KUDAT, Malaysia — A recent escalation in violence on the troubled Philippine island of Mindanao has led Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia to tighten international security across their maritime borders, and threatened to undermine U.S.-led peace efforts. From Kudat on the northern tip of Malaysian Borneo, south to Sulawesi in Indonesia and eastwards to the strife-torn southern Philippines, authorities have clamped down in response to mounting casualties, after a truce between the Philippine government and separatist Muslim rebels collapsed last year. Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur were to deploy battalion-force strength to their border areas, while Manila rolled out a plan [...]
CAMBODIA MARKS ANNIVERSARY, BUT NO CLOSURE — Cambodia marked the 30th anniversary of the demise of the Khmer Rouge regime Jan. 7 with memorials for the suffering of millions. But the country remains haunted by the knowledge that perpetrators of Cambodia’s greatest crime have yet to stand trial for their crimes. Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime held sway over Cambodia from 1975-1979, a period in which millions of Cambodians died from torture, overwork, starvation and executions. In early 1979, a joint Vietnamese-Cambodian force toppled the regime, bringing in a new government largely beholden to its Vietnamese allies. Some Cambodians object [...]
I’ve seen quite a few headlines recently trumpeting the Sri Lankan government’s victory in its counterinsurgency against the LTTE (Tamil Tigers) terorist/guerilla insurgency. That comes on the heels of the military’s capture of the LTTE’s “capital” of Kilinochchi. But the news out of Sri Lanka today about the murder of Lasantha Wickrematunga, an anti-government newspaper editor, made me feel like Brian Calvert’s fascinating, three-part series (here, here and here) on the information war that is part and parcel of the government’s counterinsurgency was worth a second look. Especially Part II, which begins as follows: No one understands the importance of [...]
