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Human Rights

Gross violation of Human Rights in Rakhain state of Myanmar

by Param-Preet Singh:

In August 2017, the desperate plight of Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims grabbed headlines when the military’s brutal campaign of murder, rape and other abuses forced more than 740,000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh. In 2019, the United Nations-backed Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar warned that the 600,000 Rohingya remaining in Myanmar’s Rakhine state faced a greater than ever threat of genocide because of the government’s attempts to “erase their identity and remove them from the country.”

Despite repeated resolutions from the U.N. Human Rights Council and General Assembly condemning these atrocities, Myanmar faced few consequences. That bleak reality changed in November 2019 when Gambia filed an application before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) alleging that Myanmar’s atrocities against the Rohingya in Rakhine state violated various provisions of the Genocide Convention. Myanmar must now answer for its brutal treatment of the Rohingya before a credible international tribunal.

The court has already signaled how serious it is about its scrutiny. In its January 2020 unanimous order on provisional measures, the ICJ found that Myanmar had not presented “concrete measures aimed specifically at recognizing and ensuring the right of the Rohingya to exist as a protected group under the Genocide Convention.” The court directed Myanmar not to commit and to prevent genocide, and to preserve any evidence of allegedly genocidal acts committed against the Rohingya.

Myanmar, as a party to the Genocide Convention, is legally bound to comply with the court’s order, and its de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has acknowledged the court’s role as a “vital refuge of international justice” in settling this dispute.

But what does compliance with the court’s order look like?

What Myanmar is Doing

Prior to its first report to the ICJ on the implementation of the order, submitted in late May of this year, the Myanmar government issued presidential directives to ensure that officials do not commit genocide, to prohibit the destruction or removal of evidence of abuses, and to denounce and to prevent the proliferation of hate speech.

The impact of these directives on the ground, however, has been nonexistent. The government has a long history of failing to conduct credible investigations into alleged war crimes and rights abuses by its security forces. For example, rather than serving as a stepping stone toward meaningful accountability, Myanmar’s recent court-martial conviction of three military personnel for crimes against ethnic Rohingya victims in actuality, is merely one aspect of ongoing government efforts to evade meaningful accountability, by scapegoating a few soldiers rather than seriously investigating the military leadership who oversaw the atrocity crimes.

In reality, the situation for civilians in Rakhine state has actually worsened over the past year, as the armed conflict between the Arakan Army, an ethnic Rakhine armed group, and Myanmar’s military has increased insecurity across the state and displaced as many as 160,000 civilians. Hundreds of ethnic Rakhine and dozens of Rohingya civilians have been killed in the fighting. Myanmar’s announcement of new military clearance operations raises concerns of further risks to civilians.

Preventing genocide is also not just about preventing further violence. The Rohingya in Rakhine state are subject to “oppressive and systemic restrictions” on freedom of movement and access to food, health care, and humanitarian assistance, all of which may be indicative of the Myanmar government’s intent to destroy the group in whole or in part. And these conditions are only getting worse.

The Rohingya trapped in refugee and displaced persons camps and villages face growing threats from the COVID-19 pandemic. Our research at Human Rights Watch has found that Myanmar authorities are using Covid-19 response measures as yet another pretext to harass and extort Rohingya in central Rakhine detention camps, doubling down on a system in which they are already effectively incarcerating the population.

What Myanmar Should be Doing

There are plenty of concrete measures Myanmar’s government could take to protect the vulnerable Rohingya remaining in Rakhine state and, in doing so, demonstrate actual compliance with the ICJ’s order.

For instance, the Myanmar government continues to severely restrict Rohingyas’ access to health facilities, with life-threatening consequences. Last month the government reported that from September to December 2019, at Sittwe General Hospital – the main health facility in Rakhine state and the only hospital most Rohingya can access – fewer than a thousand patients treated were Rohingya, suggesting that many Rohingya are unable to secure needed hospital care. The government could and should urgently lift the restrictions that prevent Rohingya from accessing equitable health care – such as eliminating a medical referral system, removing financial barriers, and increasing ambulance services.

Further, a slew of discriminatory laws isolate the Rohingya in their own country and legitimize discrimination, including the 1982 Citizenship Law, which effectively prevents Rohingya from obtaining Myanmar citizenship, and leaves many Rohingya, including children, stateless. The government should repeal the discriminatory legal framework that targets the Rohingya, including the 1982 Citizenship Law, and establish a procedure that ensures that Rohingya are able to obtain full citizenship without discrimination.

