Land grabbing in Laos and Cambodia breach human rights

Land grabbing in Laos and Cambodia breach human rights

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source: http://blueandgreentomorrow.com/2013/05/14/land-grabbing-in-laos-and-cambodia-breach-human-rights/

Tuesday, May 14th, 2013 By Emma Websdale

Land grabbing by two large Vietnamese firms has driven communities in Laos and Cambodia off their land and forced people to work on rubber plantations, according to international NGO Global Witness.

Its report found that vast amounts of land have been acquired (land grabbing) for rubber plantations in the two Asian countries, financed by two large Vietnamese companies – Huang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) and Vietnam Rubber Group (VRG).

Speaking to Blue & Green Tomorrow recently, Friends of the Earth campaigner Kirtana Chandrasekaran said land grabbing is “frequently responsible for a number of human right violations – the right to food, the right to housing and human rights clauses against forced eviction.”

She added, “It compromises local food security and sometimes even international food security. It can also lead to devastating impacts on the environment.”

A recent report published by the Munden Project and the Rights and Resources Initiative highlighted the financial risks that investors may face when dealing with companies that land grab. Deutsche Bank and the International Finance Corporation have been accused of “bankrolling” HAGL and VRG by Global Witness.

The two Vietnamese giants now have access to over 200,000 hectares of land (including protected forest). The NGO’s report claims the firms were given consent by “corrupt” politicians in the Lao and Cambodian governments.

It also found that land was often sold without the villagers’ consent and without compensation, forcing many off their land. Villagers in Laos and Cambodia told the Guardian they had experienced threats of violence, food insecurity and invasion of their homes and rice fields as a result.

The Global Witness report urges the governments of Laos and Cambodia to immediately cancel the deal in question, and where there is evidence of illegal activities, to prosecute the companies behind it.

Further reading:

Encouraging pension funds to divest from land grabbing activities

Land grabbing poses investors ‘numerous’ financial risks

World must act against land grabbing extractive industries

Fund divests from gold mining firm because of ethical concerns

Donors Should Not be “Partners in Crime” with Rights Abusers

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rebecca-schleifer/donors-should-not-be-part_b_1613800.html

Rebecca Schleifer

Advocacy Director, Health and Human Rights Division at Human Rights Watch.

Around the world, millions of people are locked up because of drug use. Some languish in prisons, some in compulsory drug detention centers. Few have access to effective, evidence-based treatment for drug dependency if they need it. The problem is not isolated in any one part of the world, but it is most pernicious when international donors and UN agencies promote and fund drug detention policies that systematically deny people the right to due process and healthcare, and ignore forced labor and psychological and physical abuse.

The relationship of the US government and Laos is an example.

Earlier in June, with much fanfare, the U.S. Government pledged a new round of funding and collaboration in Lao People’s Democratic Republic. The U.S. committed $400,000 to support the Lao National Commission for Drug Control and Supervision to “upgrade the treatment of drug addicts at the Somsanga Treatment Center and at other centers.”

The name Somsanga should ring alarm bells. Human Rights Watch conducted research in Laos in 2011 as part of a series of investigations of drug detention centers. It was not easy. Laos is largely a closed country, which permits little free speech or scrutiny of its human rights record.

What the government and its donors describe as a voluntary “health-oriented” center arbitrarily detains people who use drugs – including those who are not dependent – as well as street children, the homeless, the mentally ill, and other undesirable populations behind high walls and barbed wire.

Somsanga holds most people against their will. They are detained by police or local militia, or “volunteered” by local communist commune authorities or family members who have the mistaken belief that the center offers therapeutic treatment, or who buckle under social pressure to make their village “drug free.” Once inside, they cannot leave. Some attempt or commit suicide by ingesting glass, swallowing soap, or hanging. As Maesa, a child who spent six months in Somsanga, told Human Rights Watch: “Some people think that to die is better than staying there.”

Upgrading drug treatment and tackling crime are worthy goals. But the U.S. should not so blithely ignore the Laos government’s history of human rights violations at the Somsanga Center. It needs to insist on development of stronger legal protections to ensure that people cannot be subject to arbitrary detention and torture, and on community and evidence-based drug dependency treatment.

