Day: January 10, 2022

Hun Sen’s visit to Myanmar will do little to help the country’s people amid an ongoing political crisis that has led to hundreds of civilian deaths and thousands of arrests, analysts said Monday.

The Cambodian prime minister and chairman of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on Jan. 8 concluded a two-day trip to Myanmar, during which he met with junta chief Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing to discuss international and regional issues. The visit marked the first by a foreign leader to the country since the military seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup and came despite protests over what is seen as his support for the military regime and its repressive policies.

Following the meeting, the two sides released a statement that sought to highlight that the inclusion of a special envoy in talks to deescalate “tension” in Myanmar was an important step in meeting ASEAN’s so-called five-point consensus. Min Aung Hlaing agreed to the conditions during an emergency ASEAN meeting on Myanmar’s political crisis held in April, but the junta has failed to implement any of the steps and ASEAN has declined to invite its delegations to several high-profile meetings, including its annual summit.

On Monday, junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun told RFA’s Myanmar Service that the junta had recently declared a year-long ceasefire with armed ethnic groups in the country’s remote border regions, and therefore “fulfilled the first of the five ASEAN recommendations,” which was to end all violence.

“We also agreed to give participation to both Cambodia and the ASEAN chair in talks with the [ethnic armies],” he said.

Since deposing the democratically elected National League for Democracy (NLD) in February, junta forces have killed nearly 1,460 civilians and arrested more than 8,500 — mostly during nonviolent protests of military rule. The military also launched an offensive against armed ethnic groups and prodemocracy People’s Defense Forces militias in rural Myanmar, who the junta has labeled “terrorists.”

When asked whether Hun Sen had met with any of Myanmar’s prodemocracy leaders, including jailed NLD chief Aung San Suu Kyi — another condition of the five-point consensus — Zaw Min Tun said that the prime minister had “only met with the government during his visit.”

Political analyst Sai Kyi Zin Soe told RFA that Hun Sen only received the military’s side of the during his visit.

“The fact that Cambodia, the current chair of ASEAN, has a story to tell the ASEAN community from the visit, gives the junta a chance to rejoin ASEAN,” he said.

“On the other hand, our people did not get a chance to have their voices heard at a time when they are contesting with the military politically. This visit is not going to benefit the people of Myanmar at all, especially since it only involved the junta and not other parties or organizations that represent the people.”

Ye Tun, a former member of Myanmar’s Parliament, said Hun Sen’s stated goal was to get the junta to implement the ASEAN agreement but that the visit only benefitted Min Aung Hlaing, who has been ostracized by much of the international community.

“The conflict in Myanmar cannot be solved in a one-sided fashion — he must keep trying,” he said of Hun Sen. “Right now, [the junta] has profited politically. However, if there is no further progress, the ASEAN chair may be disappointed with [it].”

Implications for ASEAN

Kyaw Zaw Han, a political analyst, said Cambodia is likely to invite Myanmar to future ASEAN meetings following the visit.

“[Cambodia] was proud to get word from the military that there will be a ceasefire for the whole of 2022,” he said.

But he pointed out that the deal was inconsistent with the ASEAN five-point consensus as it appeared to only address conflict between the military and armed ethnic groups.

“What the military might get [in return] is that Cambodia can give [the junta] a voice in ASEAN. It is possible that [the junta] will be able to attend [future meetings], especially the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting scheduled for next month.”

Kyaw Htwe, a member of the NLD’s Central Working Committee, told RFA that although ASEAN’s rare tough stance on Myanmar provided a shot in the arm for prodemocracy groups in the country, Hun Sen’s visit was a disappointment.

“It is true that ASEAN’s stance on Myanmar over the past year has strengthened Myanmar’s democracy, but it is hard to guess at this time what might come as we don’t know what Cambodia’s next move as ASEAN chair will be.”

Hun Sen lauds successful trip

On Monday, Hun Sen declared his diplomatic efforts a success, saying he had obtained three major outcomes from the talks: a ceasefire, humanitarian aid to all parties, and the agreement to allow ASEAN Special Envoy to Myanmar Prasat Khun to join ceasefire talks between the military and armed ethnic groups.