Government restrictions on humanitarian access in Rakhine state remain pervasive and insidious.
Myanmar authorities have responded to the Arakan Army conflict by imposing new restrictions on aid, movement, media, and the internet since January 2019. Humanitarian access has been restricted in eight of Rakhine state’s 17 townships, leading to shortages of food, medicine, and shelter for the Rohingya, ethnic Rakhine and others living in affected areas, and making it difficult or impossible to deliver lifesaving supplies. The government should lift these blanket restrictions on aid delivery and grant humanitarian groups and U.N. agencies immediate, unrestricted, and sustained access to all conflict-affected civilians, including Rohingya.

These are only a few of the steps Myanmar could take to protect the Rohingya if it was serious about implementing the ICJ’s provisional measures order. But Myanmar’s non-compliance is not necessarily set in stone, especially in the face of persistent diplomatic pressure to change course.

While a final determination by the ICJ is most likely years away, the court’s provisional measures order has already unlocked a vital framework to meaningfully assess what Myanmar is – and isn’t – doing to protect the Rohingya in Rakhine state from genocide.

Ultimately, it’s up to individual governments, both in their bilateral dealings with Myanmar and collectively through the U.N., to raise the political cost of Myanmar’s continuing non-compliance.

While diplomacy – often driven by consensus about what the political market will bear despite the ugliest of facts – is needed to push for enforcement, the ICJ’s judges are not subject to these forces. Instead, they are bound by the law’s application to the facts presented.

Regardless of what enforcement measures are ultimately taken, Gambia’s genocide case against Myanmar means that the rights of the Rohingya and the atrocities they have suffered cannot be easily forgotten in the face of the latest crisis or political discomfort. As the Rohingya poet Ali Mayuu eloquently puts it, “the gate of justice is just opened.” (Editors Note: This article is part of a special Just Security forum on the ongoing Gambia v. Myanmar litigation at the International Court of Justice and ways forward.)

Human Rights, Indigenous People

Civilian Who Died in Custody in Myanmar’s Rakhine State Killed Himself, Military Says

SITTWE, Rakhine State—One of six residents of Alel Chaung Village in Rakhine State’s Yanbye Township detained by Myanmar army troops on Saturday killed himself while being held for interrogation, according to the military.

Alel Chaung Village administrator U Myint Lwin told The Irrawaddy that Yanbye (formerly Ramree) Township Police Station told him to pick up the body of U Soe Myint Tun on Tuesday.

“Yanbye Township Police Station phoned me and told me that he killed himself by hanging. So, together with his family members, we brought the body from Ma-Ei Hospital,” he said.

Many Rakhine people have expressed doubts about the claim that the 37-year-old man took his own life. His relatives asked in vain for a postmortem examination report from the hospital. His funeral was held on Wednesday.

According to local residents, Myanmar military (or Tatmadaw) troops, including some from Kyaukphyu-based Light Infantry Battalion No. 34, arrived in Alel Chaung Village on Saturday and detained six men, arresting them at their homes or at the farms where they worked, U Myint Lwin said.

“[The troops] didn’t tell me why they arrested them that day. They only said they had things to ask them, and would release them after interrogation, and that we would be informed,” he said.

The soldiers reportedly arrested U Soe Myint Tun while he was working on his farm. Still in detention are U Maung Tun Win, 44; U Zaw Lwin, 35; U Maung Myint Tun, 37; Ko Myet Wun, 25; and Maung Nyein Chan, 20.

All the detainees are farmers, and they are not involved in unlawful activities, local villagers said. Family members of the five other detainees have not been allowed to visit them.

The head of the Yanbye Township Police Force, Police Major Zaw Win, said he did not know about the case, other than being asked by Taungup Police Station to inform U Soe Myint Tun’s relatives of his death.

“We were not involved in the arrests. And we were not told about it, and we therefore do not know about the case. We just informed [the relatives] because Taungup Police Station asked me to do so,” Police Maj. Zaw Win told The Irrawaddy.

In a statement on Wednesday, the Myanmar military-run Tatmadaw True News Information Team said the military kept each of the six detainees in isolation at Ma-Ei Police Station. It said U Soe Myint Tun was found dead at around 6.30 p.m. on Monday, having untied his restraining rope and used it to hang himself.

