Asia

Suicide Bombers Kill Dozens

By Michael E. Sanchez
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan- A third explosion has struck the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, just hours after suicide bombers killed at least 45 people and injured 100.

Two suicide bomb attacks executed 15 seconds apart tore through the city on Friday, killing at least 39 people and sparking fears of a new wave of militant violence in major cities following a period of relative calm.  The targets of the dual attack were Pakistani military vehicles as they passed through a crowded market known as the RA bazaar.  Lahore police official Chaundhry Shafiq said the bombers detonated explosive filled vests after walking up to the vehicles.

Mohammed Nadeem, an eyewitness to the attack, said he was praying in a mosque when he heard the fire blast and rushed out only to hear a second. Mr. Nadeem, in blood stained clothes said “The second blast took place very near a military vehicle…I sensed real danger and started running.  There were scenes of destruction in nearby restaurants and shops.”  Afzal Awan, another eyewitness, said he had seen wounded people with limbs missing lying in pools of blood.  He told reporters “I saw smoke rising everywhere… a lot of people were crying.”

In total more than 95 people were injured in the explosions, and at least nine soldiers were killed.  No immediate reports were given on the third explosion, but a report has suggested that it occurred near a police station.  No group has claimed responsibility for that attack.

These attacks come four days after a suicide car bomb attack at a building that houses terrorism investigations in Lahore killed at least 13 people and wounded 80 others.

Lahore is Pakistan’s second largest city and its cultural captial.  Lahore has been the scene for some of the deadliest bomb attacks in the country last year, including blasts in December which occurred in a crowded bazaar which killed 48 people, and a raid on the provincial headquarters of Pakistan’s spy agency in May that killed at least 27.

These attacks are carried out by Islamic extremists in retaliation against military offensives that routed Taliban militants from the volatile Swat Valley region and section of the tribal areas along the Afghan border.  The violence has killed more than 600 people.  Although the success of the offensives had recently given Pakistanis confidence that they were gaining the upper hand against the extremists, but a new wave of suicide bombings in Pakistan’s major cities could undermine that momentum.

“The nation and its security forces need to keep morale high,” said Rana Sanaullah, law minister for Punjab province, where Lahore is located.  “We can only win this fight with unity.”

For more information, please see:

LA Times- Suicide Bombers Kill 39 in Pakistan– 12 March 2010
Aljazeera.net- Pakistan Suicide Blasts Kill Dozens– 12 March 2010

Sri Lankan General Stages Hunger Strike

By Alok Bhatt
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – General Sarath Fonseka, a former commander of Sri Lanka’s armof Sri Lanka’s arm and a significant player in Sri Lanka’s war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam, has recently undertaken a hunger strike.  The General’s hunger strike signifies his protest against unfair detention by the Sri Lankan government.  The strike also follows the deprivation of the General’s phone rights to communicate with his wife.  General Fonseka had already invoked numerous concerns regarding his health because he refused to eat anything other than the food his wife delivered to him during allowed visits.

The denial of the General’s telephone rights coincides with what could have been a significant step towards exposing humanitarian violations in Sri Lanka.  The General’s continued denial of rights comes after Sri Lankan government’s vehement rejection of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon’s idea to establish an expert panel to review alleged human rights violations perpetrated during the quarter-century long war against the Tamil Tigers.  The UN and various human rights groups have consistently accused Sri Lanka of denying the Tamil ethnic minorities, who are regarded internally displaced persons subsequent to  the end of Sri Lanka’s bloody conflict, essential necessities while housing them in derisory, unsanitary refugee camps.  The government was more recently accused of extra-judicial killing of suspected Tamil Tigers, but claimed that the video evidence depicting these illegal executions had been doctored to create false allegations.

General Fonseka’s arrest was suspiciously predicated upon human rights violations during the struggle against the Tamil Tigers.  However, it has become clear that the President of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa, ordered the arrest because General Fonseka opposed him in Sri Lanka’s post-war elections.  Both men were considered heroes by Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese ethnic majority following the end of the war.  However, General Fonseka’s resignation from Sri Lanka’s army in November 2009 and his subsequent participation in the elections to run against Rajapaksa caused a fall-out between two men.

