Syria Next on the list? A wave of unrest has finally reached one of the region’s most repressive regimes

Mar 24th 2011 | DAMASCUS |

FOR the past few months, as Arab autocracies have wobbled and sometimes fallen, President Bashar Assad has sat tight in his capital, Damascus, seemingly impervious to the upheavals elsewhere. No longer. Since March 18th Deraa, a city of around 100,000 people some 100km (62 miles) to the south, has been a bubbling cauldron. At least a dozen civilians were shot dead, six outside the Omari mosque on March 23rd; another three were reported to have been gunned down later that day. Protests have taken place in several other Syrian towns, including Homs, Banias, Deir ez-Zor and even, in a small way, Damascus itself. It seems likely that the regime, after several days of hesitation, will crack down hard. Discord is in the air.

Deraa has been cordoned off by troops from the rest of Syria. The city centre has been sealed. Communications and electricity have been cut. Information barely trickles out. Human-rights groups nervously recall the crushing of a Muslim Brotherhood revolt against Mr Assad’s father, Hafez, in the city of Hama in 1982, which may have left as many as 20,000 dead. Most Syria watchers think the son is a lot less ruthless than the father. But he is surrounded by many of the same sort of hard security men. In the past few weeks at least 100 political activists have been rounded up; some human-rights groups put the number at more than 300.

The violence in Deraa, which is close to the border with Jordan, erupted after a group of teenagers were put behind bars for writing graffiti denouncing the local government and corruption. People in other cities marched on the same “day of dignity”, but the unrest in Deraa persisted. The surrounding province is a poor farming area inhabited by conservative Sunni tribes. After four young men were shot on that first day, a vicious circle of funerals and protests began to revolve, with tribal honour demanding revenge.

Mr Assad met one of the protesters’ demands by sacking the provincial governor. But his government’s otherwise cackhanded reaction has merely stiffened the protesters’ resolve, though they have refrained so far from calling for the president himself to go. The authorities have denied responsibility for the deaths, blaming an assortment of miscreants, from Palestinian and Muslim extremists to criminal gangs.

Mr Assad’s ruling circle seems split between those who advocate repression and others proposing reform. Before the latest round-up of activists, the state media’s website declared an amnesty for political prisoners; but the decision was evidently rescinded and the posting rapidly deleted. The length of the military service, hated by young Syrians, has been cut from 21 to 18 months. But more drastic demands, such as the ending of emergency law, which allows the state to arrest anyone who steps out of line, have been firmly rejected.

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The shootings in Deraa suggest that the government has opted for repression. But this could backfire. Across the country calls for karama, or dignity, are being heard. Some protest chants have even called for revolution. Syria’s Kurdish minority in the north-east, always susceptible to calls for dissent, has held back, but could join the fray if the protests spread.

Fear of sectarian strife lurks under Syria’s surface. Mr Assad’s power is concentrated among his own Alawite sect, a Shia breakaway minority that numbers barely 6% of Syrians. The Al Jazeera satellite channel, which has helped stir protests in other countries, has begun to air news of the unrest in Deraa. That may give the protesters across the country a fillip.

More demonstrations have been called for March 25th. If they go unheeded, the regime may breathe again. But if protesters take to the streets in large numbers and the security forces open fire, things might get out of hand—and even the durable Mr Assad’s throne might start to wobble.

from the print edition | Middle East & Africa

Chinese democracy Victory in miniature

Cached:  http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2011/03/chinese_democracy

 

Mar 22nd 2011, 13:31 by J.M. | ZHAIQIAO VILLAGE

 

 

(Picture credit: Zhou Yu)

AMID one of China’s most sweeping crackdowns on dissent in years, the village of Zhaiqiao in the coastal province of Zhejiang has put on an unusual display of people power. A rubbish-strewn, muddled assortment of houses near a huge power station on the shoreline, Zhaiqiao tends not to attract attention. But it shot to fame in December when the village chief, Qian Yunhui, was run over by a truck. Allegations swept the internet that Mr Qian had been killed deliberately because of his long-running efforts to secure better compensation for land ceded by the village to the power plant. (His father, Qian Shunnan, pictured on the right, holds a statement attesting to his son’s death.)

The government insisted his death was an accident. The unlicensed driver was sentenced last month to three-and-a-half years in prison. Now the villagers have used the ballot box to show their rejection of the official explanation.

Many commentators have described the story of Qian Yunhui as an example of the breakdown in trust between officialdom and ordinary citizens. The government has tried to stifle coverage, after an initial flurry of reporting in the Chinese press that was sympathetic to the villagers. State-owned newspapers have been ordered to downplay the story. Some of Mr Qian’s close family believe they are being watched. Two of them agreed to be interviewed by The Economist, but only after being driven to an inconspicuous spot outside the village.