The military said that according to security personnel, two suspicious men had arrived in Alel Chaung Village on a motorbike via the Minchaung Bridge at around 8 p.m. on June 23. It was confirmed that the two men are members of the Arakan Army (AA), according to the statement. Based on the accounts of the two, the Myanmar military arrested the six from Alel Chaung Village for interrogation, it added.

During the Tatmadaw’s conflict with the AA in Rakhine State, 18 civilians have died during interrogation by the Myanmar military in Kyauktaw, Mrauk-U, Minbya and Rathedaung townships.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko

Human Rights

CTA urges special session of UN against Chinese occupation in Tibet

Accusing China of committing “cultural genocide” in Tibet, the Central Tibetan Administration on Sunday urged the UNHRC to hold a special session on “human rights violations” by China in Tibet and other regions under it. Dharamshala-based Central Tibetan Administration, also known as Tibetan government-in-exile, Lobsang Sangay asked the international community to “unite and ensure that China fulfils its obligations under international laws including human rights obligations before it is too late”.

In a statement issued on Sunday, Sangay said that on Saturday 50 UN independent experts from 30 UN Special Procedure mandate called on the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to “act with a sense of urgency” and take appropriate decisive measures including a special session and establishment of a special rapporteur to protect fundamental freedoms in China occupied regions including Tibet, Hong Kong, and Xinjiang.

“The Central Tibetan Administration and Tibetans from both inside and outside Tibet would like to thank the UN experts for their timely intervention and welcome their call for urgent decisive measures against the government of China,” he said.

Sangay said that In the last six decades and more, Tibetans within Tibet were suffering under the authoritarian rule of China.

The Chinese government has stripped off Tibetans of their basic human rights guaranteed under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, annihilating the distinct identity of Tibetans and denying them their inherent dignity of being human, he added.

He said that tortures, enforced disappearances, and destructions of monasteries carried out by China against Tibetans were acts of crimes against humanity and do not fall short of being categorised as “cultural genocide.

The persecution and suppression via high-tech surveillance by China, Sangay said, have forced 154 Tibetans from different walks of life in Tibet to self-immolate as a mark of peaceful protest against the Chinese authorities since 2009.

The unchecked, systemic, and egregious violations by the Chinese regime with impunity in Tibet have emboldened it to carry out similar violations in Xinjiang and now Hong Kong.

It is time to hold China accountable otherwise it will have an adverse global impact as evidenced by the Wuhan originated Covid-19 pandemic. As rightly noted by the UN experts, the violations by China are threatening world peace and security leading to human rights emergencies across the globe, he said.

CTA and the Tibetans from both inside and outside Tibet strongly support the call of the UN experts on the UN Human Rights Council to take urgent measures against the Chinese human rights violations.

We strongly urge the UNHRC and the member states to hold a special session to evaluate the human rights violations being carried out by China and to establish a country mandate of UN Special Rapporteur on China to monitor, analyse and report annually on the human rights situation in Tibet and other occupied regions, he said

Human Rights

Black women scientists missing from textbooks, study shows

By Helen Briggs:

Scientists featured in textbooks are predominantly white men, according to a study.

US biology textbooks highlighted seven men for every woman scientist.

And black women were not represented a single time in any of the works analysed.

Based on the current rate, it will be centuries before the books used to teach undergraduate biology in the US match the diversity of their readers, say researchers.

“We didn’t see any, for instance, black women scientists across any textbook,” said Dr Cissy Ballen of Auburn University in Alabama, US.

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The study analysed more than 1,000 scientific names featured in seven modern biology textbooks used to teach undergraduates entering science and medicine in the US.

They ranged from historical figures such as Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel to contemporary scientists such as Jane Goodall.

Overall, 13% of the scientists featured were women, while 6.7% were from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds.

Previous research has shown the importance of diverse, relatable role models in science, said Dr Ballen. “Not to be able to see anyone like them in these kinds of fundamental textbooks that they’re using, I think it would have a really negative effect,” she said.

There have been some gains in recent years, particularly where women and Asian men are concerned, said the researchers.

Despite this, the scientists portrayed are not representative of their target audience, particularly among Asian and Hispanic women, while black woman were not represented at all.

Textbook publishers are “tasked with balancing an accurate portrayal of history while showcasing contemporary science that reflects a diverse population of learners”, they said.

Biology is relatively gender diverse compared with other areas of science, such as physics. In the US, around 60% of biology graduates are women.