Detention in government centers in the name of treatment and rehabilitation is not unique to Laos. As Human Rights Watch and other research has shown, hundreds of thousands people identified as drug users are held in drug detention centers in China, Vietnam and Cambodia too.

Nor are such centers and what goes on inside their locked doors and high walls the only human rights abuses associated with drug enforcement funding. Thirty-two countries worldwide retain the death penalty for drug offenses. China, Iran and Vietnam are among those that utilize the death penalty the most, and they all get drug enforcement assistance from international donors and the United Nations.

Governments and drug control agencies regularly announce successes in fighting the drug trade, counted in kilos of drugs seized and numbers of people prosecuted. But we rarely hear about the fate of those arrested, including how they came to be involved in the drug trade. Those sentenced to death become a statistic in drug enforcement “successes,” while passing simultaneously into human rights statistics documenting ongoing abuse.

It is a clear example of the wide gap between drug control and respect for human rights.

In recent years, due to the efforts of Harm Reduction International, Human Rights Watch and our colleagues and partners, there have been increasing calls to close all drug detention centers and end the death penalty for drugs.

But there has been little practical progress toward ending these abuses. UN agencies and international donors continue to fund activities inside drug detention centers, and to support drug enforcement efforts despite the human rights consequences.

Scant attention has been paid to the UN and international donors’ human rights obligations and ethical responsibilities with respect to drug control efforts they support, or indeed to safeguards to prevent them from effectively facilitating human rights abuses with their support.

A new report called “Partners in Crime” makes an important contribution to addressing this gap. In providing specific examples of financial and material support provided by UN and international donors for drug control efforts, and human rights concerns raised by such support, the report compels readers to think critically about government efforts to meet their shared responsibility to address drug use and drug-related crime. It should serve as a catalyst to ensure that all governments – including donors – and international actors move quickly to develop and support drug control policies that truly respect, protect, and fulfill human rights.

Follow Rebecca Schleifer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@BeccaSchleifer

United League Issues Human Rights Appeal – Laos, Vietnam

Press Release: Centre for Public Policy Analysis

Wednesday, 16 November 2011, 10:12 am

The United League for Democracy in Laos, Inc., (ULDL) has released the text of a seven-point international appeal and statement following events it hosted last week in Washington, D.C. that included representatives of the Laotian, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Hmong and Asian-American community The Center for Public Policy Analysis (CPPA) and other non-governmental organizations (NGO) and policymakers were invited to speak and participate in policy events, Capitol Hill meetings and a human rights rally held in front of the Lao Embassy in Washington, D.C. http://www.centerforpublicpolicyanalysis.org

The following is the text of the statement issued by Bounthanh Rathigna, President of the ULDL:

Statement of Bounthanh Rathigna, President United League for Democracy in Laos, Inc. Washington, D.C. November 5-8, 2011 Laos International Policy Conference & Demonstration and Protest Rally In Front of the Lao Embassy in Washington, D.C.

Honored Guests, American policymakers, Members of the U.S. Congress and staff, Fellow Laotian leaders, Lao and Hmong students, fellow NGO and non-profit organization leaders, representatives of the Free Vietnamese Community and other freedom loving people of Asia and America, Ladies and Gentleman, I am Bounthanh Rathigna, President of the United League for Democracy in Laos, Inc. (ULDL) and I welcome you here today at our international policy conference and protest rally and demonstration in front of the Lao Embassy in Washington, D.C.

It is good to see so many friends and supporters from across the country and from Laos gathered here in Washington to discuss the problems of the one-party, corrupt authoritarian regimes in Laos and Vietnam that continue to persecute their own citizens. I deeply appreciate your efforts to discuss and to protest human rights violations in Laos and the dictatorship of the Hanoi-backed Stalinist regime in Laos that continues to imprison and persecute the freedom-loving Laotian people.

We have gathered here in Washington, D.C., to memorialize and remember all of the Laotian, Vietnamese, Hmong and Asian people who continue to suffer human rights violations, religious persecution, torture and harsh imprisonment without due process and the rule of law. We remember and are here to demonstrate against the oppressive corruption and ongoing attacks by the secret police and military forces of the Lao regime in Vientiane, and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, against ordinary Lao and Hmong people who seek political, religious and economic freedom for Laos. We especially remember the Lao Student Movement for Democracy protesters of October 26, 1999, who peacefully demonstrated in Vientiane for democracy, human rights and political and economic reform but were arrested and continue to suffer in jail After 12 years they are still suffering in prison in Laos for their beliefs and for their efforts to bring about reform and change in Laos.

