Month: May 2024

US puts sanctions on Russian man, three companies for sanctions evasion scheme

Posted on by SeeEU

Washington — The U.S. Treasury on Tuesday put sanctions on a Russian citizen and three Russia-based companies it said were trying to evade U.S. sanctions in a scheme that could have unfrozen more than $1.5 billion belonging to Russian metals tycoon Oleg Deripaska.

Deripaska, who himself was placed under U.S. sanctions in April 2018, branched out into metals trading as the Soviet Union crumbled, making a fortune by buying up stakes in aluminum factories. Forbes ranked his fortune this year at $2.8 billion.

The Treasury said that in June 2023 Deripaska coordinated with Russian citizens Dmitrii Beloglazov, the owner of Russia-based financial services firm Obshchestvo S Ogranichennoi Otvetstvennostiu Titul (Titul), on a planned transaction to sell Deripaska’s frozen shares in a European company.  

Within weeks of this, Russia-based financial services firm Aktsionernoe Obshchestvo Iliadis was set up as a subsidiary of Titul. In early 2024, Iliadis acquired Russia-based investment holding company International Company Joint Stock Company Rasperia Trading Limited (Rasperia), which holds Deripaska’s frozen shares. 

The Treasury said sanctions were imposed on Beloglazov, Titul, and Iliadis on Tuesday for operating or having operated in Russia’s financial services sector. It said Rasperia was sanctioned for being owned or controlled by, or having acted or purported to act on behalf of Iliadis.
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2 French prison officers killed, 3 injured in attack on prison van

Posted on by SeeEU

PARIS — Armed assailants killed two French prison officers and seriously wounded three others in a brazen attack on a convoy in Normandy on Tuesday during which a high-profile inmate escaped, officials said. 

The van was transporting prisoner Mohamed Amra to Evreux jail after a court hearing in Rouen when it was ambushed. 

Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti said he would join a crisis unit to address the emergency. “All means are being used to find these criminals. On my instructions, several hundred police officers and gendarmes were mobilized,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin posted on X. 

“This morning’s attack, which cost the lives of prison administration agents, is a shock for all of us,” French President Emmanuel Macron posted on X. “The nation stands alongside the families, the injured and their colleagues.” 

The attack prompted a significant law enforcement operation in the northwestern region of France as authorities worked to secure the area and apprehend the assailants. The assault took place late Tuesday morning on the A154 freeway, which has since been closed. 

Amra was under high surveillance and had recently been sentenced for burglary. He was also under investigation for a kidnapping and homicide case in Marseille, according to public prosecutor Laure Beccuau. 

French media reported that Amra was nicknamed La Mouche, or The Fly. 

Beccuau announced an investigation into the attack, now considered a case of organized crime and murder. “At this stage, we mourn the death of two penitentiary agents in this armed attack,” Beccuau said in a statement.

The investigation will also address organized escape attempts, possession of military-grade weapons and conspiracy to commit crime.
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Report: Wars in Sudan, Gaza, DRC drive internally displaced to record 76 million

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Conflict has forced a record number of people around the world to become internally displaced – forced to flee their homes, but still living in their home countries, often in refugee camps. As Henry Ridgwell reports, the figure has increased dramatically in the past five years.
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UN officials assess El Niño impact on Malawians, assure help

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The United Nations is pledging to help Malawi recover from a widespread drought linked to the El Nino climate pattern. Government officials say the crisis has created a food shortage for nearly half of the country’s population. The pledge comes after U.N. officials visited Malawi to see the damage firsthand and identify ways to offer support. Lameck Masina has more from southern Malawi.
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How American student journalists fill the void after private media fold

Posted on by SeeUS

In the United States, each year there are fewer news organizations covering local communities, even near the nation’s capital. Some high school journalists are trying to help make up for the shortage. Robin Guess reports from Montgomery County, just outside Washington. Camera: Nazir Afzali.
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Cameroon military frees 300 Boko Haram captives along northern border  

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Yaounde — Cameroon’s military has moved over 300 civilians rescued from Boko Haram terrorist captivity along the central African states border with Nigeria and Chad this week to a northern Cameroon military post. The country’s army says scores of militants of the Nigeria-based insurgent group were neutralized in a border operation called Alpha.

