension, the people – gains more than it loses from foreign investment.

    “The government must be more competitive by improving the quality and increasing the quantity [of agricultural products]; if not, Laos can expect to face a large trade deficit every year,” the businessman said. “To do that, the country must increase its knowledge, budget and access to modern technology.”

    A laborer at a Chinese-invested banana plantation in the Sing district of Luang Namtha province in northern Laos, in May 2019. (RFA)
    A laborer at a Chinese-invested banana plantation in the Sing district of Luang Namtha province in northern Laos, in May 2019. (RFA)

    The Lao Ministry of Industry and Trade reported that in 2023, Laos imported US$6 billion worth of products and exported $5.3 billion, resulting in a trade deficit of US$700 million.

    Laos can export 33 agricultural products to China – most of them fruits, vegetables and cattle – 15 products to Vietnam and 15 products to Thailand. China is the main market for Lao exports and the market is growing annually.

    An official with the Asian Development Bank, or ADB, told RFA that in order to grow its exports, Laos must produce more of its own goods and improve their quality.

    “China has opened up its market for Lao products – particularly bananas, cassava, corn and fruit,” the ADB official said. “Laos exported about 300 million tons of bananas last year. These export can boost the Lao economy.”

    Translated by Max Avary. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Lao.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • ‘Get out!’ protest villagers over Laos government land grab | Radio Free Asia (RFA)


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  • Fuel pumps again running on empty in Laos

    Laos is again running out of gasoline, an indication that the country is still too dependent on its neighbors for fuel supplies and has failed to build adequate reserves following severe nationwide shortages in 2022. 

    Specifically, diesel fuel is hard to come by these days, as station after station has put up makeshift signs saying they are all sold out, urging lines of hundreds of vehicles to turn back and refuel elsewhere.

    Diesel, as opposed to regular gas, is important for shipping and commerce and necessary to keep supply lines open.

    The Lao government raised the official price of fuel four times in January alone, even though gas prices have been falling in the rest of the world.

    “I waited at the gas station for half an hour for diesel,” a motorist in the capital Vientiane told RFA Lao on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “A few hours later the station was completely out.”

    He was only allowed to purchase 200,000 kip (US$9.66) worth of diesel at each station and had to drive to several stations to fill up the tank.

    The motorist compared the situation to 2022, when gas shortages were but one indication of the country’s severely ailing economy at the time. 

    He was only allowed to purchase 200,000 kip (US$9.66) worth of diesel at each station and had to drive to several stations to fill up the tank.

    The current price of diesel in Vientiane is 20,780 kip per liter ($3.76 per U.S. liquid gallon), up 600 kip (three cents) from last week. 

    A truck driver in the southern province of Savannakhet ran into a similar issue while trying to refuel there, saying he was turned away at several stations before finally getting a chance to refuel.

    “I put more than four-million-kip (US$200) worth of diesel into my truck,” he said. “I’m afraid that the shortage will soon get worse.”

    A gas station attendant in Vientiane told RFA that most stations do have regular gas to sell, but are out of diesel.

    “I just asked my boss, who said we don’t have any diesel right now and we have no idea when we’ll have more,” he said.

    An attendant in Savannakhet said they were running out at the station he works at.

    “We have only about 1,000 liters (about 266 gallons) of diesel left, so since yesterday, we aren’t selling diesel to large vehicles like tractor trailers, only to small cars.”

    An employee of a fuel import company in Vientiane said that to ease the shortage it distributed 4,000 liters of diesel to each gas station in the capital on Wednesday morning.

    But a gas station attendant said that the 4,000 liters would be sold in only two hours.

    We’re working on it

    The government has been frantically trying to fix the problem, an official from the Lao Ministry of Industry and Trade told RFA.

    “All relevant departments of the government are trying to solve the shortage,” he said. “They’ve already issued a couple of announcements this morning.” 

    A statement from the Lao Fuel and Gas Association on Tuesday said the reason behind the shortage was that key oil refineries in neighboring countries like Thailand and Vietnam have suspended production to upgrade their production lines, and that they should resume production by the end of the month.

    The Interior Trade Department, the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Lao Fuel and Gas Association have, meanwhile, been in talks with fuel importers and distributors to try to find solutions.

    On Wednesday morning, the Interior Trade Department said in a statement that Laos imports 140 million liters (37 million gallons) of fuel per month, 80% of which is diesel. In January alone, Laos imported 106 million liters (28 million gallons), not enough for the rest of the month – especially because demand is expected to increase as the shortage is prolonged.

    Price spike

    The prices keep going up because the kip is again depreciating against the U.S. dollar, an official from the Ministry of Industry and Trade told RFA.

    “We buy gasoline in U.S. dollars from other countries and sell it in kip,” he said. “When we want to buy more gas, we have to exchange the kip for U.S. dollars. To keep up with the depreciation we have to raise prices.”

    The kip had been only slightly declining against the U.S. dollar until late 2021, when it fell off a cliff. According to xe.com, in September 2021 $1 was worth about 9500 kip. By the end of 2022 it had passed the 17,000 mark. The kip stabilized in the beginning of 2023, but continued its decline in April and passed the 20,000 mark in September, before stabilizing again at around 20,500 in the last few months of the year.

    The nationwide gas shortage is partly due to a shortage in foreign currency, the English-language Vientiane Times, a mouthpiece for the Lao government, reported Wednesday.

    The report also mentioned the temporary closure of an oil refinery in Thailand, saying that the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and the Lao Fuel and Gas Association were trying to buy diesel fuel from other sources to fill the gap.

    Translated by Max Avary. Edited by Eugene Whong.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Lao.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Escaping Xi’s China by paddleboard: ‘I rushed into the water and thought if they catch me, they catch me’

    Dissidents face an uncertain future in Taiwan and South Korea after fleeing

    When Li Cheng En pushed his standup paddleboard off the Xiamen beach on China’s Fujian coastline, a mother and son stood nearby, watching him. It was dark, and he moved quickly, but felt sure he’d be caught. Li had spent the day scouting for a secluded beach from which he could launch his bold plan to flee China. But everywhere he went there were fences or security guards and cameras.

    “At around 7.30pm, when I decided to go, I thought that there was no more choice for me,” he says. He waited for the security guard shift change. “I rushed into the water and thought that if they would catch me, they would catch me.”

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Corporate Media Eulogize Kissinger as a Statesman Instead of a War Criminal

    For U.S. mass media, Henry Kissinger’s quip that “power is the ultimate aphrodisiac” rang true. Influential reporters and pundits often expressed their love for him. The media establishment kept swooning over one of the worst war criminals in modern history. After news of his death broke on Wednesday night, prominent coverage echoed the kind that had followed him ever since his years with…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • IMF says exports, tourism will spur Laos’ economic growth by 4%

    Revenue from tourism, foreign investment and exports will help Laos’ struggling economy grow by 4% in 2024, the International Monetary Fund said in a forecast.

    But that won’t be enough to counter the continuing high inflation rates – more than 25% – that have put many Laotians on the edge of poverty, several Laotians told Radio Free Asia.

    “People in rural areas are still looking for food from forested areas,” a Saravane province resident said. “They don’t have the money to buy food in the market. They only buy the necessities.”

    If the government can’t get inflation under control, no one will benefit from economic growth, a Xieng Khouang province resident said.

    “People are getting poorer by the day,” he said. “They live paycheck to paycheck. Most products and merchandise sold in the markets are imported.”

    The Asian Development Bank also predicted this month that the Lao economy would expand by 4% next year. It said last month that the country would grow by 3.7 percent in 2023.

    But an ADB official told RFA that the rate of inflation would remain at 28% year over year – the same as it was in 2023.

    Price controls, wage increases

    Inflation has soared to as much as 40% in recent years following a depreciation in the Lao currency and declines in foreign investment.

    Earlier this year, Lao authorities imposed price controls on basic necessities such as pork, rice and natural gas. The government has also raised the minimum wage several times since 2022 to address the cost of living crisis.

    Last week, Lao Prime Minister Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone acknowledged at a conference in Vientiane that the economy has been sluggish due to high debt levels, inflation, high gasoline prices and several other factors. 

    But economic growth in Laos will strengthen as tourism, exports and service industries recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, and as investment from neighboring Thailand, China and Vietnam resumes, according to the ADB official.

    The IMF forecast was released on Oct. 18, but an updated prediction should be available next month, once officials look at more export and tourism data.

    “One issue is that the currency is still fluctuating,” an IMF representative told RFA on Friday. “That needs to be fixed quickly if they want the macroeconomy to stabilize.”

    The government must also entice more foreign investment, motivate locals to increase their export-oriented production and lower the amount of import if it wants more consistent growth, he said.

    Translated by Sidney Khotpanya. Edited by Matt Reed.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Lao.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Volunteer teachers quit in Laos amid weak job prospects

    At least 41 volunteer teachers in northeastern Laos have resigned, leaving many schools short-staffed as the former teachers seek paying jobs amid high inflation and a weak economy.

    There are more than 7,600 volunteer teachers across the country, but due to budgetary constraints the Lao government can only hire less than 1,000 each fiscal year, according to the Ministry of Education and Sport.

    In Laos’ centrally-planned economy, workers in schools and hospitals are generally government employees, and those who want jobs in their chosen fields are dependent on government quotas, as well as passing an examination. 

    Many young people therefore work as volunteers in classrooms and clinics until there is an opening for salaried staff.

    Xiengkhouang province, in the northeast, has 124 volunteer teachers compared to 165 volunteer teachers last year, an official at the province’s Department of Education and Sport told Radio Free Asia on Monday.

    “After the exam results were posted [in April and May], many of them decided to resign,” the official said. “This will affect the quality of education. Some teachers will have to teach in classes where students in different grades study together. Some will have to teach for more hours.”

    ‘Living in a hard time’

    One volunteer teacher who resigned this year told RFA she taught at a school in the province’s Kham district for nine years but finally gave up hope that she would be added to the government payroll.

