Watching the news these days and hearing about yet another austerity plan being implemented in some European country usually requires a shake of the head and a rueful look directed at the television for most people. I’m not sure what else can possibly be cut, but it seems there is always more to take away from the average person: pensions, welfare, entitlements, education, and healthcare are all typically the first casualties. Dissatisfaction among Europeans is manifest in the disturbing rise of extremist parties across the continent.

Dissatisfaction was also high in Asia a decade and a half ago. In 1997, it was that continent which found itself in a devastating financial crisis.

Many economists trace the origins of the calamity to Thailand when Bangkok decided to remove the fixed rate of exchange between the Thai baht and the U.S. dollar. Instead, Bangkok implemented a floating exchange rate. Thai liabilities were held in U.S. dollars but assets remained held in baht. A severe depreciation of the baht occurred and sent Thailand’s debt soaring; the state’s debt was higher than the state’s GDP, resulting in the collapse of the baht and, effectively, rendering the country insolvent. Contagion rapidly occurred and within a few short months the crisis had spread from South Korea to Indonesia and many places in between.

Most of the economies in Asia — especially the Asian Tigers — were not based on efficiency, a traditional underpinning of sound economic policy, but rather by an influx of capital and an expanding work force. Moreover, the propensity for Southeast Asian treasuries to rely on short-term loans – at the behest of IMF economists – to be invested in high-yield sectors, as opposed to social programs such as infrastructure, education, or healthcare, resulted in the incursion of substantial debt. As a consequence, the countries’ economic policymakers had no choice but to devalue their currencies.

Although Thailand’s Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh initially resisted devaluation, the baht eventually collapsed by itself after Bangkok’s decision to peg their currency to the US dollar. Devaluation led to a sharp rise in the cost of imports and panic amongst foreign investors who were only too quick to pull out.

The IMF’s consequent intervention only augmented the disaster. The structural adjustment package offered by the IMF was conditioned with the expectations that the states in need of a bailout would adhere to the principles which underscore neoliberalism: privatization, deregulation, and trade liberalization. This is despite the prevailing dogma of the era which was that there were virtually no restrictions on capital flows during the run up to the crisis, as the IMF’s economists had previously recommended.

The austerity measures forced upon Thailand – bank closures, spending cuts, and staggering raises to interest rates – signaled to creditors that the Thai economy was only going to get worse. Improvements to the country’s healthcare and educational systems were abandoned and industrial manufacturing plummeted. Furthermore, the unemployment rate shot up from 1.5 per cent in 1997 to 4.4 percent in 1998 – a 193.33 per cent increase.

Social discontent was advancing at a rapid pace at the turn of the century and ended up manifesting itself in the election of a populist that evinced a fundamental transition which has come to define the Thailand’s political system in the 21^st century.

If European political leaders don’t want to suffer a similar fate, they would do well to reverse course.

Photo: News.com.au

No sooner had my previous post — warning of an imminent massacre of Muslims in Burma — been published two weeks ago, deadly sectarian riots swept through the town of Meiktila in central Myanmar leaving an estimated 32 people dead, according to a government official. Alternative estimates claim that the death toll is quite a bit higher. As many as 9,000 others were left homeless, their modest living quarters leveled by enraged Buddhist lynch mobs who also laid waste to several mosques which were seen burning to the ground.

If you believe the official story, the rioting was instigated by a brawl at a gold shop between two individuals. Whether or not that is true is immaterial.  The instigation is not as important to this tragedy as the fact that this attack was planned well in advance. A common narrative amongst sources on the ground is that the “violence they witnessed seemed systematic and well-planned.” More attacks against Muslims in Burma will also happen sooner rather than later and, as of last week, there were reports of anti-Muslim riots in three other townships.

The most disturbing aspect of Burma’s xenophobia is that it is being spearheaded by Buddhists monks, assumed to be one of the more docile and moderating actors in the face of political turmoil. Buddhists, in general, enjoy a friendly reputation amongst those in the West. Their behavior in Myanmar should shatter that disposition.

Foreign Affairs editor Tim Marshall describes the phenomenon:

Yes, the democracy movement led by Aung San Suu Kyi has been mostly peaceful. Yes, we did see thousands of smiling, calm, saffron-robed Buddhist monks taking to the streets, and no, most ordinary Burmese do not set about their neighbours with knifes, and their neighbours’ homes with petrol bombs.

But some do. Some of them even wear saffron robes while they do it.

In addition, Burmese writer Aung Zaw notes at The Irrawaddy:

It is also clear that Burma’s Buddhists—particularly its monks—have suffered an enormous black eye due to the actions of a shadowy group of chauvinists who have used religion as a pretext for terrorizing a segment of Burma’s population.

The sad truth, however, is that this is not the first time that Buddhism has been twisted beyond recognition to serve the interests of a tiny cabal with malicious intentions. After all, for half a century, successive military dictatorships employed a grotesque parody of Buddhism to manipulate the masses.

The rioting is a blow to the country’s aspirations to join the community of nations after decades of isolation. Despite liberalizing it’s political system over the past year and a half, and beginning the process of opening up its economy, Myanmar cannot seem to shake its troubling issues with ethnic minorities. Democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi has been strangely mum on the issue as well. Does she have anything to say about the ethnic cleansing taking place in her country?

As I tell my students anytime I ask an open-ended question: I’ll take your silence as assent.

Photo: BBC

Never again.