Closing gender gap in physics ‘will take generations’
Previous research has shown the number of women climbing the career ladder in science is “disappointingly low”.

The research is published in the Royal Society journal, Proceedings B.

Indigenous no-state people

PM places three proposals for durable use of aquatic sources

The five-day Ocean Dialogue which began on June is being hosted online by the World Economic Forum and Friends of Ocean Action

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has placed a three-point proposal for boosting global cooperation for durable use of ocean and other aquatic sources, urging the world community to renew their commitments for ocean action.

“For sustainable use of ocean and other aquatic sources, we need increased international cooperation, especially in securing technology and market access for our resources and products,” she told “Virtual Ocean Dialogues” being held in Swiss city of Geneva on Wednesday.

“Ocean action is critical to nourishing future generations. So, let’s join hands to renew our commitments for ocean action,” she also said in Wednesday’s session of the dialogue titled Nourishing Billions, reports BSS.

The premier in her first proposal called for assisting developing countries with critically required resources, capabilities, and technologies for leveraging full potential of marine resources.

In the second proposal, she put emphasis on conducting joint research on fisheries development with a view to significantly increasing regional fish production and eliminating Illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing.

In the third proposal, Sheikh Hasina underscored mapping and management of resource identification and critical coastal habitat and biodiversity protection.

The five-day Ocean Dialogue which began on June is being hosted online by the World Economic Forum and Friends of Ocean Action.

The theme of the event is “Connecting Communities for Ocean Resilience, Innovation and Action”.

Referring to the Covid-19 pandemic, Sheikh Hasina said the meeting is being held at a time when the entire world is battling the lethal virus.

“This pandemic makes all rethink the linkage between the health of the ocean and the health of humankind as ocean offers a great source to combat illness,” she said.

Sheikh Hasina pointed out that ocean contributes to a wide range of goals of the Agenda 2030, from poverty eradication, food security, and climate change to the provision of energy, employment creation and improved health.

In this connection, she stressed implementation of Goal 14 of Agenda 2030, saying it is more critical now than ever.

Noting that a healthy ocean is a vast source of food and nutrition, the prime minister said oceans can provide six times more food than it does today and help meet the nutrition supply.

Quoting the Global Nutrition Report 2020, she said almost a quarter of all children under-5 years of age are stunted.

Placing emphasis on striking the critical balance for sustainability, Sheikh Hasina said there is already considerable pressure on land and oceanic ecosystems.

2020/05/online-news-1590681370362.jpg

“The impact of climate change on fish stocks is also a serious concern. So, we have to strike the critical balance for sustainability,” she said.

The prime minister elaborated Bangladesh’s magnificent success in ensuring food security for its nearly 165 million people.

“Improved nutrition and safe food production are our priority. Our National Nutrition Program-NNP aims to improve the nutritional status of all citizens, especially of adolescent girls, pregnant women and lactating mothers,” she said.

Sheikh Hasina said proportion of under-5 moderately or severely stunted children has reduced to a great extent thanks to her government’s efforts.

Saying that Bangladesh is the fourth largest inland water fish producer globally, she said fish accounts for more than half of the country’s animal-source protein.

“As many as 17 million people, including 1.4 million women in Bangladesh, depend on the fisheries sector for livelihood. Fish production has increased over the years considerably, and our efforts continue to increase fish production,” she said.

The prime minister said her government is prioritizing marine fisheries as part of its “Blue Economy” initiative.

“Yet, due to urbanization, inland water bodies are shrinking. So, we are prioritizing marine fisheries as part of our Blue Economy initiative,” she said.

Pointing out the 2017 Ocean Conference, Sheikh Hasina said: We’ve made some voluntary commitments and taken legislative measures to protect, and conserve the fishery resources and the environment from all types of pollution, including plastic debris.”

Agnes Matilda Kalibata, President, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), David Nabarro, Director, 4SD and Shakuntala Thilsted, Research Programme Leader, Value Chains and Nutrition, WorldFish also addressed the same session.

Canadian Prime Minister Justine Trudeau also delivered a pre-recoded address in another session titled “The High Seas: Operating within the Global Commons.”

Prime Minister of Norway Erna Solberg will deliver video message on Thursday in a session titled “Sustainable Ocean Economy”.

The five-day event commenced with a video message of Fiji Prime Minister Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama on June 1.