He said he had held a discussion with Min Aung Hlaing on the five-point consensus and the ASEAN Charter, governing the bloc’s jurisdiction over its 10 member nations.

“That is the Bible for me — I didn’t go beyond [what was agreed upon by] ASEAN,” he said, during an inauguration ceremony in Cambodia’s Battambang province.

Hun Sen vowed to continue to try to resolve Myanmar’s crisis.

“I have advised Deputy Prime Minister Prak Sokhonn to make efforts to coordinate with ASEAN to create two mechanisms, namely on the ceasefire and on the humanitarian issue,” he said.

He acknowledged that the crisis in Myanmar would not end during Cambodia’s term as the chair of ASEAN and that the responsibility to resolve it will likely fall to Indonesia when it takes over the post in 2023.

Cambodian observers weigh in

However, opposition activists in Cambodia dismissed Hun Sen’s visit as being part of a bid to legitimize the junta.

Hay Vanna, the head of the youth movement for Cambodia’s dissolved Cambodia National Rescue Party in Japan, told RFA’s Khmer Service that Hun Sen’s visit brought “shame” to his country by ignoring bids by ASEAN and the international community to hold Myanmar’s junta to account.

He said the ceasefire was simply a ruse for Hun Sen to “protect the junta” because the prime minister had no intention of meeting the government’s opponents.

“We have already seen that the junta regime led by Min Aung Hlaing has never complied with what ASEAN wants, which is the five-point consensus,” he said.

Men Nath, a Sweden-based representative of the Cambodia Watchdog Council, told RFA that Hun Sen is incapable of resolving the political crisis in his own country, let alone the multifaceted one in Myanmar.

Hun Sen’s real intention is to lobby the international community to recognize and give legitimacy to Myanmar’s junta, but the plan would fail, Men Nath said.

“The result … is the complete opposite from the ASEAN mechanism for resolving the Myanmar issue,” he said. “What he has done by referring to the ASEAN mechanism is merely causing ASEAN to fracture.”

Asked whether Cambodia will invite Myanmar junta leaders or minister of foreign affairs to join the upcoming ASEAN foreign ministers meeting in Cambodia on Jan. 17, Koy Koung, spokesman for Cambodia’s Foreign Ministry, told RFA to wait for an official ministry statement, which he said would be available “in days.”

At the conclusion of Hun Sen’s visit, the ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights issued a statement calling his meeting with Min Aung Hlaing “a brazen and dangerous attempt to seize the initiative away from ASEAN’s collective approach to the crisis in Myanmar.”

“These two coup makers are conducting another coup within ASEAN that threatens to split the organization itself,” the statement read, calling on the other eight members of the bloc to jointly demand that Cambodia adheres to the five-point consensus and works within the collective framework of ASEAN to resolve the crisis in Myanmar.

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

China has chosen an official who led antiterrorism special forces in its far-western Xinjiang region as the new commander of the People’s Liberation Army’s garrison in Hong Kong, sparking concerns that Beijing will crackdown even harder on the region.

Major General Peng Jingtang, chief of the Armed Police Force in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, was appointed to the position at the direction of Chinese President Xi Jinping, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported on Sunday.

General Wang Xiubin, commander of the Southern Theater Command, announced the appointment a few days ago, the report said.

Peng Jingtang said that he would uphold the “one country, two systems” policy, defend national sovereignty, and safeguard Hong Kong’s long-term prosperity and stability, according to the report.

Chinese authorities have used heavy-handed tactics in Hong Kong to quell pro-democracy demonstrators. They imposed, for example, a national security law purportedly to reestablish order following political upheaval.

Activists have said they believe the law is too restrictive and meant to suppress the freedoms and individual rights that Hong Kong residents enjoy under the “one country, two systems” policy.

Outside analysts said Peng’s assignment to the Hong Kong Garrison, where he will oversee thousands of soldiers, does not bode well for the semiautonomous territory.

Anders Corr, principal at Corr Analytics, a political risk advisory firm, called Peng a “bloodthirsty Chinese military commander” whose appointment is a “very bad wind that is blowing in Hong Kong at his point.”

“For years Peng led the Chinese Communist Party’s crackdown in Xinjiang, and there’s an ongoing genocide there, so it’s a very bad thing for Hong Kong,” he told RFA Monday.