Remember that? The world was very determined to never allow another attempt at genocide after the Holocaust. We know now that those words were as empty and hollow as a whiskey barrel on the George Bush ranch. Genocides have happened again and will continue to happen if it is not in the “international community’s” strategic interests to stop it. And when there is a selfish reason to become involved, there is much bragging and chest thumping about how moral and caring our government is.

So I am predicting that we will indeed watch the United States begin arming the Islamic jihadists in Syria. It will, of course, be announced as a noble effort to prevent a humanitarian calamity but which in reality is nothing more than the esoteric policy choice favored by the indefatigable anti-Iran crowd in Washington.

Now juxtapose that with the situation of the Rohingya. Bangladesh doesn’t want them. Burma persecutes them. Thailand traffics them into slavery. And if these three corrupt regimes had their way, the Rohingya would sooner be completely liquidated rather than having to be dealt with as a pesky nuisance and raison d’etre of refugee rights groups.

There are those who consider this genocide. That is a very powerful word and should not be used lightly. However, there is compelling evidence to suggest the term is not misused to describe the deplorable acts against the Rohingya.

The man who coined the phrase, Raphael Lemkin, said the following:

Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.

This is particularly damning to Professor Aye Chan of Kanda University of Japan who recently reminded us that the effort to dehumanize or, at the very least, revise history is alive and well in Eastern academia.

In his lecture in Myanmar, Professor Chan claimed that “there never were Rohingya people” in Burma. I’ve heard quite the same argument from far-right Zionists who deny the existence of the Palestinians.

This line of thinking is nefarious not just because it is usually accompanied by the advocation of crude use of force by the state, but also because of the clever manipulation and exploitation of symbols, language, relationships and ideology. This has had the ultimate aim of subverting traditional expressions in ways that benefit the state, and their effects are eloquently detailed in stories I’ve read mostly on social networking media. Thus, the argument of these people never existing in the first place is allowed to be propagated.

Of course the Rohingya came from present day Bangladesh, but that is not the point. They’re there now, and the government is maltreating them. The question is what can or should we do to prevent more killing?

There are reports that a new state-sponsored massacre is planned for some time between now and the middle of April. If no one steps up to stop it, we may not be debating whether to call it a genocide in the slaughter’s aftermath.

Photo: Rohingya Arakanese Refugee Committee (RARC)

Last week saw Laos formally become the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) 158th member.  Before the ink had time to dry on the agreement, Asia-based pundits were already weighing in about the potential benefits of such a move, which took fifteen years in the making.

Gretchen A. Kunze, the Laos-based representative for The Asia Foundation writes that “[f]or Laos, membership is a solid indicator of the nation’s growing engagement in the global economy…In recent years, the small, landlocked country has achieved some of the world’s highest economic growth, generally ranging between 7-8 percent annually. As of yet the benefits of the booming economy have not spread much beyond the capital city of Vientiane, and Laos remains among the world’s poorest nations.”

But it is not just the fact that most of the country’s wealth is concentrated in the capital city, but rather that the income is unequally distributed throughout the country. A search of the World Bank’s world development indicators shows the shocking statistic that 66% of the country lives on less than $2/day.

Kunze continues:

The great hope here is that the WTO accession will provide a stamp of legitimacy that will attract increased foreign investors and thereby drive economic growth and reduce poverty. There are unofficial murmurs that the nation would also like to diversify its investors. Powerful neighboring countries – China, Vietnam, and Thailand – have dominated foreign investment in Laos. Until now, Western countries in particular have deemed the country’s investment and regulatory environment far too risky, and have passed over Laos in favor of countries with a more predictable legal and regulatory environment. The Lao people hope that the WTO acceptance will change that.

Let’s review some of the neoliberal conditions required to legitimize one’s country in the eyes of the WTO. Firstly, trade policy needs to be liberalized. This will assuredly send Laos’ millions of peasant farmers into even deeper poverty. With no legal protection against Laos forcibly opening up its markets to cheaper exports, the country’s poor, rural majority will either have to accept much lower prices on staple crops or will be unable to sell it to anyone. Rice exports currently account for 40% of the country’s GDP.

Moreover, as we saw in Haiti over the past decade, the local population becomes unable to feed itself and is left to the unpredictable trends of the global market. Even former US President Bill Clinton has come out against such free trade policies.

Another condition for membership is the deregulation of labor practices. Now, despite being a one-party autocracy, Laos is certainly no socialist utopia. The decision to join the WTO will lead to the increase in sweatshops in Laos, as has been the case in neighboring countries. I’m sure, as Ms. Kunze argues, Laos will attract more foreign direct investment (FDI) but at what social cost? Will we see that 66% of people living on the pittance of $2/day tick up even higher in the coming years?

Prashanth Parameswaran of The Diplomat does an impressive job of breaking down the hurdles Laos faces in order to extract some benefits to this agreement — including the country’s rampant corruption and political repression — but ultimately concludes that joining the WTO is “a tremendous achievement for a rapidly growing economy.”

However, let’s not forget — and the two authors above do point this out in their respective articles, to their credit — that Laos’ growing economy is due mostly to its abundance of natural resources, not to any brilliant economic strategic thinking on the part of Vientiane.

Laos is an economic backwater whose political leaders still seem stuck in the Cold War era. The political elites do not care about the well-being of their citizens. I wrote about the disturbing case of Sombath Somphone’s disappearance a few weeks ago. Additionally, there was the proposed dam project of the Mekong River, an adventure which would have cost upwards of $3.5 billion and which ecological experts had asserted could have led to a dire food security calamity for the impoverished people living along the river.