Oumar Fatime, 37, tells Cameroon military and senior government officials that she was a successful vegetable farmer in Ngouboua village, until April 17 when heavily armed Boko Haram fighters abducted her and three of her family members.

Ngouboua is a village in Chad located near the northeastern shore of Lake Chad, a water body shared by Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

Fatime said the abductors took her and several dozen civilians to a bush area near Lake Chad and threatened to kill them if their families failed to pay ransom.

Fatime is one of over 300 civilians Cameroon’s military says were rescued from Boko Haram captivity in several villages along the central African states border with Chad and Nigeria within the past seven days.

Cameroon state TV showed video of the rescued civilians brought in military trucks to a military camp in Dabanga district near the border with Chad and Nigeria Monday.

The Cameroon military said most of the freed hostages are women and children. About 200 government troops carried out the rescue operation, the Cameroon military said.

Midjiyawa Bakari is the governor of Cameroon’s Far North region that shares a border with Chad and Nigeria.

Bakari says Cameroon President Paul Biya dispatched him to Dabanga Monday to congratulate the troops that carried out the very successful rescue operation called Alpha. He says government troops seized several hundred weapons including rifles and explosives along with motorcycles and bicycles militants were using to attack communities and kidnap civilians for ransom.

Cameroon’s military says it was assisted in assaults on some Boko Haram strongholds in border localities by government troops from Chad and Nigeria. Scores of militants were killed and several dozens wounded in the operation that lasted one week according to Cameroon officials. Cameroon says militants who surrendered are helping troops in investigations but gave no further details.

VOA could not independently verify if Cameroon carried out joint border military operations with troops from Nigeria and Chad. But in April troops from Chad and Cameroon said they freed scores of civilians who were kidnapped for ransom or to fight with jihadist groups on both sides of the two central African states’ border.

Cameroon says it is in negotiations with its neighbors to allow the rescued civilians who are Chadians and Nigerians to return to their countries voluntarily. Cameroon military says while waiting, the freed hostages will be taken to the center for Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration, or DDR, in Meri, a northern town near the border with Chad and Nigeria but did not say when.

Cameroon, Chad and Nigeria report that Boko Haram militants have been returning to towns and villages where government troops had withdrawn after claiming that fighters’ firepower had greatly reduced, indicating a return to peace. The three countries say Boko Haram is recruiting new militants and attacking villages for supplies.

At least 36,000 people have been killed and 3 million have fled their homes since 2009, when fighting between Nigerian government troops and Boko Haram militants spread to Cameroon, Niger and Chad according to the United Nations.
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Georgia set to adopt ‘foreign influence’ bill despite mass protests

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Tbilisi, Georgia — Georgia was set to adopt a “foreign influence” bill on Tuesday despite mass protests against a law criticized for mirroring repressive Russian legislation.

Thousands of Georgians, mainly youths, have rallied outside parliament for three straight nights and have promised to be back when MPs are due to arrive Tuesday to pass the contentious legislation.

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze vowed Monday to push it through in a third reading.

“Tomorrow the parliament of Georgia will act on the will of the majority of the population and pass the law,” he said.

He warned that if authorities backed down, Georgia would lose its sovereignty and “easily share the fate of Ukraine”, although it was not immediately clear what he meant by that.

The bill requires non-governmental organizations and media outlets that receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as bodies “pursuing the interests of a foreign power.”

Russia has used a similar law to crack down on dissent.

Protesters are expected to stage fresh rallies Tuesday in the capital Tbilisi.

“They will pass this law and we have to demonstrate our protest,” said 57-year-old Levan Avalishvili, who left the parliament area before midnight on Monday, promising to be back the next day.

Many fear violence, with tensions running high and police beating a group of protesters detained at dawn on Monday.

The Caucasus country has witnessed more than a month of sweeping protests since the ruling Georgian Dream party re-introduced the bill in a shock move, a year after shelving due to a huge backlash.

Opponents of the bill fear it will take Tbilisi off its track of joining the European Union and hugely erode democracy in the tiny country.

