Day: January 4, 2022

Since the military seized power in Myanmar nearly 90 minors have been killed and more than 190 held hostage by security forces in the process of arresting their parents, according to relatives and rights groups.

In total, 88 minors have been killed either at home, on their way to the clinic for medical treatment or while outside playing since the Feb. 1 coup, the Bangkok-based Association Assistance for Political Prisoners (AAPP) said in a statement. Some were shot dead by junta forces while fleeing, the group added, urging the international community to assist in prosecuting the perpetrators.

A total of 255 children, aged nine months to 18 years, have been detained by the military since February, AAPP said. Of those, 62 have been released while 191 children remain in prison. Two have been sentenced to death, according to the group.

On March 30, security forces tried to arrest Min Zaw Oo, a municipal cleaning worker who took part in the country’s nonviolent anti-government civil disobedience movement. When they could not find Min Zaw Oo, they arrested his mother-in-law, his wife and his young daughter as she was being breastfed.

The daughter, Su Myat Zaw Thwe, spent her third birthday last month in Yangon’s notorious Insein Prison, where she has been detained for nearly 10 months along with her mother, according to a source close to the family who declined to be named.

Min Zaw Oo, who remains on the run, told RFA’s Myanmar Service that he was crushed when he learned that the junta is holding his family hostage.

“My mother, my wife and my daughter are innocent. I didn’t know what to do when I heard they were taken away as hostages. I first thought of giving in and getting myself arrested. But even then, they might not release them and the whole family might be still in detention,” he said.

“I never thought they would arrest my family because it is me they want to arrest. She is so young and my only child. I am devastated.”

Min Zaw Oo said he prays daily for his daughter to be released from prison, even if his family is unable to reunite under military rule.

Junta Deputy Information Minister Zaw Min Tun acknowledged to RFA that some children had been detained because “it was unavoidable.”

“I have to admit that we have detained some children, as they are people who need to be kept in detention,” he said.

“We will act properly according to the law,” he added, without providing further details.

Held without guardians

A spokesman from the AAPP, who talked to RFA on condition of anonymity, said that while Su Myat Zaw Thwe’s story is tragic, she is lucky to be with her caretakers.

“Most of the hostage children without their parents are kept in police stations and in the army,” he said. “Only children who have guardians are sent to prison together with their parents.”

A pro-bono lawyer from Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon who is working on behalf of detained children told RFA that many youths are sent to the Youth Rehabilitation Center in Thanlyin, outside of the city.

“Some children are held at the relevant police station during investigation,” he said. “Children aged seven and above are considered school-age and are held at the Thanlyin Center. Breastfeeding babies are left with their mothers.”

Enduring trauma

Even if they are released, family members told RFA that formerly detained children suffer from the trauma of their captivity and live in a state of constant anxiety.

Su Htet Waing, 5, was arrested by the military along with her mother, sister and brother after her father escaped arrest. Her father Soe Htay, a political activist in Mandalay region’s Mogok city, said the girl was released in July but remains distressed from her experience.

“My daughter is still traumatized. She has nightmares. She sometimes screams out, ‘Father, be careful! If anything happens, they will take you! They will arrest me too,’” he said.

“Other times she yells out, ‘Don’t do this to me.’ In the mornings, she says she had dreams of tiny soldiers and policemen. That’s the kind of trauma she endures.”

Naw Susanna Hla Hla Soe, the minister for women, youths, and children affairs for the shadow National Unity Government (NUG), said that the military’s treatment of children is a violation of both Myanmar and international law.

“Arresting, detaining and killing minors is a violation of our country’s child laws as well as the [United Nations’] Convention on the Rights of the Child,” she said. “The military has a responsibility to stop all violations against children. Additionally, NUG, NGOs and international organizations have a responsibility to provide justice to the victims.”

Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

Faced with growing food shortages and a tanking economy, the North Korean government is sponsoring lectures intended to rally the citizenry against South Korea and the United States and to laud leader Kim Jong Un for boosting the country’s military capabilities and keeping the people safe.