Many writers and analysts are sending plaudits Vientiane’s way for this historic decision. I’m sending condolences to the poorest of Laos whose piece of the pie will likely shrink even more from the negligible morsel it currently is.

Photo: Travel-images.com

After three months of national mourning, Cambodia’s late King Father Norodom Sihanouk’s body will be cremated this upcoming Monday in a ceremony that could only be fit for a king.  As is the case whenever Cambodia draws international attention, the capital city of Phnom Penh is spit shined and polished in an attempt to live up to its local moniker as “the charming city.”

As per the government’s unofficial policy whenever one of these extravagant ceremonies takes place, the homeless and the beggars are rounded up and taken to another part of the city away from the flash bulbs of the scores of foreign correspondents in town to cover the precession.

“My alley has become a homeless camp due to the police sweeps that keep them out of sight and off the main street,” laments long-time expat Johnny Phillips, an owner of a non-profit in Phnom Penh.

Heavily armed security personnel roam the streets with loaded M-16′s. Why you might ask? It’s a very good — and disturbing — question.

There seems to be a paradox of sorts in this country. Khmers are expected and demanded to love their king. However, it would seem that many of the hundreds of thousands packing the capital coming to pay their respects are not welcome.

Many of the government’s policies have served to enrich the political elite whilst maintaining a system in which 30% of the population lives on $1.25 per day, according to the World Bank. Then, the government acts to remove this embarrassing stain on the country whenever the world’s eyes are fixed on Cambodia. It’s like putting a band-aid on a broken jaw.

“I just heard a commotion [outside]…police are loading a street vendor’s monster ice cooler and popcorn rack onto a truck in the dark. Confiscated,” wrote another source on the ground. “That’s the entire earthly possessions of some poor Khmer… is this the true sense of yin and yang?”

Incidentally, the Arab Spring’s origins can be traced to one fruit vendor self-immolating after having his cart confiscated.

So while Khmers begin to say their final farewell to their late King Father this weekend, a quick tour around town can offer a true taste of the real Cambodia.

Photo: KI-Media

If you thought last week’s story about Thailand’s decision to forcibly deport Rohingya refugees escaping ethnic violence in Myanmar was horrifying enough, you should probably stop reading now. An investigation conducted by the BBC has uncovered evidence that Thai military and police officials have been complicit in intercepting refugees and then selling them to human traffickers. According to the report, the refugees are mostly transported to Malaysia.

The phenomenal piece by reporter Jonah Fisher charts the story of a fisherman named Ahmed who, along with dozens of others, sought asylum across the Thai border.

When they were caught by the Thai navy not far from shore Ahmed thought his ordeal was over. In fact it had just begun.

That night the Rohingya were taken from the border town of Ranong in a police van. After two hours they were bundled out and put in the back of six smaller vehicles and hidden under nets.

“We were forced to lay down next to each other just like canned fish,” he said.

Ahmed did not know it at the time but a trade had taken place. The 61 Rohingya were now heading south towards Malaysia in the custody of people-smugglers.

Unbelievably, the report cites sources directly involved with the smuggling who attempt to justify the sale of the Rohingya as a humane and natural solution to an ever-increasing economic quandary facing Thailand. Malaysia is a Muslim country and the Rohingya are Muslim refugee seekers, says one person. Moreover, the unnamed official asserts that it might very well deter future Rohingya from proliferating along the Thai coast as the situation in Burma becomes even more dire.

Before one dismisses this idea as ludicrous, this kind of logic has been part and parcel of the Thai political system for years and often passes for policy.

Bangkok has said they will conduct their own investigation into the scandal, but it doesn’t look good for Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. Already facing a deadly Muslim insurrection in the south of the country, having her country’s civil service being caught up in a sinister plot to traffic Muslims out of the country will certainly not help matters.

Photo: RFA

Do you remember the term “disappeared” from the Cold War days? It was a common phenomenon in countries with a less than stellar record on human rights and democracy in the second half of the 20th century. Many people — sometimes outspoken critics of the government, sometimes not — would simply vanish. One day they’d be out in the fields picking crops, the next day — poof! Gone. Most if not all were never heard from again.

Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza favored taking several of his political opponents up in helicopters and hurling them out of the craft and into the hole of an active volcano. In Cambodia, many of the educated class were taken to the now infamous S-21 prison where unspeakable acts of savagery were carried out by the Khmer Rouge. Untold others languished in dungeons throughout the world from South America to Eastern Europe.

With the end of the Cold War and with many governments reliant on aid from the West — conditioned with improvements in a country’s good governance — instances of “disappeared” people were curtailed significantly. However, that is not to say that this occurrence had been eliminated completely.

We were reminded of this sullen fact over the past month in Southeast Asia.

In Laos, a country which still seems stuck in the Cold War era if its human development index is to be believed, a well-known activist was last seen being bundled into the back of a police car on December 15th.  Sombath Somphone, a tireless campaigner for sustainable development, has not been seen since. Despite the existence of CCTV footage of the incident outside a Vientiane police station, the one-party government of Laos denies any role. Instead, it offered up a baseless theory that Mr. Somphone’s abduction was the result of a personal dispute between the NGO worker and other, unnamed actors.

That postulation was dismissed as ridiculous by a party of ASEAN officials who arrived in the Lao capital in the days that followed to discuss the incident with Vientiane. Moreover, such a cavalier dismissal — in which it was implied that maybe Mr. Somphone deserved his fate — calls into question the sincerity of the communist government which claims that it “wouldn’t treat [its] own citizens like this.”