    “My patience reached its limit,” she said. “I miss my students, but I cannot wait any further. I got married and have a child to take care of, and my husband doesn’t want me to teach anymore.”

    The long commute to the school, staying in a teacher’s dormitory on weekdays and the realization that she would probably have to wait several more years before she would be hired all contributed to her decision, she said.

    Across the country, administrators are merging schools and closing others because of a teacher shortage, which is largely driven by the government’s lack of funds.

    “Volunteer teachers are the true devotees, as they use their own resources and time to teach students,” said the father of a student in Xiengkhouang’s Paek district. 

    But the poor economy has brought hardship to everyone – even those civil servants who make a salary – so it’s understandable that volunteer teachers would want to look elsewhere for work, he said.

    “Everything now is three times as expensive,” he said.

    The mother of a volunteer teacher who recently resigned from a school in Xiengkhouang’s Phoukout district said her daughter has since left Laos for a job in South Korea, where several thousand Laoatians work in factories and on farms.

    “Our family is living in a hard time,” she said. “My daughter is now a legal migrant worker in South Korea and she is the only income earner for the family.”

    The provincial official told RFA that, even with a tight budget, administrators are looking for ways to pay the remaining volunteer teachers.

    “We had a meeting with relevant offices, and there is now a process to draft a policy for paying volunteer teachers,” he said.

    Translated by Phouvong. Edited by Matt Reed.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Lao.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Laos lied about repatriation of Chinese rights lawyer, wife says

    Authorities in Laos told American and United Nations diplomats that detained Chinese rights attorney Lu Siwei was still in the country, even after he was sent back to face detention in China, his wife told Radio Free Asia in a recent interview.

    Lu, who is now being held in the Xindu Detention Center in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan, was repatriated to China in early September after being arrested in Laos en route to join his family in the United States.

    His detention in Laos and subsequent repatriation is another example of transnational “long-arm” law enforcement by Beijing, rights activists and commentators have warned.

    Xindu Detention Center officials contacted his family on Oct. 4 informing them that he was being held there and requesting they send clothes, medication and money for him, but gave no details of his repatriation, nor of any criminal charges against him, his U.S.-based wife Zhang Chunxiao said.

    Lu suffers from a severe skin condition and has been without his regular medication for two months now, she said.

    Lu’s lawyer confirmed on Sept. 14 that his client had left Laos for China several days earlier. Yet the authorities in Laos were still claiming that he was still in the country, Zhang said.

    ENG_CHN_LuSiweiDetained_10052023.2.jpg
    Zhang Chunxiao, shown with her husband, Lu Siwei, says her husband suffers from a severe dermatological condition and has been without his regular medication for two months. They are seen in this undated photo. Credit: Provided by Zhang Chunxiao

    “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Laos kept telling the United Nations and American diplomats that Siwei was still in Laos,” Zhang said. “What I really don’t understand is how the Laos government would … be willing to deceive everyone.”

    “[My husband] had already been sent back, and they were still saying that he was still in Laos. Why would they do that?”

    The exact date of Lu’s repatriation on a bus along with dozens of other wanted Chinese nationals remains unclear.

    Laos ‘in debt’ to China

    According to an official notification dated Sept. 11 issued by the Chinese Embassy in Laos to the Lao Ministry of Public Security, Lu was “approved for criminal detention” by police in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan on Sept. 3, on suspicion of “illegally crossing a border.”

    The document, a copy of which was circulating on social media at the time, and which has now been proven genuine, informed the Lao authorities that the Ministry of Public Security of the People’s Republic of China “requires that the suspect Lu Siwei be transferred to China, to be brought to justice as soon as possible.”

    Taiwanese democracy activist Lee Ming-cheh, who has served jail time in China for his activism, said the Lao authorities are clearly willing to do as Beijing tells them.

    “Laos is in a great deal of debt to China under the Belt and Road [infrastructure] initiative,” Lee said. “Laos’ political system is also a dictatorship like China’s, so it’s pretty normal that Laos would send Lu Siwei back there.”

    It is unclear whether Lu will be allowed visitors, but could be denied visits from his family or lawyers if he is charged with a crime linked to “national security,” like subversion, Lee said.

    ENG_CHN_LuSiweiDetained_10052023.3.jpg
    One of the two activists [left] traveling with Chinese rights lawyer Lu Siwei [right] argues with police who were in the process of detaining Lu, near the Thanaleng dry port, 13 kilometers (8 miles), south of Vientiane, on July 28, 2023. Credit: Anonymous source via AP

    Zeng Jianyuan, chairman of the overseas-based New School for Democracy, agreed.

    “Today just proves that Laos has succumbed to Chinese power,” Zeng said. “It’s a betrayal of … the values respected in their society, which is Buddhist.”

    He said it was ironic that the news about Lu’s fate is only emerging around the Oct. 1 anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China under late supreme leader Mao Zedong.

    “They have arrested someone who really took practical action to achieve the revolutionary ideals of the Chinese Communist Party,” Zeng said. 

    “Repatriating Lu Siwei was an act of betrayal, and it’s very sad.”

    Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Hwang Chun-mei for RFA Mandarin.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Rights groups call on Laos to release lawyer held after fleeing China

    Sixty-eight organisations sign letter amid fears Lu Siwei could be deported at request of Chinese authorities

    Sixty-eight human rights groups have signed an open letter calling on the Laos government to release Lu Siwei, a Chinese former human rights lawyer detained by Laotian police near Vientiane last week.

    Lu was seized by police on Friday as he attempted to board a train from Laos to Thailand, where he planned to catch a flight to the US to join his wife and daughter. Nearly one week later, he appears to still be held in Laotian immigration detention, despite reportedly being told that he would be deported to China.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Human rights lawyer fleeing China is arrested in Laos

    Activists and family members fear Lu Siwei will be deported back to China, where he could be sent to prison

    A Chinese rights lawyer stripped of his licence for taking on sensitive cases has been arrested in Laos, and activists and family members are worried he will be deported back to China, where he could be jailed.

    Lu Siwei was seized by Laotian police on Friday morning while boarding a train for Thailand. He was on his way to Bangkok to catch a flight to the US to join his wife and daughter.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Severe teacher shortage in Laos causes schools to close, merge

    A severe lack of teachers in Laos is forcing school districts to use volunteer staff, merge some schools and close others, a trend that lawmakers warn could cause future generations to lose access to education.

    During the Lao National Assembly’s 5th ordinary session, from June 26 to July 18, lawmakers spent a lot of time discussing the teacher shortage.

    Representing the southern province of  Savannakhet, Xayxomseun Phothisan urged the assembly to hire more state employees and approve budgets to pay teacher salaries so that each school would have the adequate number of faculty needed to function.

    “If the government does not have any solution to this urgent problem,  more schools in many provinces will be closed and students will lose access to education,” she said.

    ENG_LAO_TeacherShortage_07192023.2.jpg
    Students have lunch, which came from international donors, at a rural school in Savannakhet province, Laos, March 2023. Credit: RFA

    This year, the government is allowing recruitment of 285 new teachers nationwide, down from the 340 it hired last year. The downward trend in teacher hiring began in 2017, when the state employee quotas were reduced each year due to limited budget.

    School closures

    Savannakhet province has only 223 teachers on its payroll for the entire province. More than 430,000 people in Savannakhet are aged 19 or younger, though not everyone in that demographic goes to school. 

    Though the province ranks first in the nation for school attendance between the ages 6-11, only 68.7% of Savannakhet children between the ages of 6-8 are attending school. For ages 9-11, the percentage rises to 85.2%.

    There are also 21 schools in the province that are staffed by unpaid volunteers, many of whom quit when they learned, sometimes after eight years of working, that they would not be able to transition into paid roles.

    Because of the teacher shortage, the province is expected to close 25 schools.

    The Lao government has approved the province hiring 47 new teachers, but spread over 15 educational districts, it means only three new teachers per district, nowhere near enough to serve the student population.

    Most of the schools experiencing teacher shortages were primary schools in rural areas, because teachers have little desire to work there, representatives of Savannakhet province’s Department of Education and Sport told RFA’s Lao Service. 

    The capital Vientiane also faces a teacher shortage, with 900 on payroll – far short of what it needs. There are around 3 million youth aged 19 or younger in Vientiane, yet the central government will allow hiring only 16 new teachers. The capital is expected to close seven schools.

    “The lack of teachers is widespread,” an official from Vientiane’s Department of Education and Sport told RFA. “We need over 900 more teachers in order to meet our plan. …The only thing we can do is to inform students to go to schools in other villages and dissolve the small schools, where there are no teachers.”

    The official said that Vientiane had already merged seven schools since 2021 including three last year as the teacher supply dwindles. 

    Aging teachers

    In Luang Prabang province’s XiengNgeun district, volunteer teachers are quitting in large numbers, an education official said.

    ENG_LAO_TeacherShortage_07192023.3.jpg
    Students have lunch, which came from international donors, at a rural school in Savannakhet province, Laos, March 2023. Credit: RFA

    “We need about 100 more teachers for primary and secondary schools,” the official said. “The quality of our education in the district, according to the national indicators, may not meet the plan.”  

    He said that many of the paid teachers are old and close to retirement, and some of them face health problems. However, development of younger teachers to replace them is lagging. 

    Though the district has not seen a school closure yet, when the old teachers retire the problem will get worse, he said.

    “The quota from the central government to the province to recruit new state employees has been reduced,” the district official said. “We only received permission to hire 10 new teachers this year. … For primary schools in the city areas, we have a solution by assigning one teacher to teach in 2 or 3 schools. But in the rural areas, that kind of thing is very hard to do.”

    Translated by Phouvong. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Lao.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Weak laws in Laos mean death-row inmates won’t face execution anytime soon

    More than 500 prison inmates have been sentenced to death in Laos – some more than a decade ago – but the country’s dysfunctional legal system and unclear prison procedures have left the inmates languishing for years, the country’s minister of public security said.