Other participants of the Ocean Dialogues include Queen Noor of Kingdom of Jordan, Isabella Lovin, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Environment and Climate, Ministry of the Environment of Sweden, a good number of ministers (both running and former) from various countries, United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Ocean, United Nations, and experts from international organizations including World Economic Forum, Ocean Unite, Friends of Ocean Action etc. ( Dhaka Tribune)

Indigenous no-state people

Tigress found dead in Kaziranga National Park

A tigress was found dead on Sunday in Kaziranga National Park.

The carcass was recovered in the bank of Bhalukjan Beel in the Bagori range of the Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve.

Sources said it is suspected that the tigress died in a fight with other tiger.

In the afternoon, the post-mortem of the tigress was conducted in presence of a high-level team of forest officials of the state and the National Tiger Conservation Authority, which was led by Kaziranga National Park director P Shivkumar to the spot.

The post-mortem of the tigress was conducted by veterinarian Dr Pranjit Basumatary of Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation (CWRC) at Panbari near Kaziranga National Park.

It is suspected that the tigress died around 7 days back.

There are marks of attacks by other tiger on the carcass of the tigress.

The tigress has been identified as Kazi-83 of Kairanga National Park by the national park’s research officer, Rabindra Sarma.

After conducting the post-mortem, the carcass of the tigress was cremated at the spot in the forest in presence of all.

This year, a total of three tigers have died in the Kaziranga National Park.

On April 15, 2020, forest officials recovered a carcass of a Royal Bengal Tiger at the national park.

The carcass of the tiger was recovered from the bank of Mihibali under Kohora range.

Sources informed that the tiger might have died around three days back.

Forest officials also said the back portion of the dead tiger was already eaten by some other big cats.

Forest guards on Wednesday evening discovered the carcass while taking the elephants for a stroll.

Indigenous no-state people

Meet the Nepal youth who wooed ‘American Idol’ judges at audition

Kathmandu-born Dibesh Pokharel, 21, impresses judges Katy Perry, Luke Bryan & Lionel Richie with smokey voice; wins golden ticket at audition round of 18th season of American Idol

Kathmandu-born Dibesh Pokharel moved to Wichita, Kansas five years ago

Kathmandu-born Dibesh Pokharel moved to Wichita, Kansas five years ago

New Delhi: American Idol‘s next big discovery seems to be a rockstar from Nepal Dibesh Pokharel who goes by the stage name ‘Arthur Gunn’.

The 21-year-old Kathmandu-born youth moved to Wichita, Kansas five years ago. He has been singing ever since he was a kid and took it seriously only a year before shifting base to the US.

In the 18th season reboot of the popular reality television series, Gunn performed in front of Katy Perry, Lionel Richie and Luke Bryan during the audition round on Sunday. He sang Bob Dylan’s Girl From The North Country, leaving the judges impressed. However, he lacked eye contact, so the mentors asked him to go ahead with another performance, but this time maintaining eye contact. He then opted for Have You Ever Seen The Rain by Creedence Clearwater Revival.

The trio was more than impressed with his smokey voice, and Luke Bryan even asked Gunn to open for him in Detroit, Michigan.

Meanwhile, Richie came and hugged the young music sensation who already has a few originals to his name on YouTube.

The Nepalese boy who said that American Idol might be his chance at his American Dream was given the Golden Ticket in unison. (Source: Eastmojo)

Indigenous no-state people

Nobel laureate Amartya Sen on Citizenship (Amendment) Act or CAA

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Bengaluru: 

Nobel laureate Amartya Sen said the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, or CAA, violates constitutional provisions. “The CAA law that has been passed in my judgment should be turned down by the Supreme Court on the grounds of it being unconstitutional because you cannot have certain types of fundamental human rights linking citizenship with religious differences,” Mr Sen told reporters at the Infosys Science Foundation’s Infosys Prize 2019 in Bengaluru.

The Nobel laureate said what really should matter for deciding citizenship is the place a person was born, and where the person has lived.

“My reading of the (amended) law is that it violates the provision of the Constitution,” he said, adding that citizenship on the basis of religion had been a matter of discussion in the constituent assembly where it was decided that “using religion for the purpose of discrimination of this kind will not be acceptable.”

Mr Sen, however, agreed that a Hindu who is persecuted in a country outside India deserves sympathy and his or her case must be taken into account.

“It (consideration for citizenship) has to be independent of religion but take cognisance of the sufferings and other issues into account,” Mr Sen said.

