Southeast Asia Archive

At the height of the morning rush hour on Aug. 2, as Bangkok hosted foreign dignitaries attending a high-profile regional security summit, six small bombs exploded across the city, injuring four people. Thai police linked the blasts to southern insurgents, whose leaders denied responsibility. Two weeks later, reports emerged that the main rebel group leading that insurgency, the Barisan Revolusi Nasional, or BRN, had met Thai government officials for secret talks. The rebels reportedly set out their demands for resuming formal peace negotiations, including “the release of all people detained over suspected links to the insurgency and a transparent investigation […]

Is Laos on the edge of an economic boom, or a bust? Six of the 11 countries in Southeast Asia have an external debt higher than the developing world average of 26 percent of gross national income, according to a report last year by FT Confidential Research, an independent research service from the Financial Times. Laos was the worst offender, with an external debt of 93.1 percent of its GNI. Laos was also weakest when it came to its ability to repay loans. Its ratio of external debt to exports, an important indicator, was 327.9 percent. Foreign currency reserves are […]

He died in a hospital in Phnom Penh, 93 years-old and still portraying himself as a Cambodian hero. Nuon Chea was the senior-most surviving member of the genocidal Khmer Rouge, having served as Brother No. 2, as he was known, under its leader Pol Pot. He was widely seen as one of the major planners of the regime’s rapid, brutal overhaul of Cambodian society from 1975 to 1979, which included emptying Phnom Penh of citizens, murdering a sizable portion of the population, and torturing and killing some 14,000 people at an infamous prison called Tuol Sleng. Nuon Chea was also […]

Last week, the United Nations’ independent fact-finding mission on Myanmar released a new report that documents the economic interests of the Myanmar military and the global network of countries and companies that are financing the country’s genocidal “clearance operations” against the Rohingya, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority. The report urged U.N. member states to impose an arms embargo on Myanmar and financial sanctions on the country’s military-owned companies. But according to David Scott Mathieson, a Yangon-based independent analyst who focuses on a range of human rights, conflict and peace issues in Myanmar, the mission’s findings are unlikely to significantly alter […]

When the history of Myanmar’s genocide against the Rohingya people is finally written, it may read a lot like the cases of Rwanda and Yugoslavia. The International Criminal Court could eventually prosecute a few of the military officers responsible for killing and torturing thousands of Rohingya, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority long persecuted in Myanmar. Chances are, though, that justice will be lumbering and uneven. Like others before them, most of the perpetrators will likely evade prosecution altogether. History could turn out differently, however, if calls are heeded from the United Nations independent fact-finding mission in Myanmar to sanction the […]

Late last month, The Wall Street Journal reported that China and Cambodia had signed a secret agreement allowing the Chinese navy to use a military facility near Ream, along Cambodia’s southern coast. According to a draft of the deal obtained by the Journal, it would reportedly grant China a 30-year lease on the port and permit the stationing of troops and storing of weaponry in an installation that covers 192 acres and includes one pier and other facilities. Images have also shown the construction of a military-grade airport and a development project of dubious commercial viability. The facilities, if managed […]

This week, diplomats from 27 countries around the Asia-Pacific gathered in Bangkok for the ASEAN Regional Forum, where they discussed the many geopolitical flashpoints in the region, from North Korea to the South China Sea. Meanwhile, Venezuela is coming under mounting criticism in the wake of a recent United Nations report on its human rights abuses, and a cease-fire agreement in Mozambique ended a return to violence 27 years after the end of that country’s devastating civil war. WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and associate editors Elliot Waldman and Laura Weiss talk about all of this and more on the editors’ […]