Chinese citizens rarely get a chance to seek revenge by vote. But since the 1990s villages have at least had the nominal power to elect their own heads (real power is often still held by unelected Communist Party secretaries). On March 9th Zhaiqiao village conducted its first polls in six years. It was a sensitive time to do it. The annual ten-day session of China’s rubber-stamp parliament, the National People’s Congress (NPC), was under way in Beijing. As ever, when the NPC is in session local officials are under strict orders to avoid any disturbance that might distract attention from the meetings in the capital. Central and local governments were especially tense during this year’s session because of anonymous internet-circulated calls for Arab-style pro-democracy protests in China.

Zhaiqiao has had a chequered history with elections. The late Mr Qian won the last ballot in 2005 on a tide of support for his campaign to secure better compensation for the land occupied by the power plant. Its generators supply nearly half the energy needs of nearby Wenzhou, the province’s entrepreneurial hub, according to the China Business Journal (in Chinese). But Mr Qian already had a suspended one-and-a-half-year prison term hanging over him for alleged rabble-rousing. In April 2006 the authorities decided to make him serve eight months in jail.

By the time the next elections were due in 2008, Mr Qian was back in prison, this time because of an illegal land transaction. According to a state-owned newspaper, 21st Century Business Herald (in Chinese), Mr Qian had impoverished himself with all his petitioning and, with villagers’ approval, had sold a plot of land. Villagers refused to have fresh elections because they still regarded Mr Qian as the legitimate chief (the term of office normally runs three years). But the government no longer recognised him as such, and turned to the party secretary as the sole authority.

In early 2010 another attempt was made at electing a chief. Villagers were furious. Their hero was getting close to the end of his jail time and they suspected the government wanted to hold the elections quickly in order to make sure that Mr Qian was not out in time to stand. (Elections did not have to be held until this year.) Threatened with a boycott, the government backed down. After his release in July, Mr Qian continued to petition the authorities about the power plant, identifying himself as “village chief by popular will” and using an official village stamp. His funeral on January 1st, a week after he was crushed to death on Zhaiqiao’s main road, prompted clashes between hundreds of police and villagers. There were rumours that one reason local officials might have wanted him dead was to keep from being elected again.

The government must have been very worried that trouble would break out during the polls on March 9th. Their instinct, as it has been on several occasions since the power-plant struggle began, would have been to send in large numbers of police to maintain order. But villagers warned that they would boycott the vote, if it did. The government again backed down (though villagers claim to have seen several plainclothes officers). The result of the election, declared at 3am the following day—to a cheering crowd—was a victory for Qian Yunmeng, who won 1,788 votes against 972 for his rival. Mr Qian is a close cousin of the deceased. In the clannish politics of Chinese villages, his victory was a clear stamp of popular support for his late relative.

News of the election circulated on Chinese blogs and microblogs (eg, see here and here). But China’s official media largely ignored the news. Legal Daily, a Beijing newspaper controlled by the ministry of justice, was an unusual exception. On March 11th it published a detailed account (in Chinese), though it avoided any analysis of the government’s reaction to the outcome. The villagers of Zhaiqiao however have no doubt that the authorities are very unhappy.

(Picture credit: Zhou Yu)

Aftershocks Continue in Myanmar

Cached:  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/world/asia/26iht-myanmar26.html

By SETH MYDANS

Published: March 25, 2011

TACHILEK, MYANMAR — Aftershocks continued here Friday and residents camped out on streets and in parks, praying at makeshift shrines after a major earthquake the night before killed at least 70 people, injured hundreds more and shattered hundreds of buildings.

The tremors were also felt in neighboring Thailand and Laos, whose borders meet at Myanmar to form the Golden Triangle, as well as in southern China, in Vietnam and in Myanmar’s main city, Yangon, hundreds of kilometers away.

In a rising casualty count, the state-run media reported that 74 people had been killed and 111 had been injured. It added that 390 houses, 14 monasteries and nine government buildings had been damaged. The reports said two people were killed and six were receiving treatment for injuries here in Tachilek, a small city on the border of Thailand that advertises itself as the Gold Triangle City, in a region known for drug trafficking.

But an official at the district hospital here said that as many as 200 patients were being treated and that others were continuing to arrive.

He said he believed that the death toll had reached 100, but there was no way to confirm that.

Residents said many others were trapped near the epicenter about 100 kilometers, or 60 miles, to the north in Shan State after a major bridge collapsed, with some caught in landslides along its rain-soaked banks. Boats were being used to ferry the injured across the river.

On the sun-baked streets and parks of Tachilek, families remained outdoors, resting in the shade on straw mats and pillows. People built shrines in doorways out of little mounds of sand, sometimes using plastic cups as molds, topping the results with tiny white paper flags.