But according to sources who attended the lectures, many of the people in the audience did not seem to buy the government’s latest propaganda efforts.

“Though the lecturers made an impassioned speech, most of the audience waited for time to pass or they dozed off. These are people who don’t even have enough corn or rice. Who among them is going to believe that the ‘puppets’ in the South are trembling in fear of our ‘inexhaustible’ military power?” a resident of the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA’s Korean Service Dec. 15.

The North Korean economy lies in shambles due to the combined effects of international nuclear sanctions and an almost two-year long suspension of trade with China due to the coronavirus pandemic. Prices have risen sharply due to supply shortages and there have been reports of starvation deaths.

The source told RFA that the lectures have been held in every party, military and citizen organization as part of annual winter training assignments.

“The lecturer criticized the United States, saying they are ‘in collusion with their South Korean puppets, dealing with the fearsome threat North Korea represents to South Korea by yammering on about ‘peace and cooperation,’” said the source, who requested anonymity for security reasons.

“The lecturer said the U.S. is holding joint military exercises with the South, a blatant slight on our republic, right in front of our face,” the source said.

“The lecture materials distributed earlier this month concentrate on promoting the greatness of General Secretary Kim Jong Un, saying that he, the ‘Highest Dignity,’ has fortified our national self-defense capabilities,” the source added.

Lectures in the northwestern province of North Pyongan similarly emphasized Kim Jong Un’s “immortal achievements” in overcoming severe economic difficulty to strengthen the national defense, a citizen there told RFA.

“The lecture was titled ‘About the Respectful General Secretary Building Up the National Self-Defense of Our Country,’” said the second source, who also requested anonymity to speak freely.

The lecture the second source attended emphasized the 2017 test of North Korea’s first intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, the Hwasong-15, which theoretically could give North Korea the capability to deliver a nuclear payload as far away as the northeastern United States.

“They said that on Nov. 29, 2017, our country and our people seized a powerful strategic weapon that could completely subdue the United States, the global center of imperialism and the main enemy of the Korean Revolution, and the cause of our pursuing nuclear capabilities for the defense of our nation,” the second source said.

But just as in North Hamgyong, the North Pyongan residents saw through the exercise, according to the second source.

“The lecturer ordered all the executives, citizens and soldiers to reflect deeply on the miraculous increases in military capabilities. He passionately praised the ‘immortal patriotic achievements’ of the general secretary who ‘gave birth to the great power of North Korea,’ saying his ‘life and death decisions’ should be engraved in their hearts,” the second source said.

“But the people complained that Kim Jong Un came to power 10 years ago with a promise that they would never have to tighten their belts. That promise is now gone,” the second source said.

Kim had promised his people early in his reign that they would never go hungry again. But last year the government told people that they were on their own for food, and told them to prepare for another “Arduous March,” the Korean name for the 1994-1998 period of famine that claimed the lives of millions of North Koreans.

“The people resent the authorities, saying that if their national defense problems are solved through the development of missiles and nuclear weapons, will the food problem just solve itself?” the second source said.

Translated by Claire Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

Cambodian police on Tuesday arrested three labor union leaders wanted on charges of leading workers’ protests at a casino and hotel in the capital Phnom Penh.

Chhim Sithar, leader of the union at the NagaWorld casino, was taken into custody by police in plain clothes who surrounded her as she got out of a car at the protest site near Cambodia’s National Assembly building.

Two other union leaders, Sok Kongkea and Sok Narith, were detained separately on Tuesday. All three had been in hiding after being charged by authorities with inciting unlawful protests, and were sent to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court after their arrest.

The strike at the NagaWorld casino and hotel, now in its 18^th day, has drawn hundreds of workers since Dec. 18 and the dismissal by managers of more than a thousand employees. The protesters are demanding that 365 of those laid off be rehired.