Southeast Asian journalist Luke Hunt didn’t mince words when analyzing such a dubious statement for The Diplomat Magazine:

Such a response was indicative of one-party regimes during the Cold War, indicating that Laos has not evolved much over the last 23 years. Its attitude has brought a universal condemnation of the government that tinged with a mix of outrage and disbelief.

Government officials seems less concerned over the fate of Mr. Somphone than they were about their sovereignty rights vis-à-vis ASEAN. According to Rob O’Brien in the Asian Correspondent:

In pressing its case the government did allude, however, to the differences of opinion over development issues that were widely reported to have been behind a rift between Sombath and the government.

In its rearguard, Laos pointed out that it has never interfered with its neighbouring countries over their domestic affairs, an ASEAN mantra designed to cover some of its more awkward member states.

A determined online campaign has been spearheaded by friends of the activist in an effort to find him, and outgoing U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has weighed in as well. Ordinarily, this type of pressure from the West would usually be enough to resolve the matter. But with Laos shifting more towards Beijing’s orbit in the past few years, it might be more unwilling to cooperate this time around.

In the meantime Sombath’s fate remains unknown.

Photo: AP

Last Wednesday, Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario asked China to explain its deployment of a patrol ship to guard disputed territorial claims in the South China Sea. The Chinese patrol ship left Hainan island for the South China Sea on Dec. 27, according to China’s official Xinhua News Agency. The move by China comes following their formal establishment of Sansha city (and a military garrison) late last year. Sansha city, a remote island 220 miles from Hainan, is administered by Hainan, and was established to further administer hundreds of thousands of square miles of offshore territory and islands that are also claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. China’s move has sparked new tensions over the potentially oil-rich waters, with Vietnam calling it a violation of international law and Washington criticizing China’s potential escalation of tensions.

The patrol ship deployment has been described by the Philippines, a U.S treaty ally, as unacceptable, following statements by Chinese diplomats previously stating Beijing will only assert its claims in waters off its southernmost province of Hainan, according to del Rosario. Given that China claims most of the South China Sea, the Philippines has asked China to specify the limits of the territory it will guard.

Other than asking for clarification on China’s intent, what can the Philippine government do to protect its territorial claims? The Philippine government has in the past taken a bilateral approach in an attempt to patch up strained relations, but have little to show for their efforts. We are likely to see continued Philippine leadership on a multilateral approach, a move opposed by China, which wants to resolve the disputes through bilateral negotiations with each of the claimant countries. The Philippines has taken a lead role at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meetings this year, attempting to bring together the smaller nations who have territorial disputes with China on a united front, but so far little progress has been made. There are plans, however, for Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam, and the Philippines, all members of the ASEAN, to discuss the disputes on the sidelines of an annual meeting of the 10-nation bloc in Brunei this year.

For its part, China is unlikely to specify the limits of the territory it will guard, and will continue its policy of patient, creeping nationalization, confident that these small intrusions in disputed territorial waters are not significant enough by themselves to draw international attention and the wrath of an officially neutral U.S. administration. But a negotiated settlement is not out of the question — according to Taylor Fravel of MIT, China agreed to take less than half the contested land in settling 17 of its 23 territorial disputes. In the meantime, look for more minor incursions to help boost Beijing’s negotiating position.

The deplorable decision by the government of Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to forcibly repatriate around 70 ethnic Rohingya fleeing ethnic violence in neighboring Myanmar this past week should certainly not come as a surprise. Successive governments have routinely prevented asylum seekers from remaining in Thailand from various trouble spots surrounding the country.

This is the question which needs to be confronted: Is this mainly a religious issue (animus against Muslims) or a refugee issue?

Thailand is a heterogeneous and Buddhist country which, ever so gradually, has begun to exhibit a not-so-subtle disdain for foreigners. This is a general statement, of course. I’m not accusing the state of harboring xenophobic tendencies.  But having lived in Thailand previously, I get the sense that now having fully recovered from the 1997 financial crisis, Bangkok is not so reliant on tourism as they were a decade ago.

Or, maybe they’re just sick of all of the recently retired Western men arriving in places like Pattaya with bucket loads of cash and engaging in the type of debauchery that even the most flamboyant Roman Caesar couldn’t possible have envisaged.  But I digress.

In any event, I am going to tie in this most recent disgrace to the broader “Southern problem”, aka the “Muslim problem” that Thailand has. In Pattani province in Southern Thailand, Islamic separatists parade the heads of decapitated Buddhist monks through the jungle towns as a warning to others. All-Buddhist militias have begun springing up and arming themselves over the past five years as well. From Patrick Winn at Global Post:

In the Thai Buddhist mind, almost nothing is so disturbing as harming a monk. That is exactly why insurgents shoot monks at close range, hide bombs on their alms routes and occasionally hack off their heads.

Monks were once the lowest-hanging fruit, unarmed targets attacked to inflict peak damage to Buddhist morale. The army has since decided to guard them at all hours. Troops have transformed Buddhist temples into military camps.

Wacharapong’s temple in Yala city is, for all practical purposes, a fortress with a tall golden spire in the middle. It is defended by G.I.s, their helmeted heads just visible above walls of black sandbags. Barracks trailers crowd the temple grounds.

“We have more than 100 soldiers here,” said the Lak Muang temple’s 62-year-old abbot, Tong. “And we have only seven monks.”

Now, while it might be a leap to say that the deportation of 70 people can be associated with the broader “Muslims problem” in Thailand, it is also a little too dismissive to say that it can’t. There is a serious, and at many times, violent divide in Thailand between Muslims and Buddhist. One does not necessarily see this in Bangkok, but in southern areas, the tension is palpable.