When Peng led the People’s Armed Police in Xinjiang, he bragged to Chinese state media in 2019 about a squad he trained that had fired as many shots as all other security forces in Xinjiang had during the previous three-year period, Corr said.

For years, Chinese authorities have brutally suppressed predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in Xinjiang, including detaining an estimated 1.8 million of them in an extensive network of internment camps where they are subject to violence and other human rights abuses.

Western countries, the United Nations and rights groups have condemned China’s actions against the Uyghurs, with some declaring that the abuse amounts to genocide and crimes against humanity.

China has denied the allegation of abuse and said that the detention centers are training facilities meant to prevent terrorism and extremism in Xinjiang.

Maya Wang, senior China researcher in the Asia division of Human Rights Watch, said that the appointment of Peng and other top police officials to Hong Kong is “a significant and ominous development.”

“It’s one example in which there is worry that Hong Kong would be managed more like Xinjiang or Tibet were in the future,” she told RFA.

Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Striking workers at a casino and hotel in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh say they will not enter talks to end their protest until union leaders are released from jail, sources said on Monday.

The strike at the NagaWorld casino and hotel, now in its 23^rd 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.

In a petition submitted to Cambodia’s Labor Ministry on Monday, workers said that they would not participate in talks to resolve the dispute until eight union leaders were freed from jail.

Among those now held is Chhim Sithar, leader of the union at the NagaWorld casino, who was taken into custody by police in plain clothes on Jan. 4. She was surrounded by police as she got out of a car at the protest site near Cambodia’s National Assembly building.

Striking worker Men Sothy Wathanak, 30, told RFA that before their arrest that union representatives had repeatedly asked Cambodia’s Labor Ministry to provide them with the formula used to calculate workers’ compensation, but that ministry officials had failed to do so.

However, after union leaders were arrested, the ministry reversed its position, admitted that compensation had not been fairly calculated in the past and invited workers to join them in talks to end the dispute, she said.

“But we have now lost the union leaders who could speak for us in those talks,” she said. “We call on the authorities to first release our eight representatives so that we can return to negotiations.”

While workers held a press conference on Monday to announce their petition, Ou Ratana — a ministry official in charge of resolving labor disputes — came out of the ministry building to invite workers inside for talks.

“We need to sit face to face to resolve this dispute, not by staging strikes like this,” he said.

Workers remained firm in demanding their representatives’ release, however.

Khun Thao, a labor rights program manager for the workers’ advocacy group Central, blamed the ministry for its failure to resolve the NagaWorld strike now entering its fourth week.

“I see that the Labor Ministry still wants to trick these workers, dividing them by considering their cases individually rather than as a collective dispute,” he said.

“The ministry has yet to respond to the union’s demand for the reinstatement of its leaders, and is just focusing on the issue of the proper calculation of compensation. I think that this will only cause a deadlock, and the dispute won’t be resolved,” he said.

Reported by RFA’s Khmer Service. Translated by Sovannarith Keo. Written in English by Richard Finney.

ASEAN’s commitment to retain its integrity in the face of Cambodia’s dalliance with the Burmese junta will be tested at an upcoming in-person meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers, analysts said Monday.

If member-states want to keep the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) from self-destructing, they must reject any attempts by 2022 ASEAN chair and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen to allow the Burmese regime’s foreign minister to attend that meeting, at least one observer said.

“If Cambodia insists on inviting the junta to ASEAN meetings, we should say ‘no.’ If need be, we should just boycott the meetings. … In my view, [Foreign Minister] Retno should not attend,” Rizal Sukma, a former Indonesian ambassador to Britain, told BenarNews, referring to Retno Marsudi.

“If Cambodia wants to destroy ASEAN, and other ASEAN countries are okay with it, so be it,” added Sukma, a senior researcher at the Jakarta-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

The comments by Sukma and other analysts followed Hun Sen’s visit to Naypyidaw on Friday and Saturday, during which he met with the military coup leader Sr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing.

Hun Sen is set to host his first major ASEAN meeting as chairman of the regional bloc on Jan. 18-19 at a foreign ministers’ “retreat” in Siem Reap.