They also accuse the ruling party of trying to move the Black Sea nation closer to Moscow.

The ruling party, in power since 2012, has defended the law as necessary for the country’s sovereignty.

Its billionaire backer Bidzina Ivanishvili, who made his fortune in Russia, has accused NGOs of plotting a revolution and being foreign puppets.

He has been accused of leaning towards Moscow and has not publicly condemned the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine

 

 
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Erdogan defends Hamas, says members are being treated in Turkish hospitals

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ANKARA, Turkey — Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that more than 1,000 members of the militant Palestinian group Hamas were being treated in hospitals across Turkey as he reiterated his stance that it was a “resistance movement.”

A Turkish official later said Erdogan had “misspoke” and meant that Gazans more generally were being treated in Turkey.

“If you call Hamas a ‘terrorist organization,’ this would sadden us,” Erdogan said at a joint press conference with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in Ankara after Mitsotakis had referred to Hamas as such.

“We don’t deem Hamas a terrorist organization… More than 1,000 members of Hamas are under treatment in hospitals across our country,” Erdogan said.

A Turkish official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, later said that Erdogan had meant to refer to Palestinians from Hamas-run Gaza in general, rather than Hamas members.

“President Erdogan misspoke, he meant 1,000 Gazans are under treatment, not Hamas members,” a Turkish official said.

Reuters could not immediately determine the background of those being treated in Turkey, but in November Ankara said it was evacuating dozens of wounded or sick Gazans, mostly cancer patients, and their companions following Israel’s offensive in

Gaza.
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Conflict, violence push global internal displacement to record high levels

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GENEVA — Conflicts and violence have pushed the number of internally displaced people around the world to a record-breaking high of 75.9 million, with nearly half living in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a new report by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center.  

The report finds conflicts in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Palestinian territories accounted for nearly two-thirds of new displacements due to violence, which in total spanned 66 countries in 2023.  

“Over the past two years, we have seen alarming new levels of people having to flee their homes due to conflict and violence, even in regions where the trend had been improving,” Alexandra Bilak, IDMC director said.

In a statement to coincide with the publication of the report Tuesday, she said that the millions of people forced to flee in 2023 were just “the tip of the iceberg.”

“Conflict, and the devastation it leaves behind, is keeping millions from rebuilding their lives, often for years on end,” she said.

The report notes the number of internal displacements, that is the number of times people have been forced to move throughout the year to escape conflict within their country, has increased in the last couple of years.

“While we hear a lot about refugees or asylum-seekers who cross the border, the majority of the displaced people actually stay within their country and they are internally displaced,” Christelle Cazabat, head of programs at IDMC, told journalists in Geneva Monday, in advance of the launch of the report.

In its 2023 report on forcibly displaced populations, the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, reported that 62.5 million people had been internally displaced people at the end of 2022 compared to 36.4 million refugees who had fled conflict, violence and persecution that same year.

According to the IDMC, new internal displacements last year were mostly due to the conflict in Ukraine, which started in 2022, as well as to the ongoing conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the eruption of war in mid-April 2023 in Sudan.

The war in Sudan resulted in 6 million internal displacements last year, which was “more than its previous 14 years combined” and the second most ever recorded in one country during a single year after Ukraine’s 16.9 million in 2022, according to the report.

“As you know, it is more than a year that this new wave of conflict erupted (in Sudan) and as of the end of last year, the figure was 9.1 million” displaced in total by the conflict, said Vicente Anzellini, IDMCs global and regional analysis manager and lead author of the report.

“This figure is the highest that we have ever reported for any country, this 9.1 million internally displaced people.”  

In the Gaza Strip, IDMC calculated 3.4 million displacements in the last three months of 2023, many of whom had been displaced multiple times during this period. It says this number represented 17% of total conflict displacements worldwide during the year, noting that a total of 1.7 million Palestinians were internally displaced in Gaza by the end of the year.

The last quarter of 2023 is the period following the Hamas terrorists’ brutal attack on Israel on Oct. 7, eliciting a military response from Israel on the Palestinian enclave.