So is this a religious issue? A refugee issue? I happen to believe its both. Would the Thai government change its policy if a perceived benevolent group was seeking asylum? What would the policy decision be if 70 Christians fleeing persecution from some place had requested asylum in Thailand? Remember, Thailand has never signed the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.

If the government would change their refugee policy based on the group of people coming in, then it is xenophobic. If it wouldn’t, then it is immoral.

Either way, Thailand’s position on this one stinks worse than a plate of pad ped sator which, incidentally, is usually found in the south.

Photo: Rimanews.com

Throughout the years, I have been critic of the Aquino’s, a powerful family which has had significant influence in Filipino politics dating all the way back to the Malolos Congress at the turn of the century. They are a family which is not short on drama, but always seems to look indefatigable and benevolent when juxtaposed with the mind-boggling corruptness of the country’s main opposition.

However, plaudits are in order and are much deserved for current President Benigno Aquino III who scored landmark victories this past week over two of the country’s most powerful institutions: the big tobacco lobby and the Catholic Church.

On the first point, the country’s Congress was able to pass legislation that would raise taxes on the sale of tobacco and alcohol related products. The added revenue from the tax is expected to be a windfall for the government of a nation where the average adult smokes 1,073 cigarettes per year. According to a report from Bloomberg News, “[the] so-called sin tax will help the country win an investment grade credit rating” as well.

The second part of the twin law requires schools to teach sexual education classes and also authorizes free contraceptives for students and the poor. Similar legislation was just recently passed in France. However, in a country where 80 percent of the citizens affiliate themselves with the Catholic Church, the new law in the Philippines serves as an indication of just how popular President Aquino is.

The bill had previously been rejected three times over the course of fourteen years. Aquino was threatened by Church leaders with excommunication. Even national hero and former champion boxer Manny Pacquiao — who may or may not be suffering from post-concussion like symptoms after his most recent bout — was vehemently against it.

Indeed, opposition was plentiful. From the Bloomberg News report:

In August, more than 9,000 nuns, priests and churchgoers dressed in red held rallies in Manila in an attempt to derail the legislation. The protesters described themselves as pro-life and distributed pamphlets that also denounced divorce and same- sex marriage in addition to the bill.

“Whether or not an individual should live in this world should not be placed in the hands of his fellow men,” boxing champ Pacquiao said during a Congressional debate Dec. 12. “Only God has power over this.”

Imelda Marcos, a Congresswoman and the widow of the late dictator Ferdinand Marco said during the same debate that “any law against natural law, the fundamental law of God, is against God.”

One in five women of reproductive age in the Philippines has an unmet family planning need, the UN Population Fund says, leading to unintended pregnancies. The population is growing 1.7 percent a year, compared with 0.9 percent in the Asia-Pacific region, according to a 2011 UN Population Fund report.

The bill “is unfortunate and tragic,” Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle said after last week’s second reading. “We do not take it as a defeat of truth, for truth shall prevail, especially the truth about human life, marriage and the family.”

Taking on the tobacco lobby is not easy in the Philippines; winning is even more difficult. Aquino knows full well the dangers that comes with the territory being the son of an assassinated politician himself.

Meanwhile, the Church’s inherent philosophy according to its own doctrine is that of support of and protection for the poor. But its statements and actions in developing countries vis-à-vis sexual health has always been fodder for critics who accuse the Vatican of being hypocritical. Some pundits have suggested that the Church’s largesse is not in line with Christ’s message of living humbly and that the Vatican’s assets would be much better put to use by being allocated to poverty reduction in third world countries. Moreover, the Church is a very powerful institution which can sway large blocs of the electorate.

It takes a lot of intestinal fortitude to stand up to such entities like the aforementioned two. Aquino deserves praise for being an economically pragmatic political leader, a proponent of social justice, and a voice of reason. In this sense, it’s no wonder he and his Liberal Party enjoy such popular support.

Photo: Quierosaber’s Blog

I was fortunate to have spent the past year working in Phnom Penh. Cambodia is a raw, untamed land with beautiful sights but also shocking poverty. I’m no stranger to living in the region but, for my money, there is nothing more amazing in the world than driving through the rural countryside of Southeast Asia looking out on the tamarind, fan palm, and plum palm trees while watching the never ending cascade of rice paddies roll by. But this beauty is, of course, tempered by reality for most of the peasants working the very fields against such a breathtaking backdrop. It’s a dichotomy that may be hard to adjust to.

When traveling to neighboring countries, however, one gets the sense that the region is thriving. I visited Bangkok in late October for the first time in nearly four years and, based on the skyline, thought I was back in New York. Downtown Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) is similarly developed. Indonesia is a member of the G-20, and Singapore’s GDP per capita is ranked 3rd in the world according to the International Monetary Fund.

Asia was the focus of U.S. President Barack Obama’s attention during the past year, announcing a “pivot” towards the continent in what many analysts and observers see as an American response to a rising China. Some, including the Eurasia Group president and noted commentator Ian Bremmer, have called the pivot to Asia the “Obama Doctrine.” While that may be jumping the gun, especially since President Obama is only halfway done with his time in office, that fact is that the future of great power relations will likely occur between the West and Asian actors.

