US Department of State staff writer Eric Green touches on my reporting in his 22 October 2008 article:
www.america.gov/st/freepress-english/2008/October/200810221626221xeneerg0.7904627.html?CP.rss=true
Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has confirmed he will not return to Bangkok to face corruption charges. The Thai courts have issued warrants for the arrest of Mr. Thaksin and his wife.
Link to my radio story and article for VOA News (11 August 2008):
Thailand’s treatment of refugees has come under scrutiny for confining 140,000 refugees to camps along the Thai/Myanmar border, and refusing them the right to work and study.
The US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) in June ranked Thailand as one of the 10 worst places for refugees.
USCRI and others have also criticised the Thai military for returning 800 Hmong asylum-seekers to Laos in early July.
Some 8,000 Hmong have been living in the Huai Nam Khao camp in Thailand’s Petchabun Province since 2004. The Hmong claim they fled harassment and persecution in their homeland because of ties to the CIA-backed force that fought the communists in the 1960s and 70s.
Read my article for IRIN (irinnews.org) (the UN’s humanitarian information service):
www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79227
International donors have poured millions of dollars of relief aid into Myanmar, hoping to help more than two million people affected by Cyclone Nargis.
In this feature article for Reuters AlertNet (19 June 2008), I explore whether corruption by Myanmar’s junta could tarnish efforts to help those who need it most:
www.alertnet.org/db/an_art/1264/2008/05/19-172226-1.htm
In spite of massive spending on efforts to counter HIV/AIDS, experts warn that many young Thais are still having unsafe sex.
Read my feature article for IRIN (irinnews.org) (19 June 2008):
In September 2007, the Burmese army cracked down on monks and students calling for democracy and an end to 45 years of brutal military rule. Throughout the country, minority groups continue to suffer serious abuses at the hands of the army.
The Shan are the country’s largest ethnic group, and make up 10 million people. As many as 300,000 Shan have been forcibly displaced, and 1,400 of their villages destroyed. Like other ethnic groups, the Shan have been subjected to forced labor, and many women have been raped.
The leader of the Shan State Army, Col. Yawd Serk, is now urging all opponents of the Burmese generals to unite and launch a new offensive against the junta.
I’ve filmed a short documentary for Al Jazeera English about the Shan State Army at their remote mountain headquarters in eastern Burma called Loi Taileng.
I’ve just spent 17 days filming a documentary in the Philippines for Witness, Al Jazeera English.
The film is about a young human rights worker, Glendhyl Malabanan, who responds to killings and disappearances taking place in the Philippines. Malabanan works with a rights group known as Karapatan.
Since 2001, nearly 900 people have been executed by the military and its agents. The victims were mainly human rights workers, leftists, farmers, union leaders, church people, and journalists. Most were killed by masked men on motorbikes, hired for the job, and next to impossible to track down.
In fact, no one has been held accountable for the killings, even though UN experts have linked the military to the violence, and called on the government to stop the violence.
The backdrop to this story is the war the Philippines military has been fighting against communist insurgents known as the New People’s Army for 30 years. Some 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and the country’s military commanders say they are fighting a war on terror. The president has declared all-out war against the rebels, and vowed to wipe them out within a year.
But civilians, accused of being communist rebels – or at least sympathizing the rebels – are being hunted down and killed.
Malabanan’s father, Romy, was a farmer’s leader and leftist. After his murder, Malabanan began working to get justice for his death and supporting the families of hundreds of other victims.
This documentary focuses on Glendhyl as she risks her own life trying to stop the killings, disappearances, and other rights abuses taking place in the Philippines, mostly out of the headlines.
(Photos by Luis Liwanag, fixer/ photo journalist.)