“There are many other crises that are actually displacing even more people, but we hear a little bit less of them,” said Cazabat, noting that little is heard about the “acute humanitarian crisis in Sudan” though it has the highest number of people “living in internal displacement because of the conflict at the end of last year.” 

In the past five years, the report finds the number of people living in internal displacement because of conflict and violence has increased by 22.6 million.  

Sudan topped last year’s list of 66 countries with 9.1 million people displaced internally because of conflict, followed by Syria with more than 7 million, the DRC, Colombia and Yemen.  

Besides the total of 68.3 million people who were displaced globally by conflict and violence in 2023, the report says 7.7 million were displaced by natural disasters, including floods, storms, earthquakes and wildfires.

As in previous years, the report notes that floods and storms caused the most disaster displacement, including in southeastern Africa, where cyclone Freddy triggered 1.4 million movements across six countries and territories.

The earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria triggered 4.7 million displacements, one of the largest disaster displacement events since records began in 2008.

Anzellini observed many countries that have experienced conflict displacement also have experienced disaster displacement.

“In many situations, they are overlapping. This is the case in Sudan, in South Sudan, but also in Somalia, in the DRC, and other places,” he said. “So, you can imagine fleeing from violence to save your life and then having to escape to higher ground with whatever you can carry as the storm or a flood threatens to wash away your temporary shelter.” 

He said that no country is immune to disaster displacement.  

“Last year, we recorded disaster displacements in 148 countries and territories, and these include high-income countries such as Canada and New Zealand, which recorded their highest figures ever.

“Climate change is making extreme weather events more frequent and more intense and that can lead to more displacement, but it does not have to,” he said, noting that climate change is one of many factors that contribute to displacement.

“There are other economic, social and political factors that governments can address to actually minimize the impacts of displacement even in the face of climate change,” he said, including early warning systems and the evacuation of populations before a natural disaster is forecast to strike.
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Washington: Negotiations have ‘ups and downs’ as Gaza conflict continues

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Washington says it is working to resolve the many issues in the continuing conflict in Gaza as negotiations continue and Israel plans to launch a full-scale operation in the southern city of Rafah over U.S. objections. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from the White House.
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Will US voters continue to care about Ukraine amid Israel-Hamas conflict?

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As Russia pushed into northern Ukraine this week, the U.S. presidential race between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump remained focused on another foreign policy crisis — the war in Gaza. As VOA’s congressional correspondent, Katherine Gypson, reports, keeping American attention on Ukraine could be difficult.
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Pakistan, US discuss how to counter Afghan-based IS and TTP terrorists

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islamabad — The United States and Pakistan have concluded their latest round of counterterrorism talks, agreeing to intensify their collaboration in the fight against terrorist organizations like the Pakistani Taliban and a regional Islamic State affiliate.

Washington and Islamabad issued a joint statement simultaneously on Monday, saying the May 10 bilateral dialogue hosted by the U.S. was centered on tackling “the most pressing challenges to regional and global security.”

The meeting came amid a recent surge in terrorism in Pakistan, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of people, including security forces. The violence is mostly claimed by Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), known as the Pakistani Taliban, who are believed to operate from sanctuaries in neighboring Afghanistan.

“Pakistan and the United States recognize that a partnership to counter ISIS-Khorasan, TTP, and other terrorist organizations will advance security in the region and serve as a model of bilateral and regional cooperation to address transnational terrorism threats,” the statement read.

The statement used an acronym for an Afghanistan-based Islamic State affiliate known as IS-Khorasan, which routinely carries out terrorist attacks in the country and beyond its borders.

Pakistani and U.S. officials at Friday’s talks in Washington resolved to step up communication and continue collaboration “to detect and deter violent extremism through whole-of-government approaches.”

According to the statement, the two sides stressed the importance of capacity building, including sharing technical expertise and best practices, providing investigative and prosecutorial assistance and enhancing border security infrastructure and training.

Islamabad maintains that TTP-led terrorist attacks on Pakistani soil have intensified since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August 2021 following the withdrawal of U.S.-led NATO forces after a 20-year counterterrorism mission.