Initially, General Fonseka had access to his wife, lawyer, and doctor.  However, the Sri Lankan government appears to have become concerned that the General may divulge to the UN information regarding human rights violations and the deaths of over 20,000 civilians.  The government’s actions, however, only raise further suspicions and represents a continuation of Sri Lanka’s history of human rights violations.

For more information, please see:

Al-Jazeera – Fonseka begins hunger strike – 07 March 2010

Sify News – General Fonseka starts hunger strike – 07 March 2010

Times Online – General Sarath Fonseka on a hunger strike… – 07 March 2010

Bangladesh Faces Further Criticism for Mistreating Rohingya Muslims

By Alok Bhatt
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

Bangladesh – The Bangladeshi government has provoked chastisement from the international community once more for its gross mistreatment of the Rohingya Muslim minority.  The Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) released a statement on Tuesday stating that the state of the makeshift refugee camps in Bangladesh constitutes numerous human rights violations.  The report focuses on the starvation which has been occurring in the refugee camps to which droves of Rohingya Muslims escape.  Other members of the ethnic minority, however, have also been coerced into dwelling in these derisory camps.

The PHR report contains statements alluding to the conditions of the refugee camps in Bangladesh as “unconscionable.” For the duration of their stay in the makeshift refugee camps, the Rohingya Muslim ethnic minority remains stateless and in a state of utmost poverty.  The report also reveals that the child malnutrition rate at the Rohingya camps is approximately 18.2 percent.  As a comparison, the report offers a figure signifying that the child malnutrition rate in Haiti after the recent earthquake is approximately 6 percent.  Furthermore, the Rohingya Muslim group has never received external aid.  Their plight is largely overlooked, allowing for their continued mistreatment.

The ill treatment of the Rohingya Muslims has lead to the group’s becoming the most persecuted peoples on Earth.  They have been fleeing from their homeland of Myanmar since the 1970’s to escape discrimination and deprivation of civil and political rights.  Since the beginning of the exodus out of Burma, over 300,000 Rohingya sought freedom in Bangladesh.  However, human rights groups and the UN have seen a significant backlash against the Rohingya population and the Bangladeshi government has taken affirmative steps to deter further immigration.

Bangladesh has been exacting a significant crackdown on Rohingya Muslims who for decades have been residing as unregistered residents in various camps in Bangladesh.  Current practices include the systematic arrest and expulsion of unregistered Rohingya Muslims by Bangladeshi authorities.  There have also been accounts of Bangladeshi police forcing Rohingya Muslims to re-enter Myanmar, where the ethnic minority has faced its most severe oppression and persecution.

The acts of Bangladeshi authorities signify a flagrant violation of the Rohingya Muslims’ human rights.  The UN has yet to respond with a possible reaction to the illegal acts of the Bangladeshi government.

For more information, please see:

Al-Jazeera – Refugees ‘starve’ in Bangladesh – 10 March 2010

AsiaNews – Bangkok denies mistreatment allegations by Rohingya refugees – 04 February 2009

Yahoo! News – Rohingya refugees ‘starving to death’ in Bangladesh – 10 March 2009

Concern for Abused Addicts at Cambodian Drug Centers

By M.E. Dodge
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Many treatment centers in Cambodia have raised serious human rights alerts as reports of  physical abuse and involuntary administration of experimental drugs and medication become more frequent.

A woman in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, prepared to inject herself with heroin in a back alley used by addicts, like those in the background. Image courtesy of The New York Times.

 

The Human Rights Watch issued a recent report describing the abuse and mal-treatment in eleven different government-run centers. The report indicated that electric shock, beatings, rapes, forced labor and forced donations of blood were practices at most of these institutions.

According to the report, “Sadistic violence, experienced as spontaneous and capricious, is integral to the way in which these centers operate.” It went on to state that, “the practice of torture and inhuman treatment [is] widely practiced throughout Cambodia’s drug detention centers.”

The Cambodian government dismissed the report, and uttered in a public announcement that the report was,  “without any valid grounds.” Meas Virith, deputy secretary of the National Authority for Combating Drugs, stated at a news conference that, “The centers are not detention or torture centers,” and that “They are open to the public and are not secret centers.” She declined to describe the specific treatment practices the centers uses.