On the mob attack at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Mr Sen noted the university administration could not stop outsiders from coming to the campus to lead the attack.

“The communication between the university administration and the police got delayed due to which ill treatment of students went on without being prevented by the law enforcement agencies,” he added.

Indigenous no-state people

How Thai forces killing minorities: the story of Billy and a Karen village

Billy, Muenoor and their child
An oil barrel discovered at the bottom of a reservoir in a nature reserve in Thailand in April 2019 has cast a light on a story some would rather stayed hidden. It is a tale of powerful men and the lengths they will allegedly go to keep their crimes covered up. But it is also the story of one woman’s determination to get justice for the man she loved and the community he was fighting for.

Pinnapa “Muenoor” Prueksapan remembers the words that her husband told her back in 2014 as if it happened yesterday.

“He told me: ‘The people involved in this aren’t happy with me. They say that if they find me they’ll kill me. If I do disappear, don’t come looking for me. Don’t wonder where I’ve gone. They’ll probably have killed me’.

“So I said to him: ‘If you know you’re in danger like this, why can’t you stop helping your grandfather and the village?’.

“And he said to me: ‘When you’re doing the right thing, you have to keep fighting, even if it means you may lose your life.’.

“And after he said that, I couldn’t ask him to stop,” she recalls.

When Porlajee “Billy” Rakchongcharoen left for work on 15 April that same year, Muenoor didn’t ask any questions. He left just like any other day, grabbing the overnight bag his wife packed for him and walking out the door without saying goodbye.

He told Muenoor that he was going to meet with people in his role as a locally elected official – but that wasn’t the whole truth. In fact, Billy had gone to meet his grandfather and members of his village to collect evidence to take to lawyers in Bangkok – evidence he hoped would prove once and for all local authorities in this remote part of southern Thailand were illegally evicting indigenous communities.

Three days later, Muenoor got a phone call from Billy’s brother asking if he had arrived home safely. But he still wasn’t home. Suddenly she remembered Billy’s words.

Perhaps that phone call would never had happened had it not been for another tragedy three years earlier.

Billy came from a forest on the Thai-Myanmar border
In July 2011, three military helicopters crashed in a remote part of Kaeng Krachan National Park, near Thailand’s southern border with Myanmar. They went down one after the other in a series of accidents blamed on bad weather.

The tragedy was further compounded by the fact the last two helicopters had been sent to collect the remains of the first.

Seventeen people lost their lives in the three accidents: 16 soldiers and one member of Bangkok’s press.

The crashes drew the attention of the country’s media. Soon journalists from all over Thailand were descending on the area, which meant, for the first time, all eyes were focused on this quiet, rural region – and the dark secrets it hid.

In the end, a tip-off led the journalists to a remote location, far into the dense green jungle of the country’s biggest national park, and to the very secret the soldiers had seemingly died trying to protect.

Because there, deep in the forest, were the charred remains of a village.

The village had once been home to a small indigenous community, made up of about 100 families from the Karen minority. They were farmers, living a simple life, in balance with their surroundings.

It was where Billy had grown up with his grandfather, Karen spiritual leader Ko-ee Mimee.

Their existence, in some ways, sounded idyllic. But the 352,000 Karen people who live in Thailand are seen as outsiders. The majority of the world’s five million Karen people live in neighbouring Myanmar.

But decades of persecution and a long-running civil war with the government in Myanmar have forced thousands of Karen civilians to cross the border, where the Thai authorities have labelled them a foreign threat, said to be associated with drug smuggling and militant insurgencies.

And that is apparently why locals say national park rangers turned up, evacuated the village and burnt everything to the ground weeks before the doomed helicopter flights.

The military helicopter is understood to have been on its way to the village to ensure it had been completely and utterly destroyed.

Park rangers arrived in May 2011, villagers say
Billy wasn’t there the night the park rangers arrived in 2011. He had married Muenoor and moved away to a village nearer her family.

But his grandfather, a spiritual leader and a well-respected member of the village, was at home, and allowed the rangers to stay the night in his hut.

“On that day, there were three helicopters flying above the village,” a Karen man, who wishes to remain anonymous, told the BBC.

“That first day there were 15 park rangers. They went into Billy’s grandfather’s house. They spoke to him and asked to stay for the night.”

Image copyright HANDOUT A hut begins to burn
Image caption The village was evacuated, and the rangers set light to the homes
Ko-ee Mimee had no idea what was about to happen.