Cambodian police on Monday arrested 14 striking workers who called for the release of colleagues detained last week by police. Pregnant women were among those arrested. The workers were taken by truck to the headquarters of Phnom Penh municipal police, sources told RFA.

On Dec. 31, authorities detained nine protesters and a motor-tricycle driver, holding six in custody and charging them on Monday in municipal court with incitement to cause serious social unrest, sources said.

The U.S. Embassy in Cambodia in a statement Tuesday said governmental authorities should respect the workers’ right to free speech.

“We are following closely the troubling arrests of NagaWorld union members for their peaceful expression and urge authorities to hear citizens, not silence them. Freedom of speech, assembly and association are guaranteed in the Cambodian Constitution,” the embassy said.

Workers are now gathering to demand the release of Chhim Sithor and the other union leaders and NagaWorld employees detained by the authorities, casino worker Chim Ratha told RFA on Tuesday. “We are Cambodian workers working on our own land, and our rights and labor are being violated and exploited by foreign employers,” she said.

“We have followed legal procedures by trying to negotiate for more than eight months, and so far we have peacefully protested for more than 10 days. But there has been no solution, and instead we have been arrested, threatened and intimidated,” she said.

Reached for comment, Phnom Penh Municipal Court spokesman Ey Rin told RFA he could not discuss the matter as authorities and the court had just begun to work on the case. But Ny Sokha, president of the Cambodian rights monitoring group Adhoc, said that NagaWorld employees’ right to protest is guaranteed by Cambodian laws.

“In a democratic society, the authorities must not take measures restricting the people’s right to peacefully protest,” Ny Sokha said.

“The authorities always say they are acting in the name of public order, but they are responsible both for maintaining public order and for ensuring the exercise of citizens’ legal rights and freedoms at the same time,” he said.

Reported by RFA’s Cambodian Service. Translated by Sok Ry Sum. Written in English by Richard Finney.

U.S. electric car maker Tesla’s decision to open a showroom in China’s Xinjiang region amid an ongoing genocide of the predominently Muslim Uyghur minority group drew an immediate rebuke from rights activists and other experts who have documented abuses in the troubled area.

Austin, Texas-based Tesla, run by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, opened the store in Urumqi (in Chinese, Wulumuqi) on Dec. 31.

“On the last day of 2021, we meet in Xinjiang. In 2022, let us together launch Xinjiang on its electric journey!” Musk said in a statement posted on Weibo, a Chinese Twitter-like social media platform. The post included photos of the opening ceremony.

For years, Chinese authorities have arbitrarily arrested Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in Xinjiang, restricted their religious practices and culture, and monitored their activities with a pervasive, digitized surveillance system. Many Uyghurs have been subjected to forced labor and other human rights abuses.

The U.S. government and the legislatures of several European countries have said that the abuses constitute a genocide and have imposed sanctions in an effort to stop what they regard as a crime against humanity.

Tesla’s decision, coming on the heels of the passage of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) by the U.S. Congress, was “not just unethical but unconscionable,” said Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress in Munich, Germany.

“We deplore the opening of the showroom by Tesla,” he told RFA on Tuesday. “We call on international bodies, human rights groups, and NGOs to condemn this move. Tesla’s move may potentially violate a number of U.S. laws, including the UFLPA.”

Western companies, including some based in the U.S., have come under fire for doing business in the Xinjiang, either for running factories there that use forced labor or sourcing products such as cotton, wigs and tomatoes from the region.

The criticism along with a U.S. ban on the import of goods from Xinjiang unless companies can prove that they were not manufactured with Uyghur forced labor has prompted some companies to stop their business activities in the region.

The Twitter account of U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican who sponsored the Uyghur forced labor law, also criticized Tesla’s move.

“Nationless corporations are helping the Chinese Communist Party cover up genocide and slave labor in the region,” the tweet stated.

RFA contacted Tesla by email for comment but did not receive a response. Tesla dissolved its media relations department in 2020.