Aside from the few government-run centers, there are very few other resources for drug users to rely on to seek help for their addictions. Government figures for drug use in Cambodia are unreliable and range from about 6,000 to 20,000.The United Nations believes this figure could be as high as 500,000. In light of such heavy use, desperate families sometimes commit their relatives to the centers.  Others are said to be institutionalized against their will.

A drug dealer working in a poor neighborhood in Phnom Penh. Image Courtesy of: Justin Mott for The New York Times.

In December of 2009, the Cambodian government engaged in administering and experimental herbal drug to try and treat addicts. The treatment was heavily criticized by rights groups and health professionals because it was  imported from Vietnam but not registered for use in Cambodia. It is uncertain how many people the drug was used on, but twenty-one drug users documented and administered “bong sen” for ten days at various treatment centers before being released. There is no indication that a systematic follow-up was conducted, and the national drug authority conceded that at least some of those treated returned to drug use.

According to Graham Shaw, an expert on drug dependence and harm reduction with the World Health Organization in Phnom Penh, “No information is known to exist as to the efficacy of this claimed medicine for the detoxification of opiate dependent people, nor to its side effects or interactions with other drugs.”

“If Cambodian authorities think they are reducing drug dependency through the policy of compulsory detention at these centers, they are wrong,” said the report by Human Rights Watch. “There is no evidence that forced physical exercise, forced labor and forced military drills have any therapeutic benefit whatsoever.”

For more information, please see:

The New York Times – Cambodian Addicts Abused in Detention, Rights Group Says – 15 February 2010

Voice of America – Drug Treatment Centers Rife with Abuse – 30 January 2010

IPS – CAMBODIA: ‘Abuse Rampant in Drug Detention Centres’ – Human Rights Watch – 7 March 2010

Cambodia News – Rights Group Says Cambodia’s Drug Treatment Centers Rife with Abuse – 30 January 2010

Donor Fatigue Hits North Korea

By Hyo-Jin Paik
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

WASHINGTON, D.C., United States – The World Food Programme (WFP) announced Thursday that efforts to deliver aid to starving North Korea will stop by July if donations do not increase.

According to a senior UN official, WFP’s Pyongyang office is on the brink of closure as aid to North Korea has decreased due to growing donor fatigue.

He said, “WFP can continue to support around 1.4m children and pregnant women with fortified foods until the end of June.  However, new contributions are required now or the operation will come to a standstill in July.”

In 2008, WFP saw a similar aid crunch where the programme had difficulty attracting donors, and UN officials opine that donors have once again become exasperated with North Korea.

For example, the U.S. was once a leading food donor, but the U.S. has announced that it will no longer supply cereals to the North until North Korea “resumes proper monitoring.” 

Relationship between North Korea and the U.S. deteriorated last year when the North refused to issue visas to monitors who wanted to ensure that the food aid was going to the hungry citizens and not being funneled to the military and the government elite.

Although the exact condition of malnutrition in North Korea is hard to gauge, the country’s leader Kim Jong-il has made a very rare apology this year for “failing to deliver rice and meat stew to the people.”

A non-governmental relief agency also called on South Korea to resume food aid to North Korea so as to ease the North’s worst food shortage since the 1990’s.

Current conservative South Korea administration has stopped shipments of food to North Korea with resuming aid conditional on the North making progress in the Six-Party Talks.

Aid organizations have said that North Korea will need at least 1 million tons of food from donors to feed its 24 million citizens.  Reports have also indicated that thousands have already starved to death this winter due to soaring food prices resulting from the recent currency reevaluation.

A graveyard in North Korea’s northeastern port city of Chongjin sees an average of two to three funerals a day now, compared to one funeral every three days before the country was hit with inflation caused by the currency reevaluation.

For more information, please see:

Bangkok Post – Lack of honors hits N.Korea food relief efforts – 4 March 2010

The Financial Times – Donor fatigue threatens to choke aid for North Korea – 4 March 2010

Yonhap News – NGO warns of extreme famine in N. Korea, urges aid – 5 March 2010