“The park rangers didn’t say or do anything that felt threatening, except for the fact they came with guns. The following day, at 9am, the helicopters returned. The village chief told Billy’s grandfather to pack his clothes and walk with the park rangers to the helicopters,” the Karen man recalls.

Even when the villagers were told to get into the helicopters, there was no panicking: they still didn’t understand what was happening.

It was only as they rose up above the trees that the enormity of what was taking place finally became clear.

“As we took off I started to see smoke and I could hear the crackling of the wood from the fire,” the villager tells the BBC. “When the helicopter was high above the village I looked down and saw my whole house in flames.

“Everything inside Billy’s grandfather’s house was burned. All he had was one bag with his hat and a shirt inside. The rest of the villagers weren’t able to bring any of their possessions.

“Everything we had ever owned was burned down along with our homes.”

The farmer who fought back

Chaiwat Limlikidacsorn, then the national park chief, would later tell journalists the families were invaders, and that the village was used as a transit point for Karen drug smugglers coming over the border from Myanmar.

Under Thai law, he would argue, permanent structures could not be built inside protected national parks, and that year Chaiwat’s team of rangers were applying for Kaeng Krachan to become a Unesco World Heritage site.

Billy’s community denied the allegations. They said military maps dating from 1912 even showed their village had existed in the same location for at least a hundred years, and long before the forest became a national park in 1981.

“The way we lived and farmed was in harmony with the forest,” Abisit “Jawree” Charoensuk, a local Karen from the village, tells the BBC. “We Karens respect nature as our God. We worship a water God, a forest God and every living thing in the forest. Our farming technique is environmentally friendly. And we grow things we can consume all year round.

“We catch fish in the river, we catch small animals in the forest and we grow rotation crops. We grow rice to sell and the women weave clothes to sell.”

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But after the village was burned, when park authorities moved the community to the outskirts of Kaeng Krachan, things were very different.

“There is no rice for us to harvest because there is no land for us to grow rice on. The land they moved us onto is all rock,” Billy told journalists in 2011. “Since we cannot make a living, we don’t know how to survive. Some of us don’t have Thai citizenship so we can’t look for jobs in the city.

“Many are afraid if they leave the area they’ll be arrested by the police. We can’t make a living down here; we need to go back to where we were.”

The destruction of his village was a turning point for Billy, transforming the young farmer into a human rights activist. He and his grandfather got in contact with lawyers in the capital, Bangkok, some two and a half hours drive away.

A map showing the national park
But it was the helicopter crash which finally gave their plight the attention it needed.

Billy became more and more passionate about getting justice. He organised seminars about Karen community rights, and travelled the country explaining what had happened to his village. He spearheaded attempts to sue the park rangers for compensation.

“Billy acted as an assistant to the lawyer representing the villagers,” Muenoor explains. “He collected evidence for them, spoke to the villagers and found out what happened and what exactly they lost. He took his grandfather to the administrative court so he could sue the national park rangers who burned down their village.”

The disappearance

The last time Billy was seen alive, he was being arrested for taking wild honey out of the forest.

The arrest itself was not unusual: it is illegal to take anything from the forest, but most people pay a fine and are let go.

But Billy had more than just wild honey on him that day. He also had the evidence from the Karen villagers and his grandfather – the same documents he hoped to use in court to sue the park rangers.

When Muenoor tried to report her husband’s disappearance to local police, she says they dismissed her concerns. But she knew in her heart what had happened.

“I thought he was dead because if he was still alive or in hiding he would have found a way to contact me or his family because that’s what he was like – he was a smart guy. He would have found a way to contact me that first day he went missing.”

Billy had been, as the saying goes in Thailand, “carried away”. Human rights groups say thousands of activists have disappeared like this over the decades, although the United Nations puts the number at just 82. Many families are too afraid to go to the police to report their loved ones are missing.

Muenoor, however, was not scared. In the months and years that followed, with the help of lawyers in Bangkok, she launched repeated requests for a judicial investigation into Billy’s unlawful detention.

But time and time again they were rejected on the grounds of a lack of evidence – even though police couldn’t find any record of Billy’s release from custody.

Muenoor was forced to dedicate herself to finding out what happened to her husband
And although traces of human blood were found in a vehicle belonging to the park office, it wasn’t possible to verify if the blood belonged to Billy because the vehicle was cleaned before forensic experts could examine it.

