World
Burmese government denies claims it killed 76 villagers
A spokesperson for Burma’s military government denied accusations that army troops and their local allies killed 76 people when they entered a village last week in the western state of Rakhine, state-controlled media reported Wednesday.
Rakhine has become a focal point for Burma’s nationwide civil war, in which pro-democracy guerrillas and ethnic minority armed forces battle the country’s military rulers, who took power in 2021 after the army ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
The fighting there has also raised fears of a revival of organized violence against members of the Muslim Rohingya minority, similar to that which drove at least 740,000 members of their community in 2017 to flee to neighboring Bangladesh for safety.
REPORTS OF ARMY KILLING OF VILLAGERS IN BURMA SUPPORTED BY PHOTOS AND HARROWING TALE OF A SURVIVOR
The accusations of a massacre in Byine Phyu village in northern Rakhine were made by the Arakan Army, an ethnic armed organization that has been on the offensive against army outposts in Rakhine since November last year. They have gained control of nine of 17 townships in Rakhine and one in the adjacent Chin state.
Byine Phyu village is on the outskirts of Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine, in a strategic location with easy access to the Bay of Bengal.
The Arakan Army is the well-trained and well-armed military wing of the political movement of the Buddhist Rakhine minority, which seeks autonomy from Burma’s central government.
However, it has also been accused of major human rights violations, most notably in connection with its capture of the town of Buthidaung on May 18. It was accused of forcing the town’s estimated 200,000 residents, mostly from the Rohinyga ethnic minority, to leave and then setting fire to most of the buildings there.
It denies the charges, blaming the army for burning the town, but residents interviewed by phone since the incident told The Associated Press that the Arakan Army was responsible.
In this photo provided by a displaced Rohingya, the scarlet flames that came out from the burning of the houses in the town of Buthidaung in Rakhine state, Burma, are seen from a distance on May 17, 2024. (AP Photo)
The competing claims could not be verified independently, as tight restrictions on travel in that region make it virtually impossible to verify details of such incidents firsthand.
Details of the incident in Byine Phyu village were similarly disputed.
Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, the spokesperson for the ruling military council, was quoted Wednesday in the state-run Myanma Alinn newspaper as saying the army’s troops went to the village on May 29 to look for members of the Arakan Army and detained about 20 people for interrogation.
He said the security forces were forced to shoot three male suspects who were not village residents as they tried to seize a gun from an army officer, but there had not been any mass killing.
An Arakan Army statement released Tuesday said about 170 soldiers from the military regional command headquarters based in Sittwe, accompanied by armed members of a pro-army Rakhine group and local Muslims recruited by the army, arrested everyone in Byine Phyu village and killed 76 people.
It claimed the army raiders treated their captives brutally and raped three women.
Only one of 20 residents from the area contacted by AP was willing to speak about the incident. Several said they would not talk because they were concerned about friends of family members who had been taken into custody.
One woman said her younger brother was among those arrested, but she did not know how many people had been killed or even if her brother was still alive. She spoke on condition on anonymity to safeguard her personal security.
The U.N. human rights office on May 24 warned of “frightening and disturbing reports” about the impact of new violence in Burma’s western state of Rakhine, pointing to new attacks on Rohingya civilians by the military and an ethnic armed group fighting against it.
The fighting in Rakhine has evoked particular concern because it suggests that the Rohingya minority may face new violent persecution.
The Rohingya were the targets of a brutal counterinsurgency campaign incorporating rape and murder that saw an estimated 740,000 flee to neighboring Bangladesh as their villages were burned down by government troops in 2017.
They have lived in Burma for generations, but they are widely regarded by many in the country’s Buddhist majority, including especially members of the Rakhine minority, as having illegally migrated from Bangladesh. The Rohingya face a great amount of prejudice and are generally denied citizenship and other basic rights.
After the Arakan Army captured Buthidaung on May 18, Rohingya activists accused it of burning down the houses in the town and forcing its residents to flee. The Arakan Army rejected the allegations as baseless and blamed the destruction on the military government’s troops and local Muslims it said were fighting alongside them.
- Protests have continued across Kenya despite President William Ruto’s withdrawal of a controversial tax hike bill.
- Kenyan police on Thursday fired teargas at protesters in Nairobi and blocked roads to the presidential palace.
- Crowds in Mombasa, Kisumu and other cities have demanded President Ruto’s resignation.
Kenyan police fired teargas at dozens of protesters in Nairobi and blocked off roads to the presidential palace on Thursday as crowds took to the streets again nationwide, even after the president bowed to pressure to withdraw a tax hike bill.
Crowds called for President William Ruto to go further and step down in the capital, Mombasa, Kisumu and other centers, though the turnout was well down from the height of the mass rallies sparked by the tax measures over the past week.
Ruto withdrew the legislation including new taxes and hikes on Wednesday, a day after at least 23 people were killed in clashes at protests sparked by his plans, and parliament was briefly stormed and set alight.