“Goddess of the earth, goddess of the sky, goddess of the house, goddess of the city, may I ask for the power to protect our home,” said Pa Hung, 85, lighting two yellow candles and inserting them into the mounds of sand at her house.

Beside the shrine was a large plastic bottle of water, and Pa Hung’s daughter, Nang Huan, 48, stared at it intently, watching for a tremor. All along the street, people had set up bottles of water or orange juice as early-warning signals of an aftershock.

“If you had been here last night, you would have seen people sleeping everywhere in the street,” Nang Huan said. She pointed to a large crack caused by the earthquake in the wall of a building across the street and said, “I don’t want to sit anywhere near that.” Chai Nhung, 29, a three-wheel-taxi driver, said an aunt and a cousin had been killed in a landslide at Ta Lua, on the far side of the river, and that because of the bridge collapse, it was impossible to bring their bodies to Tachilek for a funeral ceremony.

“Their house was beside the bridge, and the whole row of houses slid into the river,” he said.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake, with a 6.8 magnitude, was just 10 kilometers deep, meaning that severe shaking could have caused major damage to buildings in a wide area. The agency also reported a quake of 4.8 magnitude about a half-hour later.

Across the border from Tachilek, in the Thai town of Mae Sai, officials said one woman had been killed in her sleep when a wall collapsed. Although buildings shook in Mae Sai and residents fled to the safety of the streets, officials said no major damage had been reported. Many tourists in nearby Chiang Mai also spent much of the night outdoors.

Soraida Salwala, founder of Friends of the Asian Elephants, said elephants at her center in Lampang, Thailand, became restless and tugged at their chains shortly before the earthquake struck.

She said their keepers thought at first that the animals had been frightened by snakes.

According to the Web site of The Irrawaddy, a Thailand-based Burmese exile magazine with good sources inside Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, at least 17 soldiers and family members were killed in Tachilek when a barracks building collapsed. It also said there were reports that some people who had fled to a recently built church in nearby Tarlay were killed when the church collapsed following an aftershock.

As the tremors radiated outward from this remote mountain area, buildings shook for more than a minute in the Chinese province of Yunnan and in Nanning City, the capital of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Xinhua, the Chinese state news agency, reported.

The tremors caused panic in Hanoi, about 600 kilometers to the east of the epicenter, and residents said they heard the shattering of windows, the Vietnam News Agency reported. Tall buildings shook and lamps swayed in Bangkok, 775 kilometers to the south.

Jenny McIntyre, communication manager for World Vision in Yangon, said, “I suddenly felt really sick and strange, and I realized that everything was rocking and the light shades were all rocking. I’d experienced earthquakes before, because I’m from Christchurch, New Zealand.”

In Chiang Rai, 60 kilometers from the Myanmar border, a teacher attending a funeral said she had clung to a pole to stay upright as trees danced around her. “I felt I was swaying like a child in a cradle,” said the teacher, Nutpisut Thongkika, 50.

A version of this article appeared in print on March 26, 2011, in The International Herald Tribune.

Dozens killed as quake slams Myanmar, Thailand Scores of buildings collapse; shaking felt as far away as Bangkok

 

msnbc.com news services updated 2 hours 54 minutes ago

A Thai Buddhist monk looks on a collapsed 800-year-old pagoda damage caused by the Myanmar 6.8-magnitude earthquake at Wat Chedi Luang temple, Chiang Saen district, Chiang Rai province near the Thai-Myanmar border in northern Thailand on Friday.

YANGON, Myanmar — A strong earthquake that toppled homes in northeastern Myanmar has killed more than 70 people, and there were fears Friday the toll would mount as conditions in more remote areas became known.

The Thursday night quake, measured at a magnitude 6.8 by the U.S. Geological Survey, was centered just north of the town Tachileik in the mountains along the Thai border.

The initial quake shook the famous “Golden Triangle” region, where Myanmar, Thailand and Laos meet. It was felt in the capital cities of Thailand and Myanmar and as far away as Vietnam, where people in tall buildings were evacuated.

Myanmar state radio announced Friday that 74 people had been killed and 111 injured in the quake, but was updating the total frequently. It said that 390 houses, 14 Buddhist monasteries and nine government buildings were damaged.

An official from the U.N.’s World Food Program said there were many casualties and serious damage in Mong Lin village, five miles from Tachileik. State radio said 29 were killed there and 16 injured.

People fled their homes in the town and cracks were seen in the roads.

“We were extremely frightened to enter the house since there were several strong aftershocks,” a teacher said by telephone. “Some people are haunted by what they saw on TV about the recent earthquake in Japan.”