    Many of the inmates were convicted on drug charges and have had their sentences reduced to life in prison, Lt. Gen. Vilay Lakhamfong, head of the Ministry of Public Security and deputy prime minister, told lawmakers at a National Assembly session on Thursday. 

    Authorities have even released some inmates who had originally been sentenced to death, which hasn’t helped Laos make any headway on combating illicit drug production, trafficking, and related criminal activity, he said. 

    “Lao laws do not mandate where and how to execute them, by firing squad or by lethal injection,” Lakhamfong told lawmakers. 

    International organizations oppose the two execution methods, he said, adding that about 90% of Laos’ death-row sentences are drug-related.

    “They don’t want us to do that; therefore, we have to keep them in jail and give them life sentences,” Lakhamfong said. 

    Laos has not officially abolished the death penalty, though the last known execution, done by shooting, occurred in 1989, according to the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty. In the past, authorities never disclosed the number of prisoners put to death, the crimes they had committed, or the places of execution.

    Now government and legal bodies involved in drafting laws are updating death-sentence procedures and are expected to complete their work by year end, Lakhamfong said.  

    Largely poor landlocked Laos is part of the Golden Triangle, an area that converges with Myanmar and Thailand at the confluence of the Mekong and Ruak rivers, and is a haven for crimes, including the drug trade, by organized criminal networks.

    Though Lao authorities have committed to combating drug trafficking, it remains rife in the Golden Triangle. In February, authorities there seized 500 kilograms of crystal meth in one of the largest hauls of the narcotic in the notorious zone. 

    Setting a bad example

    Meanwhile, members of the general public have urged authorities to execute inmates on death row so that people have faith in the country’s legal system.

    One Laotian told Radio Free Asia that if authorities continue to pardon prisoners with death sentences, they will likely return to drug trafficking or the drug trade once they are out of jail.

    “They should execute them, not just say it but do it, in the middle of a field and let all the other [prisoners] see it,” he said.

    Another Lao citizen said if the inmates are let out of prison, it will set a bad example for others involved in the drug trade because they won’t fear getting caught and sent to jail.

    “Inmates with death sentences should be executed right away if a court verdict orders an execution, and the law should be decisive and trustworthy,” he said. “If they do not execute them, then those who are in drug businesses right now will not fear the law, and that will undermine the country’s judicial system.”

    A Lao legal expert, who declined to be named so he could speak freely, said authorities should carry out death sentences based on legal mandates, rather than keeping inmates in jail for 10-20 years, reducing their sentences to life in prison, and later releasing them.

    “It is not good for society if inmates often ask for a pardon from a death sentence to get life in prison, but after 10 to 20 years are released,” he said.

    Translated by Sidney Khotpanya for RFA Lao. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Matt Reed.

    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Lao.

  • Laos turns to China for gasoline imports amid economic crisis

    Laos has begun importing gasoline from China instead of purchasing it from neighboring Thailand amid an ongoing economic crisis, including surging inflation that has prompted one lawmaker to call for an increase in salaries for domestic workers and state employees.

    The first shipments of gasoline arrived in Laos last week following the signing of a memorandum of understanding in late May by the Vientiane Petroleum State Enterprise, managed by the Lao Ministry of National Security, SINOPEC Hong Kong and SINOLAO. 

    Under the deal, Laos will import fuel from China for wholesale and retail distribution, according to the Laotian Times.

    SINOPEC Hong Kong delivered the initial fuel consignments to the two Lao entities at the Boten international border crossing in Luang Namtha province on June 27. 

    Gasoline prices in Laos have increased four times this year amid a serious economic slump characterized by high inflation, worsening public finances and the devaluation of the Lao currency, the kip.

    But some consumers said they believe that the price of petrol will drop slightly or remain the same because the Chinese entered the deal to make a profit. 

    “It’s businesses — not policy, not aid,” said a Lao entrepreneur who imports fuel, asking not to be identified to speak freely. “If the government imports more, it will reduce gas prices in Laos, and the price at the pumps will go down.”

    The Lao government has turned to China for gasoline because it doesn’t have the foreign currency to buy it from Thailand, which accepts payments only in Thai baht or U.S. dollars, said a Lao intellectual who is familiar with the situation. 

    China, however, accepts Lao kip or Chinese yuan as payment, or allows the Lao government to take out a loan with a high interest rate to pay for gasoline imports, ensnaring the country in a debt trap, he said.

    Landlocked Lao does not have its own gasoline production company, but rather a business in Xiengkhouang province that refines imported crude oil from overseas.

    Call to raise salaries

    As rising prices, including that of gasoline, hit Laotians hard in their wallets, some officials are trying to mitigate the financial pain.

    Also on June 27, Oudom Vongkaysone, a lawmaker from Borikhamxay province, urged the government to increase the salaries of both ordinary Lao workers and state employees.

    He urged the government to increase the monthly minimum wage to 1.8 million-2 million kip (US$94-104).

    During a meeting of the National Assembly, Vongkaysone said that if the government could not increase salaries, it should find other ways to lessen their financial hardship, such as issuing more bonuses, paying overtime or increasing pension amounts. 

    Otherwise more state employees will quit their jobs and more workers will head to neighboring countries for better-paying jobs, he said.

    He also called on the Lao government to rein in inflation and urged citizens to use the kip in financial transactions instead of foreign currency.

    A Lao garment factory worker told Radio Free Asia that she cannot live on her 1.3 million kip monthly salary, and wants to see her pay raised to 2 million-3 million kip so she and her family can survive the country’s high inflation.

    An official from the Lao Federation of Trade Unions who requested anonymity so as to speak freely told RFA that a decision to raise the minimum wage would take a long time to implement if adopted.

    “The government has to conduct a survey of the price of goods in the market first to find out if it is necessary or not to raise the minimum wage,” he said.

    Businesses opposed

    Some Laotians have headed to Thailand and South Korea for jobs, where wages are higher than at home.

    “The rate of exchange is high, 1 million Lao kip can’t buy much, and foods and essential things are more expensive than before,” said one Laotian. “Workers have gone to work in Thailand because the pay rate is higher over there.”

    But entrepreneurs who own businesses in Laos are against raising the minimum wage, saying the move would threaten their survival. They would not be able to pay their workers 1.8 million-2 million kip per month if the lawmaker’s proposal is adopted, some of them said.

    “Entrepreneurs don’t want to pay high salaries,” said one business owner.

    A factory owner said his enterprise could not afford to pay higher salaries of about 1.6 million-1.8 million kip, but no more.

    “It would be too much to pay,” he told RFA.

    A garment factory owner in the capital Vientiane said she could not immediately raise salaries to 1.8 million kip or more because of high production costs and the kip’s devaluation, and that any future increases should be incrementally implemented over several months.

    An official at the Ministry of Finance said the government’s ability to raise the monthly minimum wage depends on the state budget, and salaries cannot be increased if there is a deficit.

    “We want to raise the salaries of state employees between 1.8 million and 2.5 million kip per month, but it depends on the state budget,” he said.

    Translated by Sidney Khotpanya for RFA Lao. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Lao.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Anti-graft training in Vientiane is latest effort to counter Laos corruption

    The effort to fight widespread government corruption in Laos – for years a declared goal of the country’s top leaders – got a boost from the United Nations this week.

    At a training conducted by the U.N.’s Office on Drugs and Crime, Vientiane municipal workers learned how to recognize money laundering, audit the finances of state enterprises and inspect government concession projects.

    Berlin-based Transparency International’s 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index ranked Laos 126 of 180 countries it evaluated in fighting corruption.

    “Cooperation included officials from the state inspector general’s office and others from related outside sectors,” an official from the Office of Inspector General told Radio Free Asia. “This time we did the training in Vientiane. Later, we’ll have one for government officials in Savannakhet province.”

    The government has promised in the past to address corrupt practices that have put off potential foreign investors from pumping money into much-needed infrastructure and development.

    However, despite the enactment of an anti-corruption law that criminalizes the abuse of power, public sector fraud, embezzlement and bribery, Laos’ judiciary is weak and inefficient, and officials are rarely prosecuted.

    One official who said he worked as an inspector in Vientiane for a decade told RFA last year that he and his colleagues review the finances of government offices and departments but not those of individual officials who are powerful members of the party and the government.

    “Nobody would dare inspect them,” he said.

    ‘They do it in a group’

    It could be very difficult to solve Laos’ corruption problem, even with stricter laws, a Laotian who asked to remain anonymous said to RFA this week. So far, no government officials have been sent to prison for corruption, he said.

    “Laws are strict but enforcement is weak, and that’s not strong enough to solve the problem,” he said.

    Over the last two or three years, some officials have been fired or moved to other positions – but that’s been the extent of the government crackdown, a former state employee told RFA. 

    “There are many state employees who are corrupt,” he said. “Police, tax collectors, even employees of mineral companies. They do it in a group, with the involvement of high-ranking officials.”

    A report last year from the country’s State Inspection Authority said the Lao government had lost US$767 million to corruption since 2016, with government development and investment projects – such as road and bridge construction – the leading source of the widespread graft.

    At the time, nearly 3,700 members of the communist Lao People’s Revolutionary Party had been disciplined, with 2,019 expelled and 154 people charged, the report said.

    Another report from the Asian Development Bank found that almost 70 percent of businesses that applied for registrations, licenses and permits in Laos paid bribes to government officials to get approval.

    Translated by Sidney Khotpanya. Edited by Matt Reed.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Lao.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • New government hotline in Laos is unpopular as callers fear retribution

    Laos’ Ministry of Home Affairs has launched a hotline that citizens can call for government assistance, but many are afraid to use it because callers must reveal personal information.

    After dialing 1526 to report an issue, callers must also provide their names, phone numbers and addresses so that police or officials can contact them if they require more information.

