Day: August 9, 2021

Myanmar migrant workers stranded at a special economic zone (SEZ) in northern Laos catering to Chinese gamblers staged a rare protest last week in a bid to return home amid an outbreak of the coronavirus, saying they haven’t been paid in months and can no longer afford food or rent.

Up to 5,000 workers of different nationalities are employed at the Golden Triangle SEZ in Bokeo province, which lies along Laos’ shared borders with Thailand and Myanmar.

Bokeo is a hotspot for coronavirus transmission, and the SEZ’s main tourist draw—the Kings Romans Casino—has seen business plummet during the pandemic. The SEZ is now guarded by Chinese security guards assigned to prevent workers from leaving amid a lockdown aimed at preventing further spread of the disease.

Hundreds of protesting Myanmar workers on Friday demanded that Lao and SEZ authorities allow them to return home or provide them with food and financial aid enabling them to remain in Laos, workers told RFA’s Lao Service.

“Because of the lockdown, we have not been paid for months. We have been abandoned,” one protesting worker said on Monday. “We have no money of our own to pay rent or buy food, and we’ve received no financial aid.”

“In addition, we have to pay for COVID-19 testing too,” he said.

“It’s calm now,” a Lao worker in the SEZ told RFA, adding that soldiers and police officers had come to the SEZ on Friday to break the protest up. “They protested because many of them lost their jobs in construction and at restaurants in the SEZ because of the lockdown,” he said.

“They want either to go home or to get some help.”

“They protested because they have been jobless and confined in the Golden Triangle SEZ for months and haven’t received any aid,” another Lao worker said. “They protested even though the authorities told them not to,” he added.

Laos has recorded eight deaths from nearly 8,400 coronavirus cases.

‘Business as usual’

Also speaking to RFA, the owner of a small shop outside the SEZ noted that another outbreak of COVID-19 had recently hit the SEZ, prompting the latest lockdown.

“Many Burmese workers have families including young children, and they can’t afford to live here without working. So they want to go home to Myanmar,” he said.

Reached for comment, a member of the Golden Triangle SEZ management team said that the Myanmar workers’ protest had ended, and that “it’s business as usual again.”

“The protest was initiated by some kind of misunderstanding about COVID-19 testing,” he said. “The SEZ management team negotiated with the protesters for two hours, and then the protesters agreed to go back to their dormitory and the management agreed to take care of the workers.”

Some go home

After Friday’s protest, Lao authorities informed Myanmar border officials that some of the Myanmar workers were planning to go home, “and on Monday at least half of the nearly 2,000 Burmese workers in the SEZ have been allowed to return,” the management team member said.

“As for the rest of the Burmese workers, their employers in the SEZ have promised to look after them during the current lockdown from Aug. 4 to Aug. 18,” he said.

Companies and employers in the SEZ have a duty to look after the welfare of their workers, agreed an official in the Bokeo provincial administration with responsibility for overseeing the Golden Triangle SEZ.

“And their workers can always complain to our authorities if their employers don’t keep their promises,” he said.

Lao workers in the SEZ who want to return home to their own provinces should register with the appropriate authorities, the management team member said, adding that around 150 Lao workers have already done so.

“They can go home after the lockdown ends in about two weeks. But during these first two weeks during the lockdown, no one can get out,” he said.

In May last year, approximately 6,000 Lao and foreign workers were present in the SEZ, with about half that number left in the SEZ today, the management team member said. Of that number, around 2,000 came from Myanmar, with the remaining number made up by Lao workers and Chinese.

Reported by RFA’s Lao Service. Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Richard Finney.

A German-educated Uyghur researcher and professor of linguistics has been detained since 2018 in northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and is serving a 15-year sentence on unknown charges, RFA confirmed last week.

Award-winning academic Nabijan Habibullah had worked at universities in the XUAR and Beijing after he returned from graduate studies in Germany in 2014, coming back against the advice of friends who warned about rising pressure on Uyghurs, according to sources inside the region and an exiled scholar.

He was sentenced to 15 years in prison in March, according to Abduweli Ayup, a Norway-based activist and linguist who said he received information about the detained academic in July from close friends of Habibullah both in the XUAR and abroad.

“Through related channels, we heard that Nabijan Habibullah was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment in March of this year,” he said.

Habibullah, 38, was a former student of Arslan Abdulla, one of a number of instructors from Xinjiang University who were detained when Chinese authorities began rounding up Uyghur intellectuals and other cultural figures in 2016, Abduweli said.