Not to diminish the importance of, say, the Mideast peace process, the civil war in Syria, or Iran’s nuclear ambitions (all located on the greater Asian continent if you want to be pedantic), but, to borrow a term from Zbigniew Brzezinski, the 21st century’s “grand chessboard” will almost certainly be between the U.S. and China. One only needs to look at the diverging opinions at the United Nations on the three aforementioned issues to see this game being played out to a certain extent already. And Southeast Asia should be a capable proxy in this new showdown.

Cambodia was the chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) for 2012 and I was able to attend two regional conferences. The issue which dominated the forums was the row in the South China Sea which does not appear to be any closer to a resolution now after the diplomatic fireworks of the past year. It is clear that Cambodia, recipient of a great deal of soft loans from the People’s Republic, was coerced by China and used its position in ASEAN this year to promote Beijing’s interests vis-à-vis the Spratly Islands which are claimed by three other ASEAN members (the Philippines, Vietnam, and Brunei) plus Taiwan.

Next year, the chairmanship of the regional organization passes to Brunei, which will likely use its status to propagate the position of the ASEAN members in dispute which call for an international resolution, rather than negotiating one-on-one with China; Beijing prefers to have bilateral agreements with the parties to the conflict.

Elsewhere, considering the amount of hatred directed at her family by the opposition, it is impressive that Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has maintained her position for this long. Longevity is a fickle attribute in the political arena in Southeast Asia. It seems that if any given political leader can survive beyond the first year or two without being overthrown, imprisoned, exiled, or killed, they might very well stick around and maintain their grip on power for decades. Becoming the first female premier in her country’s history, Yingluck rode the coattails of her brother Thaksin to Government House in July 2011. She has been unable to quell violence in the restive south, and she has failed to reconcile the country’s divided electorate. She remains the darling of the poor, rural majority however, and recently survived a “no-confidence” vote just after welcoming President Barack Obama on the heels of an ASEAN summit. There have been ebbs and flows of organized protests from the elitist opposition but to this point, nothing substantially out of the ordinary for Thai politics has manifested.

And without doubt one of the biggest stories in the region, if not the world, occurred in Myanmar which held historic by-elections on the first of April. In those elections, the country’s democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi was ushered into Parliament after her party, the National League for Democracy, scored major victories.

If someone would have told me two years ago that the president of Burma, one of the most impoverished and isolated places on Earth, would be in consideration for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012 I would have had quite a guffaw. But that is the reality now after Thein Sein’s liberalization of his country’s political system. In addition to the election,  trade unions were allowed to form and political prisoners were released. It has been a stunning turnaround for a regime which former U.S. President George W. Bush  as recently as 2007 called  one of the world’s most “brutal” in a speech at the United Nations. Economic sanctions have been lifted, and investors are already queuing up to get a piece of this untouched nation.

However, the elections held early this year were never a threat to Mr. Sein’s power, and he will doubtless ensure that reforms proceed at a pace he is comfortable with. Furthermore, with ethnic violence raging between Buddhists and Muslims in various pockets of the country, Burma is not out of the woods yet.

Finally, in Cambodia, 2012 marked a year of incredible persecution of a wide array of actors: journalists, environmentalists, poor villagers, and opposition activists. At a recent ASEAN conference, Hun Sen, who has been in charged for more than two decades, casually remarked to journalists that he envisaged staying in that position for another 30 years. Despite his ruling Cambodia People’s Party securing the majority of votes in local elections this year, this war scared country cannot be considered a democracy under anyone’s definition. Corruption is rampant, as I experienced first hand, and the local media is controlled by the regime.

In Vietnam to the east, and Thailand to the west, construction is booming and cranes can be seen erecting new buildings across major cities. In Phnom Penh, the one crane that visitors can see has been stationary for the past ten months because the company constructing the would be skyscraper ran out of money, according to a “Deputy Prime Minister.” When following up on this story a few weeks back, I attempted to attribute the quote from this “Deputy Prime Minister” and was told by a government spokesman, “That might be difficult, because there are about six of them.”

Thanks for reading, and have a Happy Holidays!

Photo: General Electric

Photo: Krusutee Blog

“One Vision, One Identity, One Community.”

That is the motto of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Very utopian. Some might say naïve. And yet this regional organization has, up until this year, always spoken in one voice with member states that always seemed to prize cooperation.

But this quixotic approach to regional relations is over. There has developed a pretty large schism within the organization which has become manifest in the three major summits held in 2012 in Cambodia, the last of which was just concluded this week. Not to sound alarmist, and not to oversimplify the problems, but it is pretty clear who the one, sole culprit is which has wrecked this once united, cohesive, and synergistic institution.

The People’s Republic of China.

Beijing’s duplicitous policy towards the regional bloc over the South China Sea issue, and its manipulation (read: bribery) of Cambodia — the chair of ASEAN for 2012 — has, in effect, given it a very large platform in an organization which it is not even itself a member of.

This was not always the case. Even though China has risen disproportionately higher than the weaker members of ASEAN over the past 20 years or so, many Southeast Asian countries seemed keen to continue cooperative measures with Beijing. This was in part because they realized tangible benefits from the proliferation of bilateral and multilateral free trade agreements, and also because there existed a hope that better economic ties with China would functionally reduce Beijing’s willingness to use military force on issues of vital interest.

This is often called “the Asian Way,” which is a cultural theory of international cooperation. “The Asian Way” is based on a foundation upon which foreign policy is conducted in the region, including Asian solutions to Asian problems, equality, consensus building, incrementalism, administration subordinated to politics, and Pan-Asianism, according to sources.