Pakistani authorities allege that members of the Afghan Taliban are facilitating TTP fighters in carrying out cross-border attacks.

The Taliban government in Kabul denies the allegations, saying it is not allowing anyone to threaten other countries, including Pakistan, from Afghan soil.

In a new report slated for release on Tuesday, the U.S. Institute of Peace has warned that Afghanistan “presents growing space for terrorist groups compared to the period before the U.S. withdrawal.”

USIP published a summary of the study on its website, noting that ISIS-K poses “a rising threat with reach beyond the immediate region, greater than during the pre-withdrawal period,” and the TTP “has also returned as a regional security threat.”

The report also stated that al-Qaida and its South Asia affiliate “continue to maintain ties with and receive support” from Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers.
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US blocks Chinese-backed crypto mining firm from owning land near military base 

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washington — President Joe Biden on Monday issued an order blocking a Chinese-backed cryptocurrency mining firm from owning land near a Wyoming nuclear missile base. 

The order forces the divestment of property operated as a crypto mining facility near Francis E. Warren Air Force Base. It also forces the removal of certain equipment owned by MineOne Partners Ltd., a firm that is partly owned by the Chinese state. 

This comes as the U.S. is slated on Tuesday to issue major new tariffs on electric vehicles, semiconductors, solar equipment and medical supplies imported from China, according to a U.S. official and another person familiar with the plan. 

The divestment order was made in coordination with the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States — a little-known but potentially powerful government agency tasked with investigating corporate deals for national security concerns that holds power to force the company to change. 

A 2018 law granted CFIUS the authority to review real estate transactions near sensitive sites across the U.S., including F.E. Warren Air Force Base. 

The order was vague about the specific national security concerns, with the Treasury Department saying only that there were issues with “specialized and foreign-sourced equipment potentially capable of facilitating surveillance and espionage activities” that “presented a significant national security risk.” 

According to CFIUS, the purchase was not filed with the body, as required, until after the panel received a public tip. 

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who serves as the chairperson of CFIUS, said the role of the committee is “to ensure that foreign investment does not undermine our national security, particularly as it relates to transactions that present risk to sensitive U.S. military installations as well as those involving specialized equipment and technologies.”
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UN, South Sudan make progress on tax impasse

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Juba, South Sudan — In a significant policy reversal, the government of South Sudan has responded to a U.N. appeal and reversed its decision to impose taxes and fees on humanitarian services and products.

However, Titus Osundina, the U.N. Development Program’s deputy resident representative for South Sudan, told VOA that questions remain because some private suppliers and companies that provide services to the U.N. may still be taxed. “We need to see how that clarifies,” Osundina said.

South Sudan’s finance minister explained in a press release that while U.N. humanitarian organizations and diplomatic missions are tax-exempt, companies contracted by the U.N. Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) are not exempt because they are “profit-making entities” and are subject to taxes under the agreement the mission originally signed with South Sudan.

As South Sudan’s largest humanitarian agency, the United Nations conducts crucial air drops, feeding more than 16,300 people monthly, especially in regions grappling with food insecurity, conflict and natural disasters.  

With nearly half the country’s population facing acute food shortages and the looming threat of floods, the U.N. stressed that new taxes would have added $339,000 to the UNMISS monthly operational costs, affecting food and humanitarian assistance operations.  

No figures have been released about how much the new taxes will cost the U.N. contractors. 

Timo Olkkonen, who heads up the European Union delegation to South Sudan, one of the major international donors to the African country, said agencies need ample time and resources to prepare and deliver relief assistance.

“We encourage all the stakeholders to resolve this issue so that the fuel and other essential items will be coming here for the service of the South Sudanese, and so that the humanitarian community and the U.N. can continue with their lifesaving and peacekeeping work,” Olkkonen said.

The U.N.’s role in ensuring stability in South Sudan ahead of the upcoming national election in December highlights the urgency of resolving this issue promptly.

 
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Chad opposition petitions Constitutional Council to cancel presidential election results

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YAOUNDE, CAMEROON — Opposition candidates in Chad who lost the recent presidential election have filed paperwork challenging President Mahamat Idriss Deby’s victory. The legal challenge comes as the media there appeal a decision barring them from reporting on election-related violence. 