“Nabijan Habibullah, Arslan Abdulla, Abduqadir Jalalidin, Abdukerim Rahman, and Azat Sultan, among others, were all detained at the same time, starting in February 2018,” Abduweli said.

Tursunajn Bahti, a former linguistics classmate of Habibullah who was another student of Arslan Abdulla, also had been taken way by authorities, he added.

The jailing of Uyghur intellectuals and cultural leaders, which has intensified since 2016, is part of a set of policies has been determined by the United States and others as constituting genocide. The abuses also include forced labor at factories and farms, forced birth control, and the detention of up to 1.8 million Uyghurs in a network of internment camps.

Habibullah was summoned to the security division of the university in February 2018 and taken away by state security police from Urumqi municipality following a brief interrogation, Abduweli said.

‘A staircase to climb’

Born in Lop (in Chinese, Luopu) county, Hotan (Hetian) prefecture, in 1983, Habibullah graduated from Hotan Normal Technical High School in 2002 with a specialization in Chinese, according to online sources. He then studied and worked at Xinjiang Normal University, Xinjiang University, both in the XUAR’s capital Urumqi, and at Minzu University, a college for ethnic minorities in Beijing.

Habibullah began studying at the University of Göttingen in Germany in 2012. After he graduated two years later, many friends reportedly warned him that the situation in the XUAR was deteriorating and recommended that he remain in Germany rather than return home to find work, said Abduweli Ayup.

The academic made the decision to return to the XUAR after convincing himself that he would be safe there if he only focused on his academic research and stayed out of social conflicts and other issues that authorities deemed contentious, he said.

“He decided that he would be able to do even better work there,” Abduweli said. “He believed that he would be able to do more by teaching Uyghur students who were studying language and literature, providing them with a staircase to climb and a stage for their work, and so he went back.”

Abduweli founded the Uyghuryar Foundation, a Uyghur advocacy and aid organization also known as Uyghur Hjelp in Norwegian, which maintains a list of detained Uyghur intellectuals.

After returning to the XUAR, Habibullah reportedly landed a job at Minzu University in Beijing, and two years later found work at Xinjiang University in Urumqi. In June 2016, Nabijan completed a doctoral dissertation, titled “The Dictionary Meanings of Old Uyghur Verbs from Buddhist Texts Translated Into Chinese,” according to a biography provided by an RFA listener who declined to be named.

In two years, Habibullah had won four research grants and published more than 10 articles in prestigious scholarly journals. In 2017, he was named an outstanding undergraduate advisor and researcher at Xinjiang University, his biography says.

Then in February 2018, he was taken away for “training” along with other leading teachers and researchers from the university.

“He was at home one evening, and the security division of Xinjiang University said it had to speak with him about and called him into the office,” Abduweli said.

“When he went to the office, Nabijan Habibullah saw that police officers from national security forces were waiting there,” he said. “[They] put a black hood over his head and took him away.”

Possible reasons for arrest

A staff member from the division of cadres at Xinjiang University would not provide any information about Habibullah to RFA. But a security guard from the university confirmed that he had been detained and taken to a makeshift holding center for intellectuals at Xinjiang Normal University in February 2018.

In an earlier investigation to confirm the imprisonment of a poet, RFA learned that a special detention center had been set up at Xinjiang Normal University for intellectuals in Urumqi, who were detained there before being transferred to an internment camp.

The Xinjiang University security guard said that though he and his colleagues were responsible for summoning suspects, taking them to the national security police, and transferring them to jail, they did not know the details of individual cases and that he was unaware of the details of the linguist’s sentence.

Possible reasons for Habibullah’s detention and later imprisonment include his studies at the German University where he came into contact with Turkologists, his relationship with Abdulla, and his research into Uyghur culture, Abduweli said.

“We obtained information suggesting that these were the reasons for Nabijan’s detention,” he said. “Our information source was unable to confirm which of these reasons was the main one.”

Reported by Shohret Hoshur for RFA’s Uyghur Service. Translated by the Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

The military junta has cut all supply routes to a hilly town in western Myanmar’s Chin state, putting as many as 50,000 refugees from months of fighting under siege with only two weeks supply of food, sources in the embattled region told RFA.

Junta forces have blocked all entrances and exits to Mindat and shut down supply routes to neighboring regions in Chin state, a hotbed of resistance to the Feb. 1 military takeover, where fighting between troops loyal to the junta and local militias from March through May killed scores of regime soldiers and civilians.