    “If they call asking authorities to solve a particular problem, the police can call them back easily after the issue is investigated and solved,” a related government official, who like all sources in this report requested anonymity for security reasons, told RFA’s Lao Service. 

    The official said since the hotline was launched on June 1, many have called asking for the ministry to solve problems and others have called to comment on the work of the ministry, but she was not at liberty to discuss how many people have called or what any of their requests were.

    The Lao government has been using hotlines for public engagement since 2016. The country’s National Assembly also has an open hotline where people can raise issues for it to address.

    But several Lao residents said they were reluctant to use the new hotline because they doubt the ministry can do anything to solve the problem, and they do not want to get in trouble for reporting problems.

    “If you ask for help from the government in a one-party country, and ask them too many times, it’s not good for you,” a resident said. “You have to reveal all your personal information so everybody is afraid to call.”

    Another resident said he was not interested in using them because hotlines in the past were ineffective in solving problems.

    A third villager said that usually nobody answers government hotlines so it is useless to call them.

    A Lao resident who identified as a Christian said that Christians have used hotlines once in a while to inform the ministry when they are harassed by local authorities. 

    Sometimes officials come to try to solve the problem but most of the time the complaints are ignored, the person said.

    “The good part of using the hotline is that we can inform the ministry of problems that we are concerned about and need them solved,” the Christian said. “However, many problems are still not solved … they always say they are still working on it”

    A Lao intellectual told RFA that most people do not trust government hotlines because they are afraid of retribution. For example, if they were to reveal government corruption, the responsible officials could use the power of their positions to punish them.

    Translated by Sidney Khotpanya. Edited by Eugene Whong.

    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Lao.

  • “Villagers don’t need the dam,” Thai citizen downstream from a planned Mekong River dam in Laos


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Civil society in the Mekong: What can we learn from environmental struggles?

    Recently, a group of advocates, NGO workers and scholars working in the Mekong region gathered to discuss the far-reaching and compounding impacts of hydropower dams on regional environments and societies. Using the notion of rupture as a way to explore dramatic socio-ecological change, and its consequences, this gathering included a sobering discussion of current pressures faced by civil society in Mekong countries.

    Just as the Mekong river has been controlled and curtailed by dams, so have the voices of civil society actors who contest environmental and social injustices in the region. Such contestation is not just about dams, but also about land, resources, and rights.

    Illustration of the workshop discussion on civil society and rupture.

    Over the last five years, pressure on civil society actors has increased dramatically in the Mekong region. Advocates for social and environmental justice, and the citizens they speak for, now fear arrest, intimidation and violence, as authoritarian states seek to control dissenters and critics. Take, for example, the arrests of environmental advocates in Cambodia in 2021 and Vietnam in 2022, which have served as a stark warning to those who speak out.

    This rising sense of oppression goes hand in hand with new atmospheres of violence and despotic power globally—as seen in the record number of environmental defenders killed in 2021. Citizens across China and Southeast Asia are now contending with new forms of state coercion and violence. The case of Myanmar is most blatant, with the execution of four pro-democracy advocates in July 2022. Yet state power also advances through the deployment of laws to manage emerging public health and safety issues like COVID-19 and cyber-crime: conveniently, these laws enable oppressive states to silence dissent, as seen in Cambodia, Myanmar and the Philippines.

    In short, as environmental and social pressures intensify in the Mekong region, it appears that governments have become increasingly sensitive to contestation. This is especially true in the context of environmental struggles, which are now more than ever struggles over political space, freedom of expression, and social justice. In this context, we find that—like the Mekong river itself, whose waters cannot be entirely controlled—potentialities and possibilities for power to be exercised by ordinary people still remain, even as controls on civil society shift and tighten.

    Shrinking political space

    The space for civil society to operate may be understood in terms of people’s perceptions of what political actions and expressions are possible. These openings are uneven across issues, groups, time and space: some political expressions may be possible in capital cities with few repercussions, while the same activity in an Indigenous or ethnic minority community would be suppressed by governments. Likewise, critical moments for civil society can open and close, as seen recently in Vietnam in the context of parliamentary meetings or high-level negotiations over trade agreements: these are moments of high NGO influence and political tension. Importantly, the fact that political space has become more constricted in the Mekong region in recent years does not mean this will always and everywhere be the case. Advocates continue to find pathways to work within existing spaces, pressing against their boundaries.

    An increasingly important political space for civil society in the region is the legal domain. While the law can and should provide an avenue to pursue justice, it can also be used as a weapon by ruling authorities to target oppositional voices. The Vietnamese government’s use of “tax evasion” charges, for example, alongside new “financial compliance” rules for NGOs, illustrate how the law can be used instrumentally as a means of oppression. Here, critical voices are silenced using mundane domestic laws that render politics invisible and prevent international support from being channelled to advocates. The consequences for those who are targeted, and their families and communities, are devastating. As one participant at our workshop from Vietnam observed: “fighting these legal cases takes all of our time and passion”.

    Laws that are purported to formalise civil society space are a double-edged sword that can also be used by states as instruments of control. A clear example is Cambodia’s 2015 “Law on Associations and Non-Government Organisations” (LANGO), which has been used to suspend organisations that contest government-backed land grabbing and resource appropriation. This, in conjunction with other silencing instruments in Cambodia’s penal code like the 2020 “Incitement to Commit a Felony”, has had a chilling effect on civil society.

    In contrast, in Laos, where civil society has long been highly curtailed, the legal domain is now a key platform for NGOs and advocates to express their concerns. For example, openings have emerged for civil society to participate in dialogues with donors and the Lao National Assembly on “legal reform”. But such opportunities can also be a burden, as civil society’s limited capacity is distracted and absorbed into an endless legal-regulatory churn in Vientiane. Local NGOs observed that policy discussions in the capital have had little impact upon conditions faced by villagers in rural areas, where a UN Special Rapporteur observed a “near total lack of space for freedom of expression” after the arrests of villagers involved in land conflicts.

    Agency in a constrained world

    In contemplating these new constraints to civil society in the Mekong region, we must consider how agency now appears in different forms and places. We adopt the concept of agency here, as opposed to resistance, because it implies a wider repertoire for the oppressed. Broadly speaking, agency can be explored in terms of the practices, habits and ideas of actors that might transform existing institutions and social relations—or indeed reproduce them. Agency is distinct from resistance because it can be performed within dominant structures, without overtly challenging them—a notion that is akin to James Scott’s “weapons of the weak”. Viewed in this way, we observed three key domains of agency:

    First, we note the power of social media to gain visibility for key issues, even though this domain has become risky for those who dare to be outspoken. In Laos, for example, urban citizens and NGOs used social media to connect and organise emergency relief in the aftermath of the 2018 Xepian Xe Nam Noy dam collapse. This generated awareness of the far-reaching devastation caused by the incident, and helped to extend assistance to displaced villagers, even through NGO-government collaborations. Yet the limits for civil society were underscored in 2019 when a young woman from southern Laos, was arrested after she posted social media commentary critical of the government’s slow and inadequate response to flood-affected communities, among other matters.

    Similarly in Cambodia, social media and smartphones provide a vital means of connection for citizens who are affected by dams, as well as forest and land encroachments. Kuy Indigenous villagers in Prey Long, for example, have used communication technology to gather data and report on illegal logging, in a form of “geographic citizen science”. Five years ago, advocates in urban land disputes in Battambong also used social media to criticise the ruling elite and raise awareness of the rights of informal settlers. Yet government tolerance of such activities has declined, as signalled by the arrest of some young advocates working for the NGO Mother Nature in 2021, after their Facebook posts. Tellingly, Cambodia’s ruling party is allegedly in discussions with Chinese advisors over potential assistance to strengthen government control over its citizens’ use of social media.

    Second, we observe the potential of innovative and flexible networks, which are both formal and informal. As seen in Vietnam between 2013-2018, advocates for healthy rivers developed cross-sector relationships over time, in order to achieve their goals iteratively. This approach led to the government’s cancellation of the controversial Dong Nai dams in 2015, after challenges mounted by an influential network that included researchers, civil society, and sympathetic government officials. Local government officials can provide critical support in such cases, as they are often motivated by their own personal origins in or close social ties to communities impacted by environmental damage: a distinctive dynamic in the Vietnamese setting, where government power is more decentralised. Similar hybrid networks have also been crucial for defending rivers in Thailand.

    As political space contracts, we now see an increasing role for informal networks or coalitions, which adopt long-term and adaptive strategies. Being less visible means that these groups can be more nimble and flexible; they can avoid direct conflict; and they can even foster conversations with government officials or other powerful actors. This may involve the pursuit of narrowed or less radical conversations in the short term, as currently seen in Laos and Vietnam, where civil society organisations have settled for government engagements that involve neutral activities like service delivery, tree planting, or humanitarian relief. In such contexts, change can only be incremental. Yet, while tinkering around the edges of trouble, advocates can gradually build skills, trust, capacities, and room to manoeuvre.

    Third, and finally, we observe agency in the production of knowledge, especially when this is driven by local villagers and their agendas. In Thailand, for example, co-producing knowledge has become a way to “fight back” against oppression, and to gain recognition for local perspectives and experiences of environmental change. This has been made famous in the method of Tai Baan research which is now providing regional inspiration: Tai Baan is a highly collaborative knowledge-making strategy that was developed in 2000 with villagers in Pak Mun, Thailand, as a way to document and communicate their experiences of a hydropower dam. A key achievement of this “knowledge advocacy” was to ensure that government officials heard villagers’ voices.

    Participatory action research of this kind was also deployed around Cambodia’s Lower Sesan II dam which became operational in 2018. Oxfam, for example, trained women in water monitoring, which enabled them to lobby local authorities to address contaminated water in relocated villages. International NGOs also worked with local networks to support Indigenous communities in the dam-affected area to map and seek recognition of their traditional territories—a strategy that has strengthened local voices and identities, albeit not without challenges. Ultimately, this work helped to empower some Indigenous Bunong families to refuse forced relocation by the government, so that they could remain on their customary lands.