As of Monday, BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service, confirmed through the Malaysian foreign minister’s press secretary that the country’s top diplomat would be attending next week’s meeting virtually.

In Jakarta, a spokesman for Indonesia’s foreign ministry said ASEAN member-countries would be briefed at the meeting about the outcomes of Hun Sen’s visit to Myanmar, but he declined to say if Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi would participate.

Officials from both countries declined to comment on Hun Sen’s trip to Naypyidaw or the possibility that the Burmese junta’s foreign minister would be attending next week’s meeting in Siem Reap. Elsewhere, officials at the foreign ministries of ASEAN member-states Thailand and the Philippines did not immediately respond to BenarNews requests for comment.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Cambodia’s foreign ministry told Radio Free Asia (RFA) that it would soon be known if Min Aung Hlaing was invited to Siem Reap as well.

“We will issue a press statement soon in the coming days,” Koy Koung said.

Myanmar’s military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, was optimistic when asked about the outcome of Hun Sen’s visit.

The visit “will help our representation [in ASEAN],” he told RFA, claiming that the junta had fulfilled one point of ASEAN’s five-point roadmap to democracy agreed to last April – ending violence.

He was referring to a joint statement issued at the end of Hun Sen’s two-day trip to Myanmar that said the junta had extended a ceasefire with all Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs) until the end of 2022. 

The statement made no mention of pro-democracy activists.

On Monday, the Cambodian PM defended his visit, claiming to have achieved three major outcomes of the five-point consensus: a ceasefire, humanitarian aid to all parties, and sending an ASEAN special envoy to have a dialogue with all stakeholders.

A worker adjusts an ASEAN flag at a meeting hall in Kuala Lumpur, Oct. 28, 2021. [Reuters]

‘Save the integrity of ASEAN’

Analysts and human right activists, however, are upset about Hun Sen’s visit because he did not meet with pro-democracy leaders and instead heard about the crisis only from the side of the junta, which toppled the elected government in a coup last February.

Some dismissed the joint statement issued by Cambodia and Myanmar as a pack of lies. They said that any gains ASEAN had made by shutting out Min Aung Hlaing from the bloc’s main summit last year for non-implementation of the five-point roadmap were undermined by Hun Sen’s visit.

The joint statement “is a misguided and dangerous attempt to deceptively portray a breakthrough, when in fact his unilateral actions have dramatically weakened ASEAN’s collective leverage to solve the Myanmar crisis,” Charles Santiago, chair of the group ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR), said in a statement Sunday.

“Hun Sen’s rogue diplomacy is a threat to ASEAN,” APHR said.

Men Nath, Sweden-based representative of Cambodia Watchdog Council, told RFA that the result of Hun Sen’s trip to Myanmar was “zero.”

“It is a complete opposite from the ASEAN mechanism for resolving the Burmese issue,” he said Monday.

“What [Hun Sen] has done by referring to the ASEAN mechanism has merely caused a divide in ASEAN.”

The Cambodian PM prioritizes ASEAN unity over democracy or human rights, said Hunter S. Marston, a doctorate student at ANU College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University.

“Unfortunately, ASEAN has no consensus on how to approach Myanmar, so we’re about to see whether more democratic-leaning states within the bloc will stand up to Hun Sen [and] hold the Myanmar junta accountable,” he told BenarNews.

Heads of other ASEAN member-states need to get “immediately involved … to save the integrity of ASEAN as a regional forum,” Malaysian analyst MD Mahbubul Haque, a lecturer in International Studies at the University Sultan Zainal Abidin, told BenarNews.

“The Indonesian, Malaysian, or Singaporean PM or president should closely work on the Myanmar crisis. You can’t rely on Thailand or Philippines,” Haque said.

“Do not let [Hun Sen do it] alone.”

Reported by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.

A Uyghur post office retiree interned in a detention camp in China’s far-western Xinjiang region in 2018 on suspicion of religious extremism died in December 2021 following his release, Uyghurs and local officials with knowledge of the situation said.

Ghiyasidin Abla, 69, was from Suntagh village in Atush (in Chinese, Atushi), capital of the Kizilsu Kyrghiz Autonomous Prefecture, and was abducted by authorities while he attended a circumcision ceremony in his neighborhood, said a Uyghur from Atush who now lives in exile abroad.