“All the roads have been blocked…The authorities stop, arrest or interrogate all the young men entering the town, and confiscate their mobile phones. Nobody dares to enter,” a refugee in Mindat who requested anonymity for security reasons told RFA’s Myanmar Service.

The junta’s move to cut off access to Mindat came at a time when Mindat’s transportation situation was already complicated by heavy rains over the past month that had caused mudslides that had made some roads impassible, even by motorcycle.

“The landslides west and south of Mindat cut off the roads there… We will run out of food in two weeks,” a refugee the refugee told RFA’s Myanmar Service.

Mindat, with a population of 10,000-15,000 people, including its suburbs, is battling  a COVID-19 outbreak, part of a third wave that has overrun the entire country.

“Many goods cannot be purchased here in Mindat anymore, or the prices are up exponentially. No one is selling what we need. The military council’s forces have blocked access roads to the Yaw region, where all our supplies come from,” the refugee said.

Refugees and others living outside of Mindat are too afraid to come into the town for grocery shopping, according to the refugee.

An additional 7,000 refugees have been displaced by fighting since fighting resumed July 21, according to the Chin Defense Force (CDF), a local militia group founded after the military ousted Myanmar’s democratically elected government and seized power February 1.

The CDF is a network of volunteers that formed in April to protect the people of Chin and has enjoyed relative success facing the military—the second largest in Southeast Asia—with slingshots and the same crude flintlock “Tumee” rifles their forefathers used to fight off British colonizers in the 1880s. The CDF said it had killed some 100 junta troops between March and May.

The CDF keeps records of refugees displaced in the conflict, but estimated that in Mindat there are many more than it had the capacity to confirm.

“In the villages there are between 30,000 and 50,000 IDPs, but in our IDP camps, we have around 15,000 to 20,000 on record. This is for the first record taken at the end of May, but fighting resumed in early June,” the information officer of the Mindat CDF told RFA.

“Many IDPs [Internally Displaced Persons] fled to nearby Htilin and Pakkoku townships and the Yaw region. Some have fled to the inner parts of Mindat township and the Matupi and Palatwa townships in Chin state. We don’t know the exact numbers of all IDPs, but we have been able to gather info on the IDPs in the vicinity of the fighting, numbering around 6,000 to 7,000,” the information officer said.

The junta has also prevented the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) from delivering aid that would have helped around 5,000 IDPs , but they were allowed to aid 60 households last month. The rest of the aid package, which included truckloads of food, medicines and necessities like tarps, had to be left at a local monastery.

They stockpiled all the aid… at the monastery and won’t allow it to be distributed to nearby areas like the UNHCR wants,” a resident of Mindat told RFA.

“The UNHCR cannot take it back, but they don’t want to leave it here because they don’t want the military forces to steal it. So they put it at the monastery with the caretaker,” said he resident, who declined to be named.

When asked to comment on having to leave the aid at the monastery, Reuben Wende, information officer of UNHCR office in Yangon, told RFA July 23 that authorities should cooperate with efforts to distribute aid in Chin state, but made no direct mention of the incident.

According to the United Nations and aid groups, conflict in Myanmar’s remote border regions has displaced an estimated 230,000 residents since the junta coup.

They join more than 500,000 refugees from decades of conflict between the military and ethnic armies who were already counted as IDPs at the end of 2020, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, a Norwegian NGO.

Troops loyal to Myanmar’s junta have killed more than 80 ethnic Chins in the country since the military took power during the Feb. 1 coup, including two infants and a 15-year-old rape victim, a Chin watchdog group said last month.

The military killed at least 51 ethnic Chin in Chin state, two in Kachin state, 23 in the Sagaing region, one in Mandalay, one in Yangon, and three in Magwe region, according to a statement issued by the Institute of Chin Affairs (ICA)

Amid nationwide turmoil, the military has stepped up offensives in remote parts of the country of 54 million that have led to fierce battles with several local militias.

Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

Political prisoners in Myanmar’s second-largest city Mandalay staged a rare protest marking the anniversary of an Aug. 8, 1988 uprising against military rule, singing and shouting slogans in a demonstration that ended with reports of beatings and gunshots heard behind the walls, sources said.

The prisoners are among the more than 5,500 people arrested in the suppression of the opposition to the Feb. 1 military overthrow of the country’s elected government, a violent crackdown that has killed 962 civilians, according to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP).