    Rupture and the Mekong’s New Environmental Politics

    It is now abundantly clear that “environmental issues are not just environmental issues in the Mekong region”, as one member of our group noted. To illustrate this, we have shared our observations of increased government controls on civil society in relation to hydropower dams, as well as in wider natural resource management and land contests in urban and rural areas.

    Our findings show how the environmental frame acts as a window into the production of political space in the Mekong region today—and the results are sobering. While authorities have long considered the words “activist” and “human rights” to be highly provocative, our observations show how the envelope of provocation has widened. Criticism is barely tolerated, and government intimidation of civil society is manifesting across various scales and circumstances: from the arrests of rural villagers involved in isolated land disputes, to the silencing of NGO workers engaged in efforts to regulate and bring transparency to international markets. This new environmental politics is, if nothing else, “complex, nonlinear and undetermined”.

    For local civil society advocates seeking social and environmental justice, it is now hard to think in terms of success or failure: they recognise that they are engaged in a long-term struggle. Windows of opportunity may emerge, but they are often narrow and fleeting. This means that many advocates and ordinary citizens are facing exhaustion, and emotions are running high.

    Tragically too, the urgency of environmental decline and dispossession in many settings does not allow for advocates to “play the long game” on civil society and human rights in the region: many citizens are now faced with an emotional, political and material-environmental squeeze. This resonates with Saidiya Hartman’s “politics in a lower frequency”, whereby operating in highly dominated and violent spaces calls for “local, multiple, and dispersed sites of resilience”.

    Ultimately, we find some hope in the Mekong region’s “low frequency politics”, in which unexpected coalitions or unusual collaborations show promise. We have now seen how knowledge advocacy and communications through social media can be mobilised for change. Yet caution is required: donors and international partners need to be aware of the new political contours of civil society in the region, especially the potential risks of doing “political work” for local citizens and collaborators.

    The post Civil society in the Mekong: What can we learn from environmental struggles? appeared first on New Mandala.

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  • Laos’ ‘circle of cronies’ keeps a tight lid on country’s news outlets, report says

    Laos is an information “black hole” where the government exerts complete control over news outlets, Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) said in its 2022 World Press Freedom Index this week that ranks the Southeast Asian country near the bottom of its list in terms of allowing journalists to challenge authorities.

    Laos placed 161st out of of 180 countries in the index, a slight improvement over 2021, when it was ranked 172nd. But the index still painted a dismal picture of press freedom in Laos, a finding that local reporters and citizens backed up in interviews with RFA this week.

    “The government essentially controls all press. Laos’ 24 newspapers, 32 television networks and 44 radio stations are required to follow the party line dictated by the Peoples’ Propaganda Commissariat, which is disseminated by the three dailies that the ruling party publishes,” the index, released this week, said.

    “The Lao Popular Revolutionary Party (LPRP) keeps the press under close surveillance and makes the creation of independent media impossible. The circle of cronies at the heart of the system, in many cases descendants of the old aristocracy, keep a lock on information,” the report said.

    Laos’ guarantee of freedom of expression is undone by laws prohibiting media outlets from harming the “national interest” or “traditional culture.”

    “The penal code provides for imprisonment of journalists who criticize the government, a provision extended in 2014 to internet users. Internet service providers are required to report web users’ names, professions and data search histories to the authorities,” the index said.

    The small boost in the rankings was likely due to more reporting on drugs and corruption, a former reporter for Lao state media told RFA’s Lao Service on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.

    “In March this year, a drug lord, Sisouk Daoheuang, was sentenced to death for drug trafficking and smuggling. State media also report some more details like the number of corrupt officials who have been disciplined, dismissed and charged,” the former reporter said.

    But one current reporter who is an employee of the Information, Culture and Tourism Department of Savannakhet Province told RFA’s Lao Service that journalists’ work is still restricted.

    “Despite improvement in ranking, we in the Lao media still don’t have much press freedom. There are no independent news outlets. All the news agencies belong to government and are controlled by government,” the reporter said.

    “We’re all members of the state media and we’re not independent and there is no variety of news in Laos. So, our reporting is restricted especially when reporting about corruption of the Party members and government officials. We can’t be critical to the Party and government at all. Even reporting on social media is restricted,” said the source.

    Reporters must run their stories by their department directors before they are published and they cannot cover any events without permission from at least the head of the department, the reporter said.

    Another reporter in the capital Vientiane told RFA that no media outlet there is free or independent.

    “If we’re told to cover that event, we’ll go and do it. They’ll tell us whether we can or can’t go and we must follow government policy. We only report what is approved and permitted by the authorities,” the Vientiane reporter said.

    “Sometimes, we know that what we are reporting is not true, but we can’t do anything about it. For example, we know that those government officials in that ministry are corrupt and are embezzling state money, but we can’t report that. We can’t report any news that the government considers as dangerous to the national security, the political process or is too critical of the leaders,” said the Vientiane reporter.

    Another problem with freedom of the press is that too many people are afraid to speak the truth, a resident of the southern province of Savannakhet told RFA.

    “If we speak out we’ll be thrown in jail. In this country, if someone tries to speak the truth, they will end up missing like Mouay,” the resident said.

    Houayheuang Xayabouly, better known by her nickname Mouay, was arrested Sept. 12, 2019, a week after she published videos critical about the government’s inability to rescue people from flooding in the country’s southern Champassak and Salavan provinces. The delayed government response had left many Lao villagers stranded and cut off from help, she said in the video, which was viewed more than 150,000 times.

    “She criticized the government, and actually what she said was true, but now she’s in jail for five years. People outside the country can speak out, but no one inside can. The people of Laos are afraid and worried, even when they express themselves on social media,” said the resident.

    A resident of Vientiane province told RFA that people can get in trouble for complaining about their lives.

    “The government will suppress you right away before you can do more harm. It’s like they’ll put out the fire before it spreads. Even if you escape to Thailand, the government will get you. That’s why many people here don’t get involved in politics,” the Vientiane province resident said.

    An aid worker in Laos told RFA that social media has in some ways given people more of a voice, as it provides more access with less restrictions than traditional media like radio, television and newspapers.

    “More and more Laotians are hungry for information and they turn to social media for it. The trend will continue because Laotians can express themselves more on social media. They want to vent their frustration because the government can’t do anything to solve the problems like the crumbling economy and financial crisis.”

    The number of social media users among Laos’ population of 7 million people increased to 51% this year, up from 49% last year and from 43% year before, data from statista.com shows.

    “Social media is a voice and a tool of people. When they see an official doing something wrong or judges making an unfair decision, they can post their comments online,” a businessman in Laos told RFA.

    “Then either the police or the court can come out and give explanation to the public. That’s a good thing. We know that state media is not reliable. Only those who are 55 years old or older follow the state media. While younger folks follow Thai media, which is much more interesting.”

    Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA’s Lao Service.

  • Bribes are a common business expense in Laos, a new report says

    Almost 70 percent of businesses that applied for registrations, licenses and permits in Laos paid bribes to government officials to get approval, a report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said.

    The report on the cost of doing business in Laos drew responses from 1,357 respondents, 68 percent of whom said that so-called “informal payments” were necessary for smooth and efficient business operations. ADB, which is based in Manila, provides loans, grants and other financial assistance to projects that promote growth in Asian countries and reduce extreme poverty in the region.

    “The informal charges must be paid for everything … because the access to the officials and the system they control is difficult, and the system is slow to adopt technology,” an employee at the ADB office in Laos, who requested anonymity for safety reasons, told RFA’s Lao Service Thursday.

    “It’s going to take some time to update the rules, amend the laws and improve the behavior of officials. The Lao government should develop human resources by upgrading their skills and knowledge, but it is more important that they are more transparent,” the ADB official said.

    Paying the bribe to get things done is sometimes easier than doing business by the book, an owner of a bar and restaurant in the historic town of Luang Prabang in northern Laos told RFA.

    “Paying kickbacks is widespread in Laos. They do it in every district and in every province because the process of obtaining license or permit in this country is very complex, bureaucratic and time consuming,” said the owner, who declined to be named.

    “In my case, I knew somebody in the provincial business registration office. They came by and inspected my facility first before I could register my business. You have to know somebody in the office, if not, it’s going to be difficult to get registered,” he said.

    Connections and money are integral to doing business in Laos, the owner of a Luang Prabang car rental company told RFA.

    “If you try to do it yourself, you’ll find a lot of trouble. But if you have a link or a connection in the office, it’ll be much easier because you and your connection can talk and compromise, of course, with the appropriate amount of money under the table,” he said.

    “With the appropriate amount, a process that normally takes three months takes only three weeks. In my case, I paid the appropriate amount to an acquaintance outside of his office after work hours,” the car rental owner said.

    Lao governmental paperwork is overly complicated, the owner of another business told RFA.

    “When I submit an application form for a permit, I can say to an official, ‘Please look at this application form. When it’s done, I’ll buy you a beer or two.’ Then I give him 300,000 kip ($25), the cost of one or two beers, for his service,” the source said.

    A Lao economist told RFA that the report did not uncover anything out of the ordinary.

    “For many people who don’t know about Laos, the ADB report looks negative. But for those who are used to it, kickbacks are normal because this kind of practice is a problem in every country in the world,” the economist said on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.

    “For example, when officials perform inspections for safety, labor practices or environmental impact of a factory, the factory owner would have to pay the inspectors cash and never receive a bill or receipt. The inspectors put the money in their pockets. The money is not a fee charged by the government,” he said, adding that foreign investors might not want to do business under that type of system.

    “For investors who are already here, the extra expenses in the form of kickbacks add up and increase the cost of doing business.”

    Solutions

    Kickbacks are often necessary because officials depend on them for much of their income, an official of the Lao Finance Ministry told RFA.

    “They take the kickbacks to make a living. I cannot deny that,” he said. “It’s getting worse in the current economic situation. The government is tackling this practice head-on in hopes of reducing it little by little.”