“As a general matter, we believe the private sector should oppose the PRC’s human rights abuses and genocide in Xinjiang, said White House press secretary Jen Psaki at a regular press conference on Tuesday, referring to the People’s Republic of China, when asked about the Tesla showroom in Urumqi.

“As we’ve said before, companies that fail to address forced labor in their supply chains or other human rights abuses face serious legal, reputational, and customer risks not just from the United States, but in Europe and around the world,” she said. “We’ve been clear about our views on the ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang.”

German researcher Adrian Zenz, who has documented China’s abuses against the Uyghurs, noted that Tesla would not be violating U.S. law if it limited itself to selling cars in the region.

Even so, Tesla’s decision “seems like a highly questionable choice to be going into that region trying to do business, but it’s poor messaging, really,” Zenz said.

“Tesla is betting big on China, and I’m sure they don’t want to lose business opportunities,” he said. “In order to preserve their interest in China, Western companies are going to be under pressure to ignore the atrocities in Xinjiang and to ignore related moral obligations and legal obligations.”

Though the U.S. is Tesla’s biggest market, the company has made significant inroads into China, opening its first non-U.S. factory in Shanghai in 2019. That plant is exempt from the government’s requirement of having a Chinese joint venture partner. Tesla has set up 28 other dealerships on the mainland and in Hong Kong and Macau.

U.S. automakers Ford and General Motors also operate dealerships in Xinjiang along with joint venture partners.

Translated by Alim Seytoff for RFA’s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Updated at 4:00 p.m. ET on 2022-01-04

The Myanmar junta’s spokesman indicated Tuesday that the Burmese regime would not allow Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen to meet with detained pro-democracy leaders during his visit to the country later this week.

Analysts, however, said Hun Sen would undermine efforts by the ASEAN bloc to press the Burmese junta into putting Myanmar back on a democratic path, if he failed to meet pro-democracy leaders on his Jan. 8-9 trip – the first by a foreign leader since the military coup last February.

“[O]nly those who represent political parties would be able to meet and discuss, but there are limitations for those who are still facing legal charges,” junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun told RFA, with which BenarNews is affiliated.

He was referring to charges, among others, of importing walkie-talkies, inciting dissent and breaking COVID-19 rules against State Counselor and National League for Democracy (NLD) leader Aung San Suu Kyi as well as ousted President Win Myint.

The junta had similarly not allowed the former ASEAN special envoy to Myanmar to meet with democracy leaders last year.

Zaw Min Tun did not elaborate on whether Hun Sen had asked to meet with top NLD leaders, including Win Myint and Aung San Suu Kyi. And when RFA asked him about it, Koy Koung, the spokesman for Cambodia’s foreign ministry, said he did not have information about whether Hun Sen would meet with Aung San Suu Kyi.

‘He must not endorse what is happening in Myanmar’

Hun Sen’s visit comes only two months after ASEAN shut out the Burmese junta from its main summit in 2021 for reneging on a promise to allow access to all parties in the current political impasse.

Many pro-democracy Burmese are outraged that Hun Sen is visiting the junta and, according to them, conferring legitimacy on the country’s military chief, whose forces stand accused of committing widespread atrocities since the coup.

Khit Thit Media, one of the five major independent news media outlets that were banned by the junta last March, posted photographs of Burmese stomping on pictures of Hun Sen.

Other outlets posted photos of protesters with a message on placards for Hun Sen: “Don’t Support the Killing Fields in Myanmar.”

They were alluding to the Cambodian genocide when as many as 1.7 million people died under the rule of the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s, according to researchers at Yale University.

Meanwhile, a joint statement issued on Tuesday by close to 200 civil society groups in Myanmar and abroad condemned Hun Sen for his planned visit.

ASEAN and the United Nations General Assembly have backed the Five-Point Consensus, and “must ensure that Hun Sen does not act alone in 2022 – lending legitimacy to the Myanmar military junta and further emboldening them to cause more harm to the people,” the groups said.