The Red Cross said a hospital in Tachilek had been damaged and trained local volunteers had been mobilized to provide relief and first aid.

Collapsed houses, damaged hospital
The state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported that 15 houses collapsed in the town of Tarlay, where state radio said 11 were killed and 29 injured. Another U.N. official said a small hospital there was partially damaged as well as a bridge, making it difficult to access the town.

The second U.N. official said medicine would be sent to the affected areas as soon as possible along with an assessment team in cooperation with the Myanmar Red Cross Society.

Both U.N. officials spoke on condition of anonymity because Myanmar’s government frowns on giving unauthorized information to the media.

The newspaper said another two people were killed in Tachileik, including a 4-year-old boy. It said six people were injured in the town, which is just across the border from Mae Sai in Thailand’s Chiang Rai province.

Thursday’s quake was centered 69 miles north of Chiang Rai, Thailand’s northernmost province and a sparsely populated, hilly area. It forms part of the Golden Triangle, a popular tourist destination and famous for the cultivation of illicit opium.

In Chiang Rai’s main town, little damage was seen. The spires of several Buddhist pagodas were bent, some tiles were smashed and a few cracks were seen on the ground close to a hotel.

In Mae Sai, one woman was killed when a wall fell on her, according to Thai police, but damage was otherwise minimal.

Aftershock fears
Fearing more aftershocks, people in the province’s Mae Sai district had left their houses and were seen setting up makeshift shelters in open spaces.

Somchai Hatyatanti, Chiang Rai provincial governor, said cracks were seen in some buildings. Power was briefly knocked out and some telephone lines were down.

Most of rural Myanmar, one of Asia’s poorest countries, is underdeveloped, with poor communications and other infrastructure, and minimal rescue and relief capacity. The country’s military government is also usually reluctant to release information about disasters because it is already sensitive to any criticism.

The government tightly controls information, and in 2008 delayed reporting on — and asking for help with — devastating Cyclone Nargis, which killed 130,000 people. The junta was widely criticized for what were called inadequate preparations and a slow response to the disaster.

Somchai Hatayatanti, the governor of Chiang Rai province, said dozens of people suffered minor injuries on the Thai side of the border. Cracks were found in buildings in downtown Chiang Rai city, about 55 miles from the epicenter, including a provincial hospital and city hall. The tops of the spires fell off from at least two Buddhist temples.

As a precaution for aftershocks, a relief center was being set up Friday in Mae Sai.

“We are worried that the area might be hit with stronger quakes. There was another quake at 7 a.m. this morning,” said Somsri Meethong of the Mae Sai District office, referring to a 4.9 aftershock. “I had to run again like last night. What we have seen on TV about Japan added to our fear.”

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

 

Earthquake kills at least 75 in Burma

 

At least 75 people have been killed and hundreds of buildings damaged in a strong earthquake that rocked remote border areas of Burma, Thailand and Laos.

An earthquake damaged building is seen in Tarlay, Burma Photo: REUTERS

Cached:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/burmamyanmar/8406284/Earthquake-kills-at-least-75-in-Burma.html

By Ian MacKinnon, Bangkok 11:34AM GMT 25 Mar 2011

There were fears that the death toll could rise as rescue teams reached villages in north-east Burma, which suffered most of the casualties from the quake that measure 6.8 on the Richter Scale.

State media in Burma said that 74 people had died and 111 were injured, though the regime is notoriously slow to release bad news for fear of further criticism. Another woman died in the Thai border town of Mae Sai when a wall collapsed.

The epicentre of the quake, which was followed by six strong aftershocks on Friday, came 69 miles north of the Thai regional city of Chiang Mai, at a depth of 6.2 milles. But most of the damage occurred in the Burmese border town Tachilek and surrounding area.

In all the Burmese authorities said that 390 homes, 14 Buddhist monasteries and nine government buildings were damaged by Thursday night’s quake that was felt as far away as Bangkok and the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi, 500 miles distant.

An official from the UN’s World Food Programme operating in Burma said one particular village, Mong Lin, close to Tachilek, seemed to have been particularly hard hit when 29 people were killed and 16 injured.

In the town of Tarlay 15 houses collapsed killing 15 people and injuring 29, while in Tachilek where many buildings suffered cracks, just two people died, though one was a boy of four.

Vibul Sguanpong, director general of Thailand’s Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation, said there had been dozens of aftershocks and urged caution.

“We urge those in very old houses or tall, old buildings near the northern border with [Burma] to check for cracks and other signs of damage, and consider leaving for the next two days while aftershocks are likely,” he said.

The renewed tremors sent panicked residents fleeing from their homes in Chiang Mai. Four pagodas in the historic town of Chiang Saen, near Thailand’s border with Burma were damaged while 10ft spire of one crashed to the ground.