    The Lao Chamber of Industry and Commerce suggested in the ADB report that the government should step up training for its employees and switch from a system requiring person-to-person contact to an online processing method.

    In Transparency International’s 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index, which measures public sector corruption on a scale of 0 (“highly corrupt”) to 100 (“very clean”), Laos received a score of 30, placing it in 128th place among 180 countries.

    The least corrupt countries were New Zealand, Denmark, and Finland, each with score of 88, while the most corrupt was South Sudan, with a score of 11.

    Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Eugene Whong.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA’s Lao Service.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Former Vietnam Army Nurse Fights To Stop The Privatization Of VA Healthcare

    Retired nurse/nurse practitioner Arlys Herem knew she wanted to be a nurse since she was in the sixth grade. What she didn’t know was that she would  spend most of her career in other countries caring for the disenfranchised, educating medical personnel, promoting peace and advocating for veteran care when she retired.

    Arlys joined the service when she was 17 to “get out of Milwaukee” and take advantage of a scholarship offered by the Army Nurse Corp. She trained at Walter Reed National Army Medical Center in Washington DC and received a BSN from the University of Maryland.

    As an Army nurse she flew to Vietnam and worked for 13 months in Phu Bai, Pleiku, Bin Thuoy and Saigon between 1971-72. Most of her patients didn’t require combat-related care apart from those who caught diseases or experienced psychological trauma. She did mention a helicopter pilot with a serious chest wound who received 11 units of blood and survived.

    From there, she seesawed across the ocean between Asian Refugee camps and American hospitals for most of her career with pit stops on a Navajo Indian Reservation near Monument Valley and a Mayan village in Belize where she landed after joining the Peace Corps in 1978. “I would know what to do next when it would come along” she said about her decision to join the Peace Corps in the middle of a Scrabble game while talking with her friend Connie.

    After working two stints at Cambodian refugee camps during the 80’s, she hooked up with the American Refugee Committee (ARC) in 1993 and returned to Asia to work 25 more years in Cambodia. She spent the first six years at a hospital in NW Cambodia where she said the Pol Pot regime left the area “incredibly devastated — rubble everywhere, no books or curricula, institutions demolished.”

    A colleague recalled working with Aryls at a Cambodian refugee camp on the Thai/Cambodian border beginning in 1986.

    Aryls and I were teachers in the camp health training school and shared a house there for 3 years. My main impression of her is that she is an eminently practical optimist who finds creative ways to manage challenges–of which there were many in a camp with a thatch-roofed, dirt floor hospital. She worked with refugees whose educations were cut short by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge– yet they learned enough to provide good care even in the midst of malaria and cholera outbreaks. The many students trained in camp schools went on to jobs with the U.N. after repatriation and were influential in rebuilding their shattered country. Arlys gave many of them the foundation for their future work. After that, she moved to Cambodia and helped local people set up a care network for HIV/AIDS patients. That was 22 years ago. The group has since continued to expand their scope by supporting volunteers who teach about living with HIV as well as organizing associations in the district that support the elderly and educate them on managing common chronic diseases such as hypertension. The impact for good she has had on many, many lives is immeasurable. I greatly admire her and am so fortunate to have such an extraordinary friend.

    — Deb Webber

    In 1995 she participated in the eight-month Peace Walk from Auschwitz to Hiroshima when it passed through Cambodia and began networking more with spiritual leaders, ex-pats, war resisters and inter-religious peace workers from nearby countries. Five years later when the AIDS epidemic reached Cambodia, she founded a local NGO called Dhammayietra Mongkol Borei (peace walks and ease suffering) to expand education/care and raise social awareness through non-violent efforts. The NGO is still operating.

    She was beginning to enjoy teaching more too. “I think people need to see something grow, I really do…it’s part of us: Gardens, kids, watching people get better at doing something, training volunteers, teaching barefoot doctors.” Strong relationships she formed with people while working in Asia including Khmers, prompted her to retire in Minneapolis after many of them moved to Minnesota. When she felt “it was time to come home” in 2017, she flew back to Minnesota to be with her friends.

    Three years later she joined Veterans For Peace (VFP) in the Twin Cities and soon teamed up with VFP member Jeff Roy and David Cooley to help organize a nationwide effort called SOVA (Save Our VA) to bring awareness to a recent bipartisan trend that seeks to further privatize veteran health care. Cooley had already been working nationally and leading the local chapter 27 SOVA committee.

    Jeff Roy wrote:

    Arlys is a very talented and detail-oriented activist with a big heart for others in her political work and otherwise. With her many years working in Cambodia and after her time in Vietnam, she seemed to develop a passion for and deep skills with collecting and organizing information critical to the effectiveness of nonprofits. As a key member of SOVA and its Steering Committee, she outdoes herself regularly in her ability to help other members have easy access to critical SOVA Campaign data that she’s helped sort out and store in Google docs. Finally, she’s a key organizer in Minneapolis, turning out with VFP members and other activists to attend our monthly SOVA demonstrations at the VA…sometimes in very crummy weather. We’re all fortunate to have her!

    While the VA has always farmed out medical services it couldn’t provide, the VA Mission Act signed by President Trump in 2018 called for expanding non-VA care based largely on accessibility and drive times to and from care centers. SOVA though, argues that the new Mission Act “Community Care Network” (CCN) may provide more convenience for some, but it diminishes the integrated and specialized care veterans are used to receiving at VA facilities.

    “I feel respected and the staff seems more personal” said Arlys about the care she gets at the VA. Adding that the VA has become more holistic and community oriented in their public health approach by offering alternatives to conventional care and helping veterans with homelessness, legal problems or readjusting to civilian life. She also likes the idea of having so many medical specialties and social services in one place with VA representatives on hand to investigate patient complaints about medical care.

    She mentioned that a number of studies have shown that VA medical care is just as good or better than care in the private sector. A 2020 Stanford University study confirms this, noting that veterans receiving care at the VA (even though vets generally have worse underlying health problems than non-veterans) usually survive medical emergencies better than those receiving private care — and at a lower cost.

    Moreover, the VA has a longstanding reputation of being a teaching and research center for healthcare professionals. At least 70% of American physicians have received some training at a VA facility and she pointed out that the VA’s Million Veteran Program has the world’s largest genomic database. Some of the VA’s contributions to medicine include implantable cardiac pacemakers, a shingles vaccine and the Nicotine Patch.

    Other concerns of hers raise questions about the competency of non-VA medical personnel who are inexperienced in spotting symptoms from military-related traumas, chemical exposures or burn pits. Also, cynical and dishonest attacks on VA care from right-wingers including the Koch Brothers, keep groups like SOVA and the Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute busy doing research so spurious accusations can be refuted. Not up for debate is a massive increase in fraudulent billing since the push for privatization began a few years ago.

    Her efforts with lobbing are starting to pay off. A number of representatives have already signed on to legislation that would automatically enroll veterans in the VA health care system after being discharged from the service. Sometimes a congressional staffer will call her to keep apprised on veterans issues. “It’s good to get know the staff” she said.

    As of February 18, 2022 Aryls has crocheted 300 hats for the poor. It seems even in her spare time she practices the four-word mantra printed on her front doormat: BE KIND DO GOOD.

    Bruce Carruthers (left), Arlys Herem and Jeff Roy meet with Rep. Watkin’s staff to advocate for VA care.

    Arlys Herem and co-worker at a Saigon hospital.

    Arlys Herem on the job near the Minneapolis VA.

    The post Former Vietnam Army Nurse Fights To Stop The Privatization Of VA Healthcare first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Trucks backed up at Chinese borders in Myanmar and Laos due to COVID restrictions

    Long lines of trucks have formed at the Chinese borders of Laos and Myanmar, held up by China’s restriction of imports in an effort to prevent more coronavirus outbreaks, sources in both Southeast Asian countries told RFA.

    In Myanmar’s eastern border town of Muse, exports to China of seven types of goods — including rice, chilies and eels — have been suspended since March 15, resulting in a backup of more than 70 trucks, border traders there told RFA’s Myanmar Service.

    “From the very beginning, it has been very difficult to trade with the Chinese side because of the high cost and the frequent changes in the system,” Than Bo Oo, general secretary of the Muse Rice Commodity Exchange, told RFA. “Lately, most of the goods being moved are those left over from recent months. No new shipments have come from the mainland.”

    “We are still adjusting to the system changes. The cost of shipping from the border now seems higher than the cost of shipping on the seas,” he said.

    Some of the trucks have opted to unload their cargo into warehouses along the Muse border rather than wait around for China to ease the restrictions, he said.

    Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, border traders were able to export 40,000 to 60,000 bags of rice a day. Prior to last week’s restrictions, only two or three 12-wheelers with 50 tons of rice could get into China each day, the traders told RFA. Now none are crossing.

    Fisheries products are now being sent to China through the air because the land route is inaccessible, Tai Kyaw said.

    Khun Min Thant blamed China’s policy of delegating responsibility for local COVID-19 policies for the back-up at the border. He said that local Chinese officials in areas near the Myanmar are quick to stop imports to show they are trying to respond to outbreaks. They worry that doing nothing would put their jobs in jeopardy.

    “Two mayors already lost their positions in Ruili in connection with COVID surges. So if only one or two people are found infected, they order a complete lockdown,” Khun Min Thant said “Under these circumstances, our losses will continue.

    More than 200 trucks have been stopped at the border by Chinese authorities in Kachin State, just north of Muse.

    The recurring opening and closing of the border since trade officially resumed in November last year has been a headache for Myanmar traders. RFA reported in January that after an abrupt closing, trucks carrying watermelons decided to dump their cargo near the border rather than wait around for the fruit to spoil.

    China is fighting its worst COVID-19 outbreak since the Wuhan mass infections at the start of the pandemic, with authorities struggling to contain the highly contagious omicron variant under the Chinese Communist Party’s controversial “dynamic zero-COVID” policy.