“This would be an insult to the people of Myanmar and Cambodia and further jeopardizing ASEAN’s already-diminishing credibility during the Cambodia tenure as chair of ASEAN in 2022.”

Engagement with Myanmar should involve “making contact with all relevant actors,” including the National Unity Government – the parallel civilian government body – said Muhammad Arif, a lecturer in international relations at the University of Indonesia.

“What ASEAN is aiming with its policy to isolate the junta diplomatically is to inflict some political cost on the junta,” Arif told BenarNews about the bloc headquartered in Jakarta.

“If Hun Sen engages exclusively with the junta, it would only undo this effort.”

In Malaysia, a former foreign minister said it was imperative that Hun Sen makes clear that what is happening in Myanmar is not acceptable to ASEAN. He was referring to the Feb. 1, 2021 military coup and the nearly 1,400 people – mostly pro-democracy protesters – killed by Burmese security forces since then.

“He must not endorse what is happening in Myanmar as its own internal and domestic affairs,” Syed Hamid Albar, also a former envoy to Myanmar from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, told BenarNews.

“It is important that Hun Sen in his engagement with Myanmar reflect both the ASEAN and international sentiments on what is happening in Myanmar. … His visit must not undermine ASEAN’s collective position vis-à-vis the coup,” he said.

Hun Sen: under-the-table negotiations ‘are best’

Hun Sen has said nothing about the post-coup killings in Myanmar so far.

Last week, Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn told Dr. Noeleen Heyzer, the new United Nations special envoy on Myanmar, that Phnom Penh was committed to taking “a practical step-by-step approach toward achieving progress on the implementation of the ASEAN five-point consensus.”

Last April, Burmese junta chief Min Aung Hlaing and leaders of ASEAN member-states reached a five-point consensus that aimed to set Myanmar back on the path to democracy. The consensus called for an end to violence, the appointment of a special ASEAN envoy to Myanmar and access to all sides in the conflict to that envoy.

Myanmar has reneged on all these points.

In late 2021, the 10-member bloc barred Min Aung Hlaing from attending its annual summit in October for not living up to his promises. Since then, Myanmar has been absent from two other top-level meetings.

Hun Sen, at first, said Myanmar was to blame for being excluded from the ASEAN summit. But he changed his rhetoric soon after he received the ceremonial gavel for the revolving chairmanship of ASEAN.

“It is not up to ASEAN to resolve this issue. ASEAN is here to help, but Myanmar needs to solve its own problems by itself,” the Cambodian PM said on Dec. 15.

“It is important for me to meet Myanmar’s [military] leaders, but under-the-table negotiations are the best and most fruitful approach for us to take. Don’t disturb me, just give me time,” he said.

News of two bombs exploding near the Cambodian embassy in Naypyidaw on Dec. 31 also has not fazed Hun Sen, with the foreign ministry spokesman saying the visit would go ahead as planned.

Some critics had expected no less of the strongman who, they said, had used ASEAN to legitimize his authoritarian government. They noted that the pro-China leader had, as ASEAN chairman in 2012, been accused of siding with Beijing and preventing the bloc from reaching an agreement on the disputed South China Sea.

Still, according to Arif of the University of Indonesia, through this upcoming trip to Myanmar, Hun Sen may be trying to erase the memory of Cambodia’s 2012 chairmanship.

“Apparently Hun Sen doesn’t want to repeat the same mistake and wants to make his mark this time. Cambodia’s engagement with Myanmar can be seen in this context. But he should not depart too far from ASEAN’s collective stance,” Arif said.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen gestures as he speaks during an event at the Morodok Techo National Stadium, in Phnom Penh, Sept. 12, 2021. [Reuters]

According to an ASEAN parliamentarian from Malaysia, many of the bloc’s member-states would be unhappy with Hun Sen’s plan to visit Myanmar.