Ghiyasidin had no health issues when he was arrested, but when he was released in September 2021, he was unable to walk. He died a month later of unknown causes, said the source who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal by Chinese authorities.

RFA listeners have provided many tips on Uyghurs who were arbitrarily detained in 2017 and 2018. In the past two years, reports of serious illness or death among the detainees have increased. As many as 1.8 million Muslim Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities have reportedly been sent to a network of camps China built in Xinjiang.

The reports indicate that Chinese authorities have targeted ordinary Uyghurs suspected of “crimes” related to terrorism or religious extremism as well as prominent Uyghur businesspeople, cultural figures, academics and religious leaders.

At the time of Ghiyasidin’s arrest, Chinese authorities had limited the number of Uyghurs who could attend weddings, funerals and other religious ceremonies, such as circumcisions, at any one time. Ghiyasidin was detained along with other attendees of the ceremony because they had exceeded the allowed limit, the source said.

Ghiyasidin’s children had expected their father to be released after a few days but they received no information about him for three months, the source said. They eventually discovered he was sent to a detention camp.

After Ghiyasidin was released and returned to his family, authorities told his relatives that they could not discuss his health condition and that no more than 15 people would be allowed to attend his funeral if he died, the source said.

The local police department said it had no information to release about Ghiyasidin. One policeman said public servants arrested by authorities were taken to “training” in Atush and that Ghiyasidin was the most recent detainee to die after being released.

The women’s affairs director and the security director of Suntagh village both each confirmed the circumstances of Ghiyasidin’s arrest and his later death.

“He died at home,” said the security director. “He was 69. He used to work at the post office. He was a retiree from the post office.”

Besides attending the circumcision ceremony, “they arrested him for also growing a beard,” he said.

Authorities in Xinjiang have apprehended and detained Uyghurs for praying and growing beards, which are both seen as signs of extremism. Earlier reports by RFA indicated that men over 65 years old who lived in Atush were allowed to grow beards and enter a mosque, though those who were civil servants were not, regardless of their age.

Translated by the Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Authorities in western China’s Sichuan province destroyed a second statue sacred to Tibetans, demolishing a three-story statue of Maitreya Buddha in a campaign described by analysts as an assault of Tibetan religion and traditions.

The statue of Maitreya, believed by Tibetan Buddhists to be a Buddha appearing in a future age, stood until recently in a temple building at Gaden Namyal Ling monastery in Drago (in Chinese, Luhuo) county in the Kardze (Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Tibetan sources said.

The statue and the structure housing it were both torn down around the same time that authorities destroyed a Buddha statue in the same county at the end of last year because they said it was too tall, a Tibetan living in exile told RFA, citing contacts in Drago.

“Chinese authorities have again given unbelievable reasons for the destruction, saying there was no fire escape in the temple housing the three-story high statue of Maitreya Buddha, but these aren’t valid excuses,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity to protect his sources in Drago.

“The Chinese government is just continuing to Sinicize Tibet’s religion by not allowing Tibetans the freedom to practice their own religion and faith,” the source said.

Drago county chief Wang Dongsheng had been present at the statue’s destruction and witnessed the brutal police beating of local Tibetans objecting to the demolition, he added, citing local sources.

Wang had also directed the destruction in December of a 99-foot Buddha statue in Drago and had earlier overseen a campaign of destruction of Sichuan’s sprawling Larung Gar Buddhist Academy in a move that saw thousands of monks and nuns expelled and homes destroyed, sources told RFA in an earlier report.

“The brutal attacks on Tibetans still continue in Drago, and sources in Tibet say they have seen Wang Dongsheng taking part in these activities,” a second source in exile told RFA, also asking for anonymity to protect his sources in the region.

Tenzin Lekshey, a spokesperson for Tibet’s Dharamsala, India-based exile government, the Central Tibetan Administration, told RFA that China’s continuing encroachment on Tibetans’ religious freedom will further complicate the troubling issue of China’s rule in Tibetan areas.

“This forceful behavior by the Chinese government in Drago clearly shows the government’s mistreatment of Tibetans and their religion, and the Central Tibetan Administration is very concerned about what is happening in Drago,” he said.

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