    An estimated 50 million people had been placed under lockdown in various cities and districts across the country as of last week.

    Figures for lockdowns in Yunnan, the Chinese province bordering Laos and Myanmar, were not immediately available. But local media said Chinese authorities closed a fruit market in the border town of Ruili after a cluster of transmissions was reported on March 8.

    Thaung Naing, an assistant secretary at the Ministry of Commerce, told RFA that officials with the ruling military junta are working to get China to lift the various restrictions on Myanmar goods.

    RFA attempted to contact the Chinese embassy in Yangon but received no response.

    According to figures from the Myanmar Ministry of Commerce, cross-border trade between Myanmar and China totaled $5.47 billion for 2020. But it slumped to only $3.13 billion last year.

    Laos’ logjam

    The backup of trucks at the Chinese border in Laos remains agonizingly long for drivers trying to get their goods into China, with disputes over access spilling into fistfights between Lao and Chinese truckers. Even as trade between the countries resumed, China imposed a number of precautions to prevent the spread of coronavirus, including reducing the number of trucks that can cross over the border gate at Boten.

    “It’s been a parking lot from Nampheng Village all the way to the Boten border gate for almost six months now,” a Lao truck driver told RFA’s Lao Service, describing a backup of about 25 miles.

    “It takes us more than 14 days to get to our destination in China,” he said.

    Another trucker told RFA that the authorities must solve the congestion at the border soon, because most of the trucks are carrying produce.

    “Some products have an expiration date, and they won’t be accepted by the Chinese. For example, vegetables, watermelons, bananas and chilies are quickly perishable. The dry produce like corn and cassava is OK though,” he said.

    But a Lao customs official at the Boten gate told RFA that traffic at the border has improved, due to the reopening of another gate in a different province.

    The recently opened $6 billion Lao-China Railway should help alleviate the border backup by reducing demand for truck freight. But most Lao goods cannot be shipped to China along the high-speed rail connecting the Lao capital Vientiane to China’s rail network, a Lao import-export expert who requested anonymity for safety reasons, told RFA.

    “Only the Chinese goods are coming to Laos [via train]. We have to wait until the Lao goods are allowed,” he said.

    Lao minerals, cassava and cassava powder are allowed in the cargo bays on the train, he said.

    For those whose goods are in the clear, the railway has been great for business, a mineral exports worker told RFA.

    “We ship our on the train to China every day,” he said. “We ship the freight in containers it takes no more than 30 hours to reach the destination. We’ve all switched to the railway to ship our products because it’s faster and cheaper.”

    An official of the Lao Ministry of Industry and Trade explained that Laos was negotiating with China to open train freight to more types of Lao products.

    “Of course, we want to ship more goods, especially agricultural products such as vegetables, bananas, watermelons and rubber by train to China. We don’t know how long the negotiation will last or when it will end,” the official said.

    The Vientiane Times reported this week that the Lao government has promised to get more investment from China in an effort to boost exports.

    Key to their strategy will be making the train available to Lao goods headed for China. The report said in the railway’s first 100 days, more than 360 cross-border trains transported 280,000 tons of freight to Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Bangladesh.

    Translated by Khin Maung Nyane and Max Avary. Written in English by Eugene Whong. 


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA’s Myanmar and Lao Services.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Thailand to buy power from Mekong River dams in Laos

    Laos is set to sign agreements with Thailand to sell electricity from three dams being built on the Mekong River, despite opposition to the projects’ construction voiced by villagers and NGOs, according to Lao and Thai sources.

    The agreements between the two countries name the Luang Prabang Dam, Pak Beng Dam and Pak Lay Dam, all in northern Laos, as the power sources, sources say.

    “All of these projects are moving forward,” an official of the Lao Ministry of Energy and Mines told RFA on Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The dam developers are ready to begin construction of those dams as soon as the power purchase agreements are signed.”

    The agreements between Laos and Thailand are scheduled to be signed in May this year, according to a March 15 report in the Bangkok Post.

    Developers of the Pak Beng Dam are now making changes to the dam’s design, however, and the Lao government has not yet finished a Heritage Impact Assessment (HIA) required for the Luang Prabang Dam by UNESCO, RFA’s ministry source said.

    Developers will provide missing or incomplete documents if work on any project is delayed, the official said. “And the Thai side will then decide when and which dam will enter their market.”

    Speaking to RFA this week, Lao villagers and NGO representatives in Thailand reiterated their opposition to the proposed dams, pointing to negative effects on the region’s ecosystem and the planned displacement of thousands of villagers living downstream.

    “People here are opposed to the dams, especially the large dams, said one villager living in Oudomxay province’s Pak Beng district near the site of the planned Pak Beng Dam. “They don’t want the dams because they are the ones who will be affected.

    “However, here in Laos they just discuss their opposition among themselves and not with the authorities,” the villager said, speaking like RFA’s other sources in Laos on condition of anonymity.

    “There will be too many damaging impacts,” agreed a villager living near the Luang Prabang Dam site in Luang Prabang province’s Chomphet district. “Most villagers here don’t want this dam to be built, because the Mekong River is the main source of food for their families. If this dam is built, all our fish will disappear.”

    Hannarong Yaowalerd, chairman of the Foundation for Sustainable Water Management in Thailand, said that Thailand should wait for more studies to be completed before signing deals allowing the proposed dams to begin operations.

    “The Pak Beng Dam needs to be technically improved,” he said. “And as for the Luang Prabang Dam, the most concerning issue now is the impact it may have on Luang Prabang Town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We don’t need to sign the agreements now.”

    The Thai government is now pushing for the agreements to be signed because it wants to satisfy the interests of the dams’ developers, Yaowalerd said.

    ‘Not listening to concerns’

    A representative of the Love Chiang Khong Group, a Thai NGO in Chiang Rai province bordering Laos, meanwhile said the Thai government is refusing to listen to the concerns of Thai people likely to be affected by the dams.

    “They don’t care about cultural, historical or heritage sites. They also won’t care about damage to the ecosystem,” he said, also declining to be named. “The Mekong River is common property. Everyone depends on it.

    “The government’s Procedure for Notification, Prior Consultation and Agreement (PNPCA) is only ceremonial and meaningless,” he added.

    According to the website of the Mekong River Commission (MRC), a multi-nation group monitoring water flows and other conditions on the river, the Luang Prabang Dam built in Luang Prabang’s Chomphet district by Thailand’s Xayaburi Power Company and PetroVietnam Power, will cost $3 billion and displace 2,285 villagers.

    Construction of ports, a workers’ camp, power lines and water supply for the project are now complete, “and all heavy equipment has been brought in and an access road now 80 percent finished,” a Chomphet district official told RFA on Friday.

    The Pak Beng Dam, built by China Datang Overseas Investment, will cost $2.4 billion and affect 5,726 villagers, according to the MRC. An access road to the dam’s work site is now also in place, an official of Pak Beng district in Oudomxay province said.

    And the Pak Lay Dam, built in Xayaburi province by Gulf Energy Development and a Chinese state enterprise, Power China Resources Ltd., will cost $2.13 billion and affect 4,800 villagers in the province. “A road, power line, water supply and workers’ camp are now 80 percent complete, and some heavy equipment is now in place,” a district official said.

    Laos has staked its future on power generation in a controversial bid to become the “Battery of Southeast Asia,” exporting electricity from more than 50 large and small-scale dams on the Mekong River and its tributaries.

    Though the Lao government sees power generation as a way to boost the country’s economy, the projects have faced criticism because of their environmental impact, displacement of villagers and questionable arrangements.

    Reported by RFA’s Lao Service. Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Richard Finney.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Families in Laos’ capital say sand-dredging is destroying their village

    More than 100 families in the Lao capital Vientiane are calling on authorities to investigate a sand dredging company after their activities in the Ngeum River allegedly caused landslides that damaged several houses, sources in the capital told RFA.

    Sand is a hot commodity in Southeast Asia, needed to support a booming construction industry. But digging it up from the bottoms of rivers can be disastrous for the environment, accelerating erosion and leading to landslides that destroy buildings near riverbanks.

    The families, from Thasommor village the city’s Xaythany district, say that the company has been taking the sand without reinforcing the riverbank.

    “There were some landslides near my mom’s plot of land because of the sand dredging,” a resident of the village told RFA’s Lao Service March 11. “The landslides even affected my brother’s house, which had to stop construction.”

    Residents of the village petitioned the authorities to rectify the problem in the past, but they say that they received no response. They say they desperately need an embankment to protect their land and homes along the Ngeum.

    Another villager told RFA that the problem with the company has been going on for years, with authorities never taking the villagers’ concerns seriously.

    A third villager said that although his house is not near the river, he frequently hears complaints from other villagers about landslides caused by dredging. He said that prior to the dredging, damage to homes from landslides never happened.

    “There is no embankment around here. It is a private company that does the dredging. The company may have a concession to operate like this, but I don’t know much about that,” he said.

    An official from Xaythany district’s Natural Resources and Environment office told RFA that if the Thasommor residents are experiencing damaged homes due to landslides, they should ask their village chief to write a letter to the office so that authorities can investigate.

    The Vientiane administrative office and Vientiane energy and mines sector have, however, not authorized any Lao company to operate a sand dredging business along the Ngeum, the official said. There is therefore no information regarding which company’s sand dredging ships are allegedly causing the problems, he said. The official added that frequent flooding in the country is the main cause of landslides.

    In order to prevent landslides along the Mekong River and its tributaries, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment said companies with sand dredging concessions can operate only seven months per year, from December through June. When the rainy season starts, all the companies must stop their work. But some companies do not follow these instructions, RFA has confirmed. 

    In 2018, the Ministry of Public Work and Transport and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment proposed that the Lao government stop issuing dredging concessions along the Mekong and its tributaries to Lao companies.