The protest at Mandalay’s Obo Prison began at around 9:00 p.m. on Sunday, one city resident living near the prison told RFA’s Myanmar Service on Monday.

“At about 9:15 p.m. I heard chanting and shouts coming from behind the prison walls,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “When I came out of my house, I heard gunshots, and I heard nothing more after that,” he said.

“Then, at about 10:30, I saw three military vehicles and four passenger cars coming out of the prison. They left Aung Chanthar Ward and headed towards the GTC School,” the source said, referring to Mandalay’s Government Technical College.

“Some people said some prisoners had been beaten up,” he said.

Reached for comment, Prisons Department Deputy Director Chan Aye Kyaw said that authorities were now trying to identify the leaders of the protest.

“Last night, inmates at the Mandalay Central Prison started shouting slogans when the lights-out alarm sounded at 9:00 p.m.,” he said. “Around 30 to 40 people began chanting slogans and singing songs. We couldn’t stop them, so we informed the officer-in-charge, and he and his team arrived and the shouting stopped.”

None of the protesters was injured, and no one was put in solitary confinement, the official said.

“We are trying to find out who was involved in the shouting and singing, that’s all,” Chan Ay Kyaw said, adding that protest leaders when identified would be punished according to prison regulations.

‘A lot of people got beaten up’

A member of the Mandalay University Students’ Union told RFA that despite official statements that no beatings had been inflicted, “according to reports we got, there were a lot of people who were beaten up, and some were put into solitary confinement.”

“We don’t have any details yet,” he said, adding, “It all started in Block 3 where young people and students are kept. It could have been about the 8888 anniversary, and it could have been about COVID.”

Myanmar’s 8888 uprising was launched on Aug. 8, 1988 by students in Yangon, then the country’s capital, as a protest against one-party rule by Gen. Ne Win, who had ruled the country since 1962. Protests across the country were finally suppressed by the army on Sept. 18, with about 3,000 people reported killed.

The Students’ Union issued a statement Monday calling for an end to the violent crackdown on prisoners in connection with the incident, for the release of political prisoners “unjustly detained” amid a third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, and for political prisoners’ full access to medical care, including COVID prevention.

“After hearing about the protest in the prison, our family was worried,” said a resident of Maha Aungmyay township, two of whose family members were arrested after authorities found a sword and a National League for Democracy (NLD) banner in their home.

“We heard that a few inmates were shot dead in the prison, and we were really worried when we heard this. We asked out lawyer about this, but he didn’t know anything,” he said.

As news of the Obo Prison protest spread on social media at around 10:00 p.m., a group of young people in Monywa city in Myanmar’s Sagaing region staged a protest near the Monywa Prison to demand the release of political prisoners and an end to the country’s military dictatorship.

At least 20 student leaders of the All Burma Students’ Union (ABSU) detained in Yangon’s Insein Prison are now being held in solitary confinement in connection with a prison protest there on July 23.

On Feb. 1, Myanmar’s military overthrew the country’s democratically elected government, claiming voter fraud had led to a landslide victory for Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD party in the country’s November 2020 election.

The junta has yet to provide evidence of its claims and has violently suppressed nationwide demonstrations calling for a return to civilian rule, killing at least 962 people over the past six months.

Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Richard Finney.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York announced on Aug. 6 the arrest of two Myanmar citizens residing in the city who had “plotted to seriously injure or kill Myanmar’s ambassador to the United Nations.” The court filing states that Phyo Hein Htut, 28, and Ye Hein Zaw, 20, were involved in plans to attack Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun by tampering with the tires on his car to cause a crash while he was inside. Kyaw Moe Tun, 52, had represented Myanmar’s civilian-led government which was overthrown in a Feb. 1 military coup, but now represents the country’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG), formed in opposition to the junta. He has been a prominent critic of Myanmar’s military regime that seized power on Feb. 1, and has refused demands of the junta to step down as ambassador and now represents the country’s civilian-led shadow government. Khin Maung Soe of RFA’s Myanmar Service spoke with the ambassador a day after the U.S. Justice Department announced the arrests.  Following are excerpts of the interview:

RFA: How did you find out about the plot to hurt or kill you?

Kyaw Moe Tun: It was last Tuesday when I heard about this and I informed the FBI and the U.S. Mission at the United Nations, who had been working with us all along and greatly helping us. They were worried for my safety and have provided me 24-hour security protection.