We are here to bring attention to and remember the Laotian and Hmong hiding in the jungles and mountains of Laos who continue to suffer military attacks by Vietnam People’s Army Forces and the Lao Army because they wish to live in peace and freedom apart from the Communist regime in Laos’s persecution and religious freedom violations and human rights violations.

We, therefore, are calling for:

1.) An end to the dictatorships in Laos and Vietnam. In Laos, we are calling for the hosting of truly free and fair multi-party elections in Laos monitored by the international community and an end to one-party Communist rule in Laos by the Lao People’s Army, and its military junta, that controls the Politburo in Vientiane;

2.) The immediate withdrawal of all Hanoi-backed army units and secret police of the Vietnam People’s Army that remain on the territory of Laos in support of the Lao communist regime’s (the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party) efforts to oppress and persecute the Laotian and Hmong people and exploit the economic resources of Laos and destroy its environment; We want the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to immediately withdrawal alls its troops, soldiers and police from Laos—as well as its covert security advisors;

3.) An immediate end to illegal logging by Vietnam People’s Army owned companies in Xieng Khouang, Sam Neua, Khammoune, Luang Prabang and other provinces in Laos that is destroying the environment, killing minority peoples such as the Lao Hmong people, and exploiting the natural resources of Laos without just compensation to ordinary Laotians;

4.) Stop the persecution, imprisonment, torture and killing of religious believers in Laos, including dissident Buddhists, minority Catholics, Protestant Christians and independent Animist believers; We, the Laotian people, want true freedom of religion for all Laotians of all religious faiths;

5.) Allow international humanitarian access to, and release, all political prisoners, prisoners of conscience, and foreign prisoners, including the Lao Students for Democracy Movement leaders, Hakit Yang and other two other Lao-Hmong American citizens from St. Paul Minnesota;

6.)Allow international humanitarian access to, and release, the over 8,500 Lao Hmong refugees and asylum seekers who fled persecution in Laos and who were tragically and brutally forced from Huay Nam Khao, Thailand, back to the regime in Laos in 2009 and 2010;

7.) Release the Ban Vang Tao patriots, the Laotian citizens, who were forced back to Laos from Thailand after their courageous efforts to raise the Royal Flag of Laos, the true and traditional flag of Laos, in opposition to the arrest and imprisonment of the Lao Student leaders and in support of freedom for their beloved country of Laos.

At these events in Washington, D.C. and the demonstration and protest in front of the Lao Embassy, we are here to give voice to the millions of suffering people of Laos and Vietnam who continue to live under the brutal Stalinist regimes in Vientiane and Hanoi. We are here to call for freedom and human rights for Laos, Vietnam and all of the people of Asia.

Invited participants and cosponsors included the ULDL, CPPA, United Lao for Human Rights and Democracy (ULHRD), Laos Institute for Democracy, Inc., Lao Students for Democracy, Lao Veterans of America, Inc., Free Vietnam Community, Hmong Advance, Inc., Hmong Advancement, Inc., and other NGOs and Asian-American organizations.

Laotian-American, and Asian-American, delegations from Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, New York, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, California, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Rhode Island and other states, also attended and participated.

Thank you.

###www.cppa-dc.org

ENDS

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Mekong threatened by hydropower plants – LAOS: Villagers brace for relocation as dam project moves forward

View Original Source:  http://www.saigon-gpdaily.com.vn/National/Society/2011/7/95126/

Construction of hydropower plants in the upper regions of the Mekong River may result in damages of about US$2 billion annually, particularly in agro and aqua production.

This was disclosed in a discussion titled ‘Development challenges to the Mekong Delta ecology by hydropower reservoirs’, hosted by the Can Tho University and the Vietnam River Network yesterday.

Twelve hydropower plants are proposed to begin construction along the Mekong River. Eight of these will be in Laos, two in Cambodia and two between Laos and Thailand border areas.

Moreover, four hydropower plants are already in existence and a further eight are being proposed. Most of these projects are under China.  The Delta therefore faces serious threat to its eco-system.

