Saturday, June 4, 2011
ស្ថានភាពសិទ្ធិមនុស្សនៅកម្ពុជា
Former soldiers
A source close to People’s Liberation Army Lt. Gen. Xu Qinxian, who served a five-year jail term for refusing to lead his 38th army troops into Beijing on the eve of the crackdown, had been relocated to the northern city of Shijiazhuang in February.
Xu, 75, was told to leave following the publication of an interview with him in Hong Kong's Apple Daily newspaper in February.
"The next day he was sent to Shijiazhuang. They won't let him live in Beijing," the source said. "They're being very strict."
"He used to spend most of his time in Beijing, but they won't let him come back now."
A second source said they had recently discussed the crackdown with another veteran.
"I ran into one guy and we got talking," the second source said. "We started talking about Tiananmen Square, and then he told me a bit later that he was one of the troops that carried out the crackdown."
"He said it took days to wash the blood off Tiananmen Square ... and that they had kept photos to bear witness to history."
According to the diaries of Zhao's successor, the deeply unpopular hardliner Li Peng, no blood was shed during the move into the Square on the night of June 3.
"Who says no blood was spilled on Tiananmen Square?" the source quoted the retired soldier as saying.
No form of public memorial has ever been held for those who died when the People’s Liberation Army cleared thousands of protesters from the center of the city.
Instead, police regularly clamp down on any form of public protest or discontent at this time of year.
Khmer Voice
Twenty-two years on, Chinese authorities removed from the capital former political and military officials with first-hand knowledge of the 1989 military crackdown on Tiananmen Square protests.
Calls to the Beijing home of Bao Tong, former top Communist Party aide to late ousted premier Zhao Ziyang, went unanswered on Thursday.
Bao, who has been under house arrest since his release from a seven-year jail term in the wake of Zhao's fall, typically writes political essays marking "sensitive" anniversaries in the ruling Party's history, arguing for democratic change.
"I think they probably left the day before yesterday," Bao's Hong Kong-based son, Bao Pu, said on Friday. "There have been arrangements made for them to visit some hot springs."
"My father has always refused this in the past, but this year there have been orders that he must not be allowed to give interviews, not even on the phone," Bao Pu said.
"They will probably be back on June 5 or 6."
Friday, June 3, 2011
New Cambodia
Rights activists constantly bombard Burma and its communist one-party state neighbors Vietnam and Laos for their stubborn refusal to embrace meaningful political reforms.
But shouldn't the more prosperous Southeast Asian nations—especially the founders of the ASEAN grouping—also take the flack for dragging their feet on expanding political liberties for their peoples?
The recent election in Singapore, in which the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) suffered its worst performance, has thrown the spotlight on lagging reforms not only in the island state but also in other more developed economies in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), such as Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
The PAP's share of the popular vote slipped to an all-time low of 60 percent despite the island state's strong economic growth in the last five years, including a record 14.5 percent expansion in 2010.
Khmer News
Deep-seated cultural ties to the grasslands and traditional nomadic ways lie behind recent protests across Inner Mongolia, experts say.
While the protests were sparked by the death of a herdsman from the Shiliin-Gol (in Chinese, Xilin Meng) area, overseas rights groups believe they reflect a deep and widespread anger over continuing exploitation of the region's grasslands, the heartland of Mongol culture.
"This is no external propaganda; it really is the reason, in my view," said Temtselt Shobshuud (in Chinese, Xi Haiming), exiled rights activist and chairman of the Inner Mongolian People's Party.
"On the face of it, it looks like a clash over a mining operation, but really, the much deeper reason is that the livelihood and culture of the Mongolian people [in China] is in crisis.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
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