But then again, without a body, there was not much anyone could do: no one has ever been brought to justice for making someone disappear, for carrying them away. In fact, the crime of enforced disappearance doesn’t exist in Thailand.

Muenoor’s fight for justice suffered a further blow when Thailand’s Department of Special Investigation (DSI), which looks into high profile cases like those involving government officials, said they wouldn’t be taking up Billy’s case.

Meanwhile, Chaiwat, the national park chief, was promoted and moved out of the area.

The oil drum and the reservoir

But then, in an unexpected development, the DSI, under pressure from international human rights groups, suddenly announced they would start investigating Billy’s disappearance in June 2018.

Less than a year later, Muenoor received a strange phone call: investigating officers asked her to go to the reservoir in Kaeng Krachan National Park. They told her to bring incense, the smoke of which Karen people believe connects this world to the next.

When she arrived, they asked Muenoor to pray next to the water.

“Billy, if you are here under the bridge, please reveal yourself or show me a sign so that I and everyone here trying to help can bring you justice and find evidence,” she prayed. “Then we can take your case to the next step to reveal the truth about what really happened.”

With the help of an underwater robot, a team of divers set about searching the reservoir.

Image copyright GETTY IMAGES A bridge going over a reservoir in the national park
Image caption Eventually, police brought her back to the park, and to a resevoir
What they found was a rusty, 200-litre oil drum. Inside were burnt fragments of bone. That in itself was unsurprising: oil drums have been used since World War Two to torture and burn alive those who defy the government. They have become symbolic of a culture of impunity.

A DNA test indicated it was Billy inside the drum.

Afterwards, officials sent Muenoor a picture of a skull fragment – burnt, cracked and shrunken after being exposed to heat as high as 300 degrees Celsius. Whoever did this, it seemed, had tried to conceal the crime.

“What kind of person could do something like this to another person?” Muenoor asks. “It’s not human. I was devastated that he had to go through something like that. Whoever did this never thought about Billy’s family or how this would affect us. If this had happened to the killer’s family, how would he have felt?”

The game changer

In November 2019, the DSI issued an arrest warrant. It was for Kaeng Krachan National Park’s former chief, Chaiwat Limlikidacsorn, and three other park rangers. They deny any wrongdoing.

The arrest came as a shock for many in Thailand. It is unusual for someone in a senior role working for the state to be arrested on such serious charges.

And Chaiwat has made his feelings clear.

“Ever since it happened, the DSI and the media have depicted me in a negative way,” Chaiwat has complained to reporters. “It’s ruined my simple life as a government official, along with my three junior colleagues. They’ve also destroyed my family.

“Instead of being an honest government official and protecting the forest I am forced to stand in front of all of you here today. I’ve devoted my entire life, strength and energy to help this nation.”

Chaiwat and the three park rangers are charged with six offences, including premeditated murder, unlawful detention and the concealment of Billy’s body.

Enforced disappearance is not one of them.

Even so, if Chaiwat and the other park rangers are found guilty of Billy’s murder, it will be the first time one of the so-called disappeared gets justice.

Muenoor and a photo of her family
Image caption Muenoor says it has turned her world upside down
People like prominent human rights lawyer Surapong Kongchantuk believe enough pressure will be generated to force the Thai government to pass an enforced disappearance law.

“Patterns have emerged in these disappearance cases,” Mr Surapong tells the BBC. “In most cases, people disappear in broad daylight. And a lot of people are around as witnesses. But the bodies are never found, so they can’t prosecute.

“If we can find justice for Billy, this will be a game changer for Thailand.”

But while Billy’s death may change Thai law, the reason he is said to have lost his life – the fight for his village – has not been won. Even though the Karen villagers won the case against the Department of National Parks and got compensation of 50,000 baht ($1,600; £1,200) for each family, they haven’t been allowed back.

And years of struggle have taken their toll on Muenoor as well. She admits it’s been hard for the whole family to lose Billy, especially the children.

“His case was on the news so much that one day they asked me how come the person who did this to our dad isn’t in jail? What did dad do to him? Why did he have to kill dad?” Muenoor says.

“It’s been difficult. I’ve had to stay strong. I have to take care of everything at home. I have to work to earn a living, and on top of that I’m still trying to get justice for Billy. When he was still here, he supported me.

“My life has turned upside down, from day into night.                                                   —-