Not only has this line of thinking produced great economic benefits for most countries, but it has also had a powerful effect on reducing conflicts and enhancing diplomacy. It is an inimitable operational code which is uniquely Asian and also serves as a conflict resolution apparatus.

But that all appears to be history.

Back in July during the Asian Regional Forum, (ARF), the organization failed to release a joint statement for the first time ever. Cambodia kept pushing China’s position vis-à-vis the South China Sea dispute while the Philippines and Vietnam objected, privately accusing Phnom Penh of being bought off by Beijing.

Then, this past Sunday, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen issued a statement which claimed that ASEAN had reached a consensus not to bring the South China Sea dispute to an international body, as per the wishes of Beijing. That was directly refuted on Monday by the Filipino delegation, with President Benigno Aquino saying “The ASEAN route is not the only route for us.”

In the post-mortem of the most recent conference, it can be concluded that Cambodia has used its chairmanship of ASEAN to promote China’s interests. In doing so, it has wrecked the cooperative mechanisms that had previously defined the organization and which made it stand out as a model for similar regional institutions around the world. This signifies a demonstrative setback for regional cooperation. ASEAN is now a splintered organization and shows little promise for accomplishing any sound objectives in due time.

Photo: AP

U.S. President Obama is no stranger to Southeast Asia having spent parts of his childhood in Indonesia and returning several times to the region as Commander-in-Chief.

And now, fresh off his reelection to the highest office in the land, President Obama will travel to the region next week on a three-country tour culminating in the East Asia Summit (EAS) in Phnom Penh from November 19th — 20th.  The President will visit Myanmar, Thailand, and Cambodia in what is being billed as an historic trip for a sitting U.S. head-of-state.

Myanmar has seen remarkable improvements over the past year with respect to its human rights record. A country that had been ruled for decades by a brutal military junta, and which routinely terrorized its own people, implemented a stunning about face last October. Political prisoners were released, trade unions were allowed to be formed, and democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi was emancipated from house arrest and allowed to stand in by-elections held in the spring. The transformation was due, in large part, to Western-led sanctions which had crippled the country’s economy.

Despite these positives, Myanmar is still plagued by relentless ethnic conflicts which have threatened to rip the country apart. One area that has received some media attention is the western state of Rakhine. There, on the coast of the Indian Ocean, Muslims and Buddhists have clashed ever since the dissolution of the British Raj. It was rationalized that Ms. Suu Kyi, now a member of Parliament, could have acted as a mediating voice in an effort to mollify tensions in the region. Instead, she has had very little to say on the matter.

President Obama’s visit to Myanmar will be the first ever by a U.S. President.

Next, the President will visit Thailand, a long-standing U.S. ally in the region. There is a laundry list of problems facing Thailand: a divided and segregated electorate, an aging monarch, outrageous accusations of lèse majesté, an Islamic insurgency in the South, and the status of former Prime Minister and lightning rod for controversy, Thaksin Shinawatra. However, as these issues are more or less internal problems — with the possible exception being that of the southern, Muslim separatists — President Obama is more likely to reinforce the U.S.-Thai friendship on matters of military cooperation, drug enforcement, and trade.

Lastly, President Obama will travel to Cambodia, host of the EAS and chair of ASEAN for 2012. I have written extensively about the deterioration of democracy in Cambodia, specifically over the past year. The government of strongman Prime Minister Hun Sen has presided over the curtailment of the free press, the erosion of civil liberties, and the proliferation of corruption which effects, literally, every sector of society.

Rights groups have been imploring the President to take these issues up with Mr. Hun Sen directly, calling Cambodia a “moral stain.” A White House senior aide indicated that the U.S. will press Cambodia on its human rights record, following a meeting with activists on November 12th.

Additionally, The New York Times ran an op-ed last month from opposition leader Sam Rainsy who lives in exile in France to avoid serving a prison sentence which he claims is politically motivated.

In his editorial, Mr. Rainsy called for President Obama to boycott Cambodia “in order to deny Hun Sen the legitimacy he is seeking to garner from the event.”

Southeast Asia is almost a forgotten area of U.S. foreign policy, but that should change during President Obama’s second term. The region is likely to play an increasingly important role in the administration’s “Asian-pivot,” the foreign policy initiative which focuses on a rising China and away from the Middle East prerogatives which dominated the previous decade.

As history tells it, the father of modern day Myanmar, Gen. Aung San, was assassinated in 1947 not long after the country gained its independence from Britain as he sought to forge a democracy among leaders from Myanmar’s 100-plus ethnic groups. But even 50 years of authoritarian military rule (itself installed following ethnic rivalries in 1962) following Aung San’s death have not been able to quell ethnic tensions in Myanmar, also known as Burma, and last month saw a major flare up that could threaten the historic political and economic reforms taking place in Myanmar today.

“The central problem facing the country is not political,” said David Steinberg, an expert on Myanmar at Georgetown University, in a recent interview for Great Decisions in Foreign Policy. “The sharing of power and resources has never been adequately dealt with, and that is the central issue that needs to be resolved.”

According to a government account, violent riots between Buddhists and minority Muslims in western state of Rakhine began on October 21 and continued through the end of the month have left 86 Burmese dead. Because the country is still ruled by a military junta, such figures are often disputed, but the United Nations estimates that more than 25,000 have been displaced in a state that is home to nearly one million people along the border with Bangladesh. It’s long been a focus area for human rights groups.

The flare up comes in the midst of reforms largely championed by Western countries that would open the Burmese economy to international investment and see new elections take place in 2015. A number of political prisoners have been released over the past year, and the government has slowly begun to allow more freedom for the press. The process, however, has been micro-managed by Myanmar’s military leaders, and a number of constitutional reforms have yet to be implemented.