    Sand dredging is a problem in other riparian communities along the Mekong. RFA has reported on the environmental damage from dredging in Cambodia, Myanmar and Vietnam, in addition to Laos. Though the region’s governments have attempted to regulate the practice, high prices for sand fueled by high demand in places like Singapore often lead companies to ignore restrictions.

    Translated by Phouvong. Written in English by Eugene Whong.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Thailand agrees to buy more electricity from Laos

    Thailand has agreed in principle to buy more electricity from Laos after the two Southeast Asian neighbors signed an agreement that expands energy cooperation between the two Mekong River neighbors.

    The memorandum of understanding, signed by both countries’ respective ministers of energy March 4, promotes clean energy, and creates more opportunities to invest in Laos’ energy sector, an official of the Lao Ministry of Energy and Mines told RFA’s Lao Service Monday.

    Laos has staked its future on power generation in a controversial bid to become “The Battery of Southeast Asia,” exporting electricity from more than 50 large and small-scale dams on the Mekong River and its tributaries.

    Selling the excess energy has been a problem for heavily indebted Laos, which has agreements to buy the power from the dams at a fixed rate, but sells it at market rates, which has been lower due to the coronavirus pandemic.

    Though the agreement paves the way for Thailand to purchase more power from Laos, prices still must be negotiated.

    “The next step will be for each dam developer to negotiate prices and a power purchase agreement directly with the buyer, Thailand,” the Lao energy official said on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.

    The energy official also said that Laos plans to build even more dams including at least five more on the Mekong River mainstream. Though he acknowledged that selling energy from the dams has been difficult recently as neighboring countries have their own power surpluses. Thailand, however, remains Laos’ largest market.

    Laos’ state-run power company Électricité du Laos (EDL) is optimistic about the deal, an EDL official told RFA.

    “Data shows that the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand is the most reliable buyer of our power,” the EDL official said.

    Environmentalist opposition

    Thai environmental advocacy groups criticized the agreement, saying that it would promote more degradation of the Mekong River’s ecology and impact riparian communities.

     

    “It’s not fair. The Thai government claims that the economy will recover after the COVID-19 pandemic and electric vehicles will be on their way, so they are saying they will need more power. But that’s just what they claim,” Witoon Permpongsacharoen from the Mekong River Energy and Ecology Network in Thailand told RFA.

    “Laos on the other hand isn’t listening to any criticism. Its government always believes that building dams is the only way that they can develop the country, but that’s not always true,” Permpongsacharoen said.

    He pointed out that Thailand has a 41 percent surplus of power, and it doesn’t need more from Laos.

    “The Thai government made this decision only for the interest of the Thai investors. They don’t care about the environmental and social impact of this deal. They don’t care that the dams are going to make climate change worse and create more methane in our air,” he said.

    The move only helps dam developers, a member of the Love Chiang Khong Group, a Thai riparian activist organization told RFA.

    “We in this group have been aggressively opposed to all these dams. It’s clear that the investors who are going to build dams in Laos do not care about the people,” said the activist, who requested anonymity to speak freely.

    “We’re going to continue to fight against these dams and for the people, not to mention all the aquatic species and wildlife in the Mekong region,” the activist said.

    According to a report published by the Lao Ministry of Energy and Mines, Laos has contracts to sell power to most of its neighbors, with Thailand on the hook for 10,500 megawatts. Laos is projected to be able to produce as high as 28,000 megawatts by 2030.

    Laos has built dozens of hydropower dams on the Mekong River and its tributaries in pursuit of its controversial economic plans.

    Though the Lao government sees power generation as a means to boost the country’s economy, the projects have faced criticism because of their environmental impact, displacement of villagers and questionable financial arrangements.

    Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Eugene Whong.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Laos’ expensive gamble on electricity may dim its economic future

    Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, Laos’ economic future looks precarious, bogged down by massive public debt and an economic strategy overly reliant on power generation.

    The World Bank reported in August 2021 that Laos’ public debt has climbed to U.S. $13.3 billion, or 72 percent of its gross domestic product. Most of the debt was incurred by the energy sector, with the state-owned Electricité du Laos (EDL), accounting for 36 percent.

    Laos has built dozens of hydropower dams on the Mekong and its tributaries and is building about 50 more under a plan to become the “Battery of Southeast Asia” and export the electricity they generate to other countries in the region, mainly Thailand.

    Additionally, Laos and China in December completed a $6 billion high-speed railway project linking the Lao capital Vientiane with China’s Yunnan province. Though Laos only has a 30 percent stake in the project, it still needed to borrow heavily from China to fund what it pledged to the project.

    The World Bank said Laos owes a total of $1.3 billion in debt service each year through 2025 and estimated that servicing the annual bill would reach 52.5 percent of public sector revenue in 2021, considered high for low-income countries. It noted that Laos’s obligations far exceed its reserves, recommending a shift in focus to “managing debt in a more sustainable and transparent manner.”

    Two international credit rating agencies in 2020, Moody’s and Fitch Ratings, downgraded Laos’ sovereign rating, meaning they believe the country has a high likelihood of defaulting.

    Fitch said in an August 2021 report that almost half of Laos’ external debt over the next few years must be paid to China. The two sides have worked together on the debt issue previously, with Laos asking for a debt suspension agreement, and the People’s Bank of China swapping yuan with the Bank of the Lao PDR in 2020 to help boost reserves of foreign currency, Fitch noted.

    At an October meeting of the Lao National Assembly, the minister of finance warned that interest payments will sharply increase over the next five years on public debt that stood at $13 billion in 2020.

    “The government will have to pay $414 million a year in interest alone, so we must tighten our belts,” Finance Minister Bounchom Oubonpaseuth said.

    Negotiating with China will be key to getting Laos out of its debt problems, and there are four possible options, a foreign journalist and analyst who has covered Laos extensively, told RFA’s Lao Service on condition of anonymity.

    “You can suspend … and give a longer time to pay the debt. They can cancel the debt. … They can ask Laos to settle for a foreign currency swap between the Bank of Laos and the People’s Bank of China. Or, China can loan money to Laos to pay the debt.”

    This map published by AFP shows the locations of hydropower projects in various stages of completion along the Mekong River. 

    EDL heavily indebted

    Chanthaboun Soukaloun, managing director of Electricité du Laos, told the annual general meeting on February 11 that EDL has been losing money for years and has accumulated $5 billion in debt. The loss is affecting EDL’s ability to repay its loans, the Lao government news agency, KPL reported.

    “The government has been aware of the debt. Everybody and every department of the government must help repay our debt, but we at the EDL don’t have money,” an EDL official, who requested for anonymity for safety reasons, told RFA Feb. 17.

    “The government knows that EDL owes a lot of money to EGAT (Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand), and that the EDL doesn’t have money to pay them back,” he said.

    The debt rose sharply over the past decade as EDL borrowed significant sums from foreign countries, especially Thailand and China, to build dams, install power lines and invest in other power related businesses.

    But some of the dams have not been productive due to a lack of water, while other dams with sufficient resources produce power that nobody is buying.

    The EDL has an obligation to purchase the electricity generated by the dams at high prices but must sell it at lower prices to companies in Thailand and China.

    Additionally, EDL owns only 10 of Laos’ 88 currently operational dams, while the rest belong to foreign investors, who sell the power they generate to EDL at high prices.

    Despite the excess electricity, power prices remain too high for many domestic customers to pay, which is why the company is losing money, the official said.

    The power business favors foreign investors, an official from the Ministry of Energy and Mines told RFA.

    “Of course, they pay all taxes and royalties to the government, but the government has huge expenses, such as paying out compensation” to people displaced by hydropower projects, the energy official said.

    Compensation for households, or even entire villages displaced by dams and infrastructure projects has been a source of friction for years. Many rural villagers have told RFA that the offered compensation is far below the value of the property they are giving up, and they trade fertile farm land for remote parcels of land with poor soil.

    For those that accept, the government sometimes struggles to pay out compensation in a timely manner, with relocated families waiting years for payment in some cases.

    In this March 2020 file photo, employees of the Électricité du Laos (EDL) work on a power line in Vientiane, Laos. Credit: Citizen Journalist

    Another problem for EDL is that it anticipated higher electricity prices when it signed agreements to buy electricity from the dam investors, with the eye of selling it for higher to its buyers.

    EDL is obligated to buy the electricity from most of the dam projects for $0.06 per kilowatt hour but currently can only sell it for $0.04 to companies in China’s Yunnan province or $0.05 to companies in Thailand.

    Many Lao citizens blame EDL’s problems on corruption, which has plagued the inner workings of Laos’ national and local governments for decades.

    Berlin-based Transparency International’s 2020 Corruption Perceptions Index ranked Laos 134 of 180 countries it evaluated in fighting corruption.

    Prime Minister Phankham Viphavanh pledged to stamp out corruption, bribery, fraud and other malfeasance by state officials in a speech to the Lao National Assembly in August, and in December, Laos stepped up the campaign against corruption by expelling corrupt officials from the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party, the country’s sole political party.

    Corruption is so pervasive in Laos that many of its citizens suspect it is the reason EDL is losing so much money.

    “EDL must inspect and closely monitor its employees at all levels, making sure that they don’t abuse power and seek personal financial gain,” a Lao businessman told RFA. “Widespread corruption leads to financial leaks and massive debts.”

    EDL must be reorganized, a resident of the southern province of Champassak, told RFA.

    “EDL’s employees and management team are running the company for their own benefit, not for the company or the state. First and foremost, actions for personal benefit must be stopped,” the Champassak resident said.

    A resident of the capital Vientiane slammed EDL’s lack of transparency.

    “There are no financial reports published. There must be a lot of corruption going on. That’s why the company is in such a big debt,” he said.

    An EDL affiliate in a letter last year asked several Thai companies for a longer grace period in repaying debt, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and rapid inflation.

    Prime Minister Phankham Viphavanh told the Lao National Meeting in November that the government was in the process of reforming several large state enterprises, including EDL, because of massive debt problems.

    Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.