Experts present at the discussion claimed that the Mekong Delta in Vietnam will be the worst affected should these hydropower plants come up.

By Dinh Tuyen – Translated by Hai Mien

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LAOS: Villagers brace for relocation as dam project moves forward

View Original Source:  http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93355

Photo: Mike Ives/IRIN. Life for future generations looks set to change

THADEAU, 29 July 2011 (IRIN) – Ting does not know exactly how the proposed Xayaburi hydropower dam will change his life, but he knows he will be forced to leave his village if it goes ahead.

“I don’t have any power over this decision,” said Ting, 50, who like other Lao villagers, goes by only one name. He earns a living ferrying passengers across the Mekong River in a motorized skiff and lives in Pakmon, a village of 150 families just 30km upstream from the proposed US$3.8 billion dam in the impoverished Xayaburi Province.

In June, a Lao official came to Pakmon and said any families who lived below 275m – the projected height of the dam’s reservoir – would be forced to relocate.

Now Ting and other villagers, many of whom earn no more than US$500 per year, are anxious to see if the dam will be built, and how their main livelihoods – fishing and farming – will be affected.

According to the US environmental group International Rivers, more than 2,100 people will be forcibly resettled and 200,000 people will be affected.

“Given the Laos government’s legacy of poor planning and uncompensated losses, the communities that will be forcibly resettled by the dam are likely to suffer greatly,” Ame Trandem, a spokesperson for International Rivers, told IRIN.

 

Photo: Mike Ives/IRIN. A fisherman ponders the future

“Unchartered waters”

Plans to dam the lower stretch of the Mekong, the world’s 12th-largest river, have put Laos on a collision course with its neighbours and environmentalists, who fear livelihoods, fish species and farmland could be destroyed, undermining the food security of thousands.

China, which borders Laos, already operates four dams on the upper stretch of the river.

In May, Khempheng Pholsena, chairwoman of the Laos National Mekong Committee, told reporters in Hanoi, Vietnam, that the Xayaburi dam would be “socially and environmentally sustainable”.

This followed critical statements by Thai, Cambodian and Vietnamese diplomats about the Xayaburi proposal  in April, calling for more studies of the dam’s trans-boundary impacts.

Then in an 8 June letter leaked to the media and addressed to Xayaburi Power Ltd, a subsidiary of Ch Karnchang, the Thai developer, the Lao Ministry of Energy and Mines claimed to have “completed” its obligation for prior consultation regarding the dam proposal under the 1995 Mekong Agreement, which established a non-binding process for reviewing mainstream dam proposals by any of the four lower Mekong River Countries (MRC): Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Two weeks later, a group of MRC donors asked Laos to clarify its position, but has yet to receive a response.

As of late May, the project appeared to be dead, presumably because Laos did not want to “lose face” by breaking with Vietnam, a close political ally that has expressed strong opposition to the proposed dam, said Ian Baird, a Laos expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. However, the leaked letter suggests a different scenario, he maintains.

“It is hard to believe that the Lao government is going ahead with this [dam] despite strong opposition in the region, including from the Vietnam government, but that would appear to be the case,” he said.

“We are in unchartered waters on this one,” Baird added.

Livelihoods in the balance

Laos claims the Mekong dams would lift its people out of poverty and help it achieve its stated goal of escaping “least developed country” status by 2020.

But an independent report warned in October 2010 that the proposed dams would have “permanent and irreversible” effects on downstream communities and ecosystems.

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton echoed those concerns on 22 July, warning at a conference in Bali that if one Mekong country built a dam, neighbouring countries would feel the environmental and social consequences.

Ch Karnchang has promised some villagers near the dam it will build them homes, a school and a hospital, and give them $250 in one-time loans for purchasing livestock, according to villagers.

Yet even if such benefits materialize, says David Blake, a UK-based Laos aquaculture expert, who has worked in Xayaburi Province, the villagers will have trouble finding places to grow lowland rice, a staple crop.

Villagers may be forced to give up farming and rely on handouts, Blake said, or else migrate to cities and “join the swelling ranks of urban, landless poor”.

mi/ds/mw

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom 2011 Annual Report

View Original Source:  http://www.uscirf.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3372

Laos

(U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom kept Laos on the Commission’s Watch List for 2011)

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