“What’s very unique about Myanmar is contrary to everything that’s happened in the Arab Spring, but at the same time in parallel, it all came from the top,” said Louise Arbour, former high commissioner for human rights at the United Nations and now head of the International Crisis Group, which closely monitors Myanmar. “This is not a revolution of the people, it’s a transformation of a regime, self-motivated to transform.”

For that reason, democratic reforms are tenuous and could easily be reversed. While the United States has recently opened up diplomatic relations with Myanmar in response to reforms, the new U.S. ambassador to the country, Derek Mitchell, said continued ethnic tension could derail the process.

“It’s really a remarkable story, Burma, perhaps the most positive development we’ve seen globally in the past year,” he told Great Decisions. “But you have to understand the very complex dynamics of the country, where not only are there a number of ethnic groups and multiple complex interactions between them, but there is no real rule of law and they’re in a transitional phase.”

While the central government has negotiated ceasefires with a number of armed ethnic groups, problems like those in Rakhine state will require a more robust solution, according to Mitchell:

Getting past ceasefires and getting to political dialog, real resolution, national reconciliation, and trust building to create the stability and unity in the country that they have been fighting for over the past 60 years—that remains the real concern.

Many in the country have placed their hopes for unity in opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of General Aung San who sought the same goal before his assassination.

“I think everybody’s introduction to Burma is likely to be because of Aung San Suu Kyi—a remarkable, unique figure, an icon really globally for democracy—and of course, more than an icon inside her own country,” said Mitchell.  “But she’ll be the first to say that this is not just about her. It can’t be just about a single person, it has to be about society at large.”

This article originally appeared on U.S. News and World Report.

The dichotomy of Upper and Lower Manhattan during Sandy. Photo: New York Magazine

I grew up in a town called Lindenhurst, a relatively quiet suburb on Long Island’s southern shore located just inside Suffolk County’s border with Nassau. It’s an upper-middle class, family oriented neighborhood whose residents, for the most part, have all of their needs and wants met. When I was a boy, my mother would take my brother and I down to the beach at Venetian Shores where we would go rollerblading and build sandcastles against a backdrop of sailboats bobbing up and down peacefully on the Great South Bay.

That peace was shattered last week when Superstorm Sandy devoured the town, leaving behind a trail of damage and destruction that Lindenhurst hadn’t seen since Hurricane Gloria smacked the area in 1985. But even that epic storm might pale in comparison to the scenes of devastation left in Sandy’s wake.

Dozens were killed, millions of people across the east coast lost power, and fuel shortages became one of the primary effects of the storm, manifesting in long queues at Long Island gas stations which must have reminded some in the older generations of the 1973 oil crisis.

Over the hours and days that followed, I observed the moods of those who had rode out the storm through my various social media feeds. It seemed to shift from immediate relief, to growing frustration, to, eventually, hardened anger. Many gas stations were closed; those that were open had lines that extended for blocks, even during the wee hours of the morning. Some people were even assaulted and arrested for cutting lines. This type of situation is not normally conducive for cooler heads to prevail.

The cost of the damage will be in the billions.

Now, while that will be a long-lasting effect, the reality is that in the coming days and weeks, normalcy will begin to come back. The power will come back on, people will rebuild their lives with the assistance of insurance claims, FEMA aid, or, short of that, charitable donations from nonprofits and individuals alike. Generosity is one of America’s best traits.

I did not personally experience Sandy’s wrath. I was in Cambodia, a country that is not immune to torrential rainstorms and flooding. It is a raw and untamed land with a past as dark and tragic as anywhere in the world. It is a country rife with the type of poverty that most Americans can only read about in newspapers and magazines.

A few weeks ago, I was in the Cambodian province of Kratie, a rural outpost filled with humid, dense jungle and fog covered mountains which conjures visions of Martin Sheen traversing the fictional Nung River in “Apocalypse Now.” I was visiting the family of a friend of mine in his “hometown.” Most Cambodians who live in Phnom Penh have a hometown in a province somewhere outside the capital.

There’s no running water here. Electricity is sporadic. There are no gas guzzling automobiles, nor is there wifi or smart phones. When I showed my Samsung Galaxy to some of the young children in the village, they looked at it as if it was a moon rock.

There is no toilet paper; not even a sprayer. After using the squatter to go to the bathroom, you can clean yourself up using a communal sponge ball and a bucket of water from the river. Such poor sanitation can lead, and has led, to outbreaks of typhoid.

Last November, a particularly strong monsoon season left large parts of Southeast Asia devastated from the Philippines to Thailand. Nearly three quarters of Cambodia’s land mass was effected. Some people lost everything. For them, there were no insurance claims. There was no government agency coming to their assistance. The rescue effort had to be spearheaded by local charities and NGOs.

Reconstruction has been difficult, especially so when factoring in strongman Prime Minister Hun Sen’s proclivity to sell rural land to international corporations. The villagers are provided little to no compensation for their troubles, and evictees don’t have much say in the matter.

I don’t want to appear as diminishing the tragedy that was Sandy. But it should give us pause and allow us to reflect on the material things in life that all of us sometimes take for granted. In the end, electricity will be restored, our gas tanks will be refilled, and our homes will be rebuilt. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that Americans can count themselves lucky in this respect. Because for many people in the developing world, existing without the aforementioned comforts isn’t just a temporary inconvenience, it’s a way of life.