State television reported on Monday that the country’s Constitutional Council received a petition from opposition candidate Succes Masra, calling for results of the May 6 vote to be annulled. 

The central African state’s elections management body, or ANGE, declared Masra second with more than 18% of the votes cast. Deby, the transitional president, won more than 61% of the vote, exceeding the 50% mandate needed to avoid a runoff.  

Deby’s victory follows the death of his father, Idriss Deby, in 2021 and completes the country’s three-year transition from military to civilian rule. 

Masra and the Transformers party he leads allege massive electoral fraud, including the stuffing of ballot boxes and soldiers chasing opposition representatives from polling stations. 

Masra alleges that soldiers carried ballot boxes to military barracks, where government troops counted and declared results, instead of ANGE. The Transformers say scores of opposition officials and hundreds of Masra supporters were arrested and detained by government troops.  

Chad’s military government says Deby won the election and some opposition parties want to create chaos by not respecting the vote. Deby calls the allegations unfounded. 

Sitack Yombatina Beni, the Transformers’ vice president, spoke Monday with VOA via a messaging app from Chadian capital N’djamena. 

Beni said Masra has asked civilians to maintain peace and avoid reacting violently to ongoing provocations from Deby’s supporters. He said it is an open secret that rights and freedoms are abused in Chad, but that this time civilians, opposition and civil society are ready to fight back if the Constitutional Council fails to render justice and give back what he calls Masra’s stolen victory. 

Beni said peaceful demonstrations were held Friday, Saturday and Sunday in several areas, including N’djamena and Moundou, Chad’s second-largest city. 

Yacine Abdramane Sakine, another losing candidate, said he also filed a petition asking the Constitutional Council to order ANGE to do a public recount of the votes.   

Evarist Ngarlem Tolde, a political affairs lecturer and researcher at the University of N’djamena in Chad, said the fact that Chad’s military leaders ordered government troops to undemocratically vote for Deby is an indication they are not ready to lose their grip on power.

He added that it is surprising that Chad’s elections management body published provisional results at 8 p.m. May 9 after it had announced at 2 p.m. that it was very difficult for the body to assemble result sheets from more than 26,000 polling stations. 

Tolde said it will be very difficult for the Constitutional Council to cancel provisional results of the May 6 presidential elections declared by ANGE. Both institutions were formed by Deby. 

ANGE says it is independent and that the results published are free, transparent, and credible, reflecting the verdict of the ballot.  

Civil society and opposition groups say the troops deployed after the May 9 publication of partial results are still intimidating and arresting civilians, especially in N’djamena. They say the death toll from shooting since May 9 has increased to 30. 

On Monday, Chad’s journalism union condemned a government order that stops the news media from reporting on post-election tensions and violence and orders news organizations to desist from giving casualty figures. 

The Constitutional Council has until May 21 to rule on the petitions and proclaim definitive results. But Chad’s transitional officials report that Deby already has been congratulated by Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, Guinea Bissau’s President Umaro Sissoco Embalo, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Kenyan President William Ruto. 
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King Charles hands Prince William military title in rare joint appearance

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London — Britain’s King Charles handed over a senior military role to his son Prince William at a ceremony Monday, marking a rare joint appearance for the pair as the king steps up his return to public duties after his cancer diagnosis.

Charles presented William with the title of Colonel-in-Chief of the Army Air Corps, a position the 75-year-old monarch held for 32 years, in front of an Apache helicopter, and watched by service personnel at the Army Flying Museum in southern England.

“He’s a very good pilot indeed,” Charles said of his son, a former helicopter search and rescue pilot for Britain’s Royal Air Force.

The visit was Charles’ latest engagement since he returned to work at the end of April, almost three months after Buckingham Palace announced he was being treated for an unspecified type of cancer.

William, 41, had also taken a break from official duties for several weeks in March and April this year, choosing to spend time with and care for his wife after she revealed she was undergoing preventative chemotherapy for cancer.

He said on Friday she was “doing well.”