“If [Hun Sen] is going there representing ASEAN, he should inform all the ASEAN countries and get [their] endorsement but until now all the countries have not been informed or even endorse[d] his visit,” Charles Santiago, chairman of ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights, told BenarNews.

Government officials from the Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand – all founding members of ASEAN – declined to comment for this report.

As far as political analyst Dinna Prapto Raharja is concerned, Hun Sen is indeed going to Naypyidaw as an ASEAN representative, because Cambodia is the new holder of the rotating ASEAN chair and Myanmar is a member of the 54-year-old bloc.

“The key is who will Hun Sen meet? I’m almost certain he’ll meet with the military junta,” Dinna, founder of Indonesian think-tank Synergy Policies, told BenarNews.

“If Hun Sen meets with the military junta and not with the representatives of NUG, he’d send the wrong message to the Myanmar junta on ASEAN’s intent and the five-point consensus agreed on.”

The ASEAN parliamentarians group is not confident that Hun Sen will represent ASEAN sentiments.

“Cambodian PM Hun Sen is willing to split ASEAN like he did in 2012. This time over legitimizing accused war criminals [the] Myanmar junta,” APHR said in a tweet on Tuesday.

“Is this the beginning of the end for ASEAN?”

Reported by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service. Radio Free Asia’s Myanmar and Khmer services contributed to this report.

In these satellite image slider, the 99-foot Buddha statue in Drago in the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture is shown at left sheltered by a white canopy on Nov. 19, 1999. At right is the site on Jan. 1, 2022. Credit: Planet Labs with analysis by RFA

Authorities in China’s Sichuan province last month forced Tibetan monks and other local residents to watch the demolition of a large and venerated Buddha statue following official complaints that the statue had been built too high, Tibetan sources said.

RFA verified the destruction of the statue by analysis of commercial satellite imagery. The canopy over the statue appears to have been destroyed between Dec. 29 and Jan. 1.

Destroyed along with the 99-foot tall statue in Drago (in Chinese, Luhuo) county in the Kardze (Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture were 45 traditional prayer wheels set up for use by Tibetan pilgrims and other worshipers, sources said.

Chinese authorities forced monks from Thoesam Gatsel monastery and Tibetans living in Chuwar and other nearby towns to witness the demolition, which began on Dec. 12 and continued for the next nine days, Tibetan sources in exile said, citing contacts in the area.

“Local Tibetans from other villages were also forced to come to watch the demolition,” one Tibetan living in India said, speaking on condition of anonymity to protect family members still living in Drago. “A lot of police had also been deployed to make sure that spectators didn’t take pictures or videos or create disturbances.”

“It was just like the [1966-76] Cultural Revolution, when the Chinese government destroyed everything that was old in Tibet,” he said.

“Along with the Buddha statue, the prayer wheels erected near Drago monastery were also destroyed, and the way they orchestrated this demolition was very disrespectful,” another Tibetan living in India said, also speaking anonymously in order to protect his sources.

Drago county chief Wang Dongsheng, director of the demolition, had earlier overseen a campaign of destruction at Sichuan’s sprawling Larung Gar Buddhist Academy in a move that saw thousands of monks and nuns expelled and homes destroyed, the source said.

“Now we are seeing the same kind of destruction here in Drago and restrictions placed on Tibetans in the region,” he said.

No word has been received on when the destruction was completed, the source said. “But it is a fact that the statue is now almost completely destroyed and that local Tibetans were forced to watch these events, with authorities saying this would teach Tibetans a lesson.”

With construction completed on Oct. 5, 2015, the Buddha statue in Drago had been built with contributions of around 4 million yuan (U.S. $629,445) by local Tibetans and was designed to withstand earthquakes, said a former Drago resident named Palden, now living in India.

“And it had the full approval of the local authorities,” Palden said, adding that Chinese authorities later withdrew their approval and said the statue had been built too high.

“But in reality, their intention is to completely destroy Tibet’s identity by eradicating Tibetan religion and culture,” he said.

Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.