RFA: How did you get the information about the plot?

Kyaw Moe Tun: I got the information from the Burmese community here.

RFA: One report said the FBI first found out about the plot on Aug. 3 and contacted a volunteer working for your security and let him know about the assassination plot. What do you know about that?   

Kyaw Moe Tun: I actually do not know all the details, but as soon as I learned about it, I informed the relevant authorities.

RFA: How do you feel now? Are you worried about your safety?

Kyaw Moe Tun: I’m not worried at all because the host nation has taken all of the security precautions. Of course I was a little disturbed at first when I learned about it. But since I am on American soil and the U.S. government has given me a 24 hour protection I do not feel worried at all now. The measures they take, the way they work, are so professional and I really thank them, the FBI, the NYPD, the Westchester Police and the U.S. mission to the UN, led by Linda Thomas as well as the UN Security Service.

RFA: Is it true that your residence is now well guarded and that a security detail is provided for your daily commute?

Kyaw Moe Tun: Yes it is. They have taken full responsibility for the security of my residence as well as my office. They have their standard procedures and I fully cooperate with them.

RFA: Why do you think they tried to get rid of you?

Kyaw Moe Tun: That is very difficult for us to know. Only they would know the truth.

RFA:  The accused have stated that they were paid by an agent in Thailand. Do you think the military junta has something to do with this plot?

Kyaw Moe Tun: I don’t want to speculate on this. The U.S. Department of Justice has said they would carry on with the required investigations, and we will only know the truth after the investigations.

RFA: Can you tell us about any plans you may have regarding Myanmar to be presented to the UN in the near future?

Kyaw Moe Tun: We have started preparations for the 76th Session of the UN General Assembly, to be held next month. The current 75th General Assembly session will end on Sept. 13, and we haven’t found any challenges nor objections so far. However, we might find some challenges at the next session as the other side (junta) will make proposals to appoint someone to the UN Credentials Committee.

Translated by Khin Maung Nyane

Authorities in the central Chinese province of Henan have launched mass testing operations following a surge in COVID-19 cases in the wake of disastrous flooding that hit the region last month.

The flood-hit provincial capital Zhengzhou announced partial lockdown measures after reporting more than 100 confirmed local cases, including a doctor from the Zhengzhou No. 6 People’s Hospital, which has been under lockdown due to a cluster of cases from July 31, state media reported.

“This case fully demonstrated that the Delta variant [of COVID-19] is highly infectious, hard to detect, and has untypical initial symptoms, which puts forward higher requirements on our testing, detection, and reporting of the virus,” deputy leader of the Zhengzhou government Li Huifang told a news conference at the weekend.

“The doctor from the Zhengzhou No. 6 People’s Hospital had eight PCR tests, the first seven of which came back negative,” Li said. “The positive result was on Aug. 6.”

Li announced further rounds of mass PCR testing to try to contain the outbreak, following city-wide PCR tests of 10.83 million people between July 31 and Aug. 6.

Residential communities in the city are being locked down, with ID and body temperature checks at the gates, in a bid to reduce the number of people moving in and out, the municipal government said in a directive at the weekend.

Residents in high-risk areas are being ordered to stay home, while residents in the hospital are also in quarantine.

Households may designate a single person to go out and buy daily necessities.

“For every person infected, 10 others will be tested, tested again, and reconfirmed,” a resident surnamed Guo told RFA.

“Of course I am a bit worried, so I am trying to stay away from other people,” he said.

He said the lockdowns had come hard on the heels of widespread flooding that left the ground floors of many buildings under water, with the pumps running for around a week before the water was clear.

“I can’t see this outbreak going away any time soon,” Guo said.

‘We don’t feel very safe’

A resident surnamed Jiang said few people were out and about in the market when she went.

“There are good supplies of vegetables and daily necessities in the supermarket right now,” Jiang said. “But we don’t feel very safe going out, because we are afraid of groups of people gathered together.”

“These asymptomatic infections are particularly troubling,” she said. “We shop for everything in one go, so we don’t need to go out every day.”

“First the floods, and now the pandemic,” she said.

A video clip circulating on social media showed police and other personnel bursting into the home of an elderly man, pressing him to the ground, and forcing open his mouth to take a swab.

Another video showed people who had been in Zhengzhou during the outbreak saying they had been denied entry to Beijing.

“We have received orders not to allow anyone into Beijing from high- or medium-risk areas,” a police officer says on the video.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.