At the handover ceremony, Charles said he was saying goodbye with “sadness,” but the Army Air Corps would go from “strength to strength” under his son.

“Look after yourselves and I can’t tell you how proud it has made me to have been involved with you all this time,” Charles said.

The title transfer was announced last August after Charles’ accession to the throne. William spent time with the Corps, viewing training, equipment and hearing from soldiers later Monday.
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Exile is a temporary state of mind for Burmese writer Ma Thida

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Berlin — Burmese writer Ma Thida doesn’t like to think of herself as exiled.

She left Myanmar in 2021, just a few months after the military seized power in a coup that overthrew the civilian-led government.

And while Ma Thida says it would not be safe for her to return anytime soon, exile implies a permanence the writer isn’t quite comfortable with.

“My aim is not to be exiled — just to keep away from the country. And as soon as I get a chance, I would definitely go back,” she said, speaking with VOA in Berlin, where she is currently living.

Born and raised in Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon, Ma Thida studied medicine in the 1980s and became a physician. She worked as an aide and medic for pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and wrote her first novel in 1992.

Titled “The Sunflower,” the book explored the population’s expectations of Suu Kyi, who at that time was under house arrest.

But the book was banned shortly before being published in 1993, and Myanmar’s junta sentenced Ma Thida to 20 years in Insein Prison for “endangering public peace, having contact with illegal organizations, and distributing unlawful literature.”

International pressure led to her early release in 1999. “The Sunflower” was finally published, and Ma Thida started writing again.

Her latest book “A-Maze,” published in May, explores Myanmar’s struggle for democracy and the post-coup Spring Revolution.

“I try to understand what’s going on right now and why it happened,” Ma Thida said. “So, this is my attempt to understand the whole situation, but at the same time, my attempt to convince the readers to understand what our struggle is.”

Ma Thida, who is chair of the Writers in Prison Committee run by the free expression group PEN International, said her jailing in the 1990s made her realize it was too dangerous to stay in Myanmar following the 2021 coup.

“A lot of writers were already at risk or were already being arrested,” she said, recalling how anxious she felt at Yangon Airport the day she left.

Myanmar’s military, known as the Tatmadaw, has detained thousands of people, including journalists and writers.

“They’re trying to silence all forms of dissent,” said Karin Deutsch Karlekar, a Myanmar expert at PEN America in New York. “Many people are still either underground and hiding within Myanmar, or in exile.”

Some writers were among the prisoners released at the beginning of 2024 in an annual mass amnesty. But several remain behind bars.

Their cases show that the military has not wavered on its aversion to free expression, Karlekar said.

Karlekar cited the case of filmmaker Shin Daewe, who covered environmental issues and human rights. Authorities sentenced her to life in prison earlier this year for buying a drone.

“Those sentences are really, really extreme and are a signal to anyone else in the writing and creative community that if they step out of line in any way, in terms of even just expressing criticism of the junta, that this is a possibility,” Karlekar said.

Myanmar’s military did not reply to VOA’s request for comment.

For now, Ma Thida is grateful to have the freedom and safety to continue her work.

Her latest book, published in English, is primarily intended for an international audience.

“Some people think this is just war — not the revolution, not the resistance,” she said about what she hopes readers take away from the book. “It’s more than that.”

Despite her situation and the years already spent in prison, laughter is still instinctive for Ma Thida. She pokes fun at her own misfortunes, including her passport troubles.

Myanmar’s embassy in Berlin has resisted renewing Ma Thida’s expired passport, which she believes is in retaliation for her writing.

The embassy did not reply to VOA’s request for comment.

Ma Thida has faced this problem before. After her release from prison in 1999, she was unable to obtain a passport for five years. “I have so many problems with passports,” she said, chuckling.

Withholding travel documents from exiled dissidents is something PEN America is seeing more frequently as a method of control, Karlekar said.

For now, the German government has given Ma Thida a passport reserved for people unable to obtain a passport from their home country.

And while Berlin is safer for dissidents than Yangon these days, Myanmar will always be home for Ma Thida.

“I look at my country as my own home because I got my education there. I got my understanding of life there. I got my belief in freedom there,” she said. “I always want to go back home.”
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