KENYA’S PRESIDENT BACKTRACKS ON CONTROVERSIAL TAX INCREASES AFTER DEADLY PROTESTS SHAKE NATION
He is grappling with the most serious crisis of his two-year-old presidency as the youth-led protest movement has grown rapidly from online condemnations of the tax hikes into mass rallies demanding a political overhaul.
Protesters run to take cover outside the Kenyan Parliament after storming the building during a nationwide strike to protest against tax hikes in downtown Nairobi, on June 25, 2024. Kenyan police fired teargas at dozens of protesters and blocked off roads to the presidential palace on Thursday as crowds took to the streets again nationwide, even after the president bowed to pressure to withdraw a tax hike bill. (LUIS TATO/AFP via Getty Images)
Dropping the bill has also hit plans to reduce the budget deficit and borrowing, as demanded by lenders including the International Monetary Fund.
Seven people were rushed to hospital with gunshot wounds in the town of Homa Bay in western Kenya on Thursday, Citizen TV reported, without going into further detail. Police commander Hassan Barua said he had sent officers to check on the report.
In Nairobi, police and soldiers patrolled the streets and blocked access to State House. Police fired teargas to disperse several dozen people who had gathered in the center of the city.
UN-BACKED CONTINGENT OF FOREIGN POLICE ARRIVES IN HAITI AS KENYA-LED FORCE PREPARES TO FACE GANGS
Doctors volunteer group Medics for Kenya said its staff at the Jamia Mosque/Crescent hospital had been hit by teargas, and that it condemned in “the strongest terms possible violence meted out on our volunteer medical teams”.
Reuters reporters saw army vehicles on the streets after the government deployed the military to help police.
Elsewhere, hundreds of protesters gathered in the port city of Mombasa and in the western city of Kisumu, local television footage showed, although those gatherings appeared peaceful.
“We are only coming here so that our voice can be heard, us as Gen Z, us as Kenyans, we are one,” said Berryl Nelima in Mombasa. “So the police should stop killing us, we are just peaceful protesters, we are unarmed.”
The protest movement has no formal leadership structure and has largely responded to messages, banners and slogans on social media. Posts on Thursday suggested protest supporters were divided on how far to carry the demonstrations.
“Let’s not be foolish as we fight for a better Kenya,” Boniface Mwangi, a prominent social justice activist, said in an Instagram post.
He voiced support for demonstrations on Thursday but opposed calls to invade State House, the president’s formal offices and residence, a move that he said could spur more violence and be used to justify a crackdown.
KENYAN PROTESTERS VOW TO CONTINUE DEMONSTRATIONS AFTER VIOLENT CLASHES LEAVE 23 DEAD
While some protest supporters said they would not demonstrate on Thursday as the finance bill had been scrapped, others pledged to press on, saying only Ruto’s resignation would satisfy them.
“Right now is not about just the finance bill but about #RutoMustGo,” political activist and protester Davis Tafari told Reuters in a text message. “We have to make sure that Ruto and his MPs have resigned and fresh elections are held … We occupy State House for dignity and justice.”
Eli Owuor, 34, from Kibera, an informal settlement and a traditional hotbed of protests, also said he was prepared to join a push on to State House.
“We may just need to visit Zakayo today in his house to prove that after parliament we can occupy State House,” he said, using a nickname protesters have given to Ruto that references a biblical tax collector viewed as corrupt.
DIALOGUE, AUSTERITY ARE NEXT STEPS
In a speech on Wednesday, Ruto defended his push to raise taxes on items such as bread, cooking oil and diapers, saying it was justified by the need to cut Kenya’s high debt, which has made borrowing difficult and squeezed the currency.
But he acknowledged that the public had overwhelmingly rejected the finance bill. He said he would now start a dialogue with Kenyan youth and work on austerity measures, beginning with cuts to the budget of the presidency.
The International Monetary Fund, which has been urging the government to cut its deficit to obtain more funding, said it was closely monitoring the situation in Kenya.
“We are deeply concerned about the tragic events in Kenya in recent days,” the IMF said in a statement. “Our main goal in supporting Kenya is to help it overcome the difficult economic challenges it faces and improve its economic prospects and the well-being of its people.”
Ratings agency Moody’s said the shift in focus to cutting spending rather than boosting revenue will complicate the disbursement of future IMF funding and slow the pace of fiscal consolidation.
Analysts at JPMorgan said they had maintained their forecasts for a deficit of 4.5% of GDP in FY2024/2025, but acknowledged the government and IMF targets could be revised in light of recent developments.
They said the Central Bank of Kenya was unlikely to begin cutting rates until the final quarter of this year.
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Argentina’s lower house votes on Javier Milei’s package of economic reforms. How will this affect ordinary Argentinians?
Argentina’s lower legislative house is set to approve President Javier Milei’s package of economic reforms. Despite signs of economic improvement on the macro level, the consequences of Milei’s spending cuts for the average person have been profound. How have everyday Argentinians been faring under Javier Milei?
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