Day: March 3, 2022

Police in the northern Chinese province of Shaanxi are investigating the case of a woman locked in an iron cage in Jia county, amid ongoing public anger over the trafficking of women and girls in the wake of the chaining of a woman in Jiangsu.

A man surnamed Li has been detained after footage of the woman in the cage was livestreamed by Li to social media.

In the video, Li names his “wife” as Xiaoyu, and says he locks her up in the cage when he goes out, to prevent her from running away.

According to Li, he “picked up” Xiaoyu, whom he describes as being “of unknown origin,” and brought her to live with him in 2009, since when Xiaoyu has tried to escape “many times,” according to the Jimu News website.

“Yulin city takes this very seriously, and immediately set up a joint investigation team led by the Yulin municipal police department,” the Yulin municipal police department said in a statement on Weibo.

“The investigation is currently under way.”

Police have since detained a man surnamed Li, according to media reports.

Last month, an official investigation into a the situation of a woman found chained up in the eastern province of Jiangsu prompted online calls for a wider inquiry into rampant human trafficking and official collusion with criminal gangs who buy and sell women for “marriage.”

‘Vicious circle’

Comments on the Shaanxi story on Weibo appeared equally unimpressed.

“The logic of this vicious circle is patriarchal preference [for sons] leads to fewer women in this area, which means low-status men can’t find spouses, which means people are bought and sold, which leads to entrenched preferences for sons over daughters,” @M_Emilia commented on Thursday.

@Miss_Ding_Jia_Er_babyyang said there are already doubts around whether the ID offered to the authorities was fake or now.

“We don’t know if this [marriage] was entered into voluntarily,” the user wrote. “We need to find out the facts.”

@little turtle wrote: “The biggest problem is that buyers [of women] are punished too lightly,” while @Ni_Lianquan called for the death penalty for trafficking in women and children.

“So horrible, hateful,” @Quanzhou_little_speaker wrote of Li. “[Should be] severely punished,” while @If_one_day_999 wanted to know “How come so many old men are able to ‘pick up’ women?”  

Tip of the iceberg

Shaanxi-based current affairs commentator Huang Ping said the caged woman’s case had shown that the Feng county chained woman’s case was just the tip of the iceberg, and involved the collusion of local officials.

“It couldn’t happen without them,” Huang told RFA. “Ordinary people are aware of a lot of issues, and fewer and fewer of them trust the government.”

“But most daren’t speak out due to fear,” he said. “They also daren’t tell the truth.”

China’s ministry of public security announced a “strike-hard” anti-trafficking campaign for the rest of this year following a teleconference on the issue on March 2.

But Huang said little would likely change.

“The only thing they pay attention to and really care about is any person or thing that could threaten the regime,” he said. “[The rest] is just a bid to appease public grievances.”

“If they had really wanted to do something about this, they would have done it a long time ago, not waited for it to be livestreamed on the internet,” Huang said.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Myanmar’s military regime has turned to digital messaging accounts operated by nationalist supporters to target and track down opponents, more than a year after it seized control of the elected government of former leader Aung San Suu Kyi, watchdog groups and political activists said.

Well-known social media users of the messaging app Telegram have provided information to authorities about the profiles and activities of pro-democracy anti-junta activists, journalists and rights activists.

When junta supporters and the Myanmar military were removed from Facebook, the most widely used social media platform in Myanmar, after the Feb. 1, 2021, coup, they switched to the less regulated Telegram social network, which is based in Russia.

Military authorities now use Telegram both to disseminate junta propaganda and for intelligence from supporters who list the profiles, activities and locations of pro-democracy celebrities, anti-junta activists, journalists and rights activists, activist groups said. Authorities have come to rely on the online information to help them plan crackdowns on anti-junta activists nationwide, they said.

The regime apparently heavily relies on popular pro-military social media personalities Han Nyein Oo, Kyaw Swar and Thazin Oo to target anti-junta civilians for arrests.

Han Nyein Oo’s channel openly requests that the military target the civilian protesters, Pyidaungsu Hluttaw Committee of Representatives (CRPH) supporters and shadow government National Unity Government (NUG) members that it names.

Activist groups said that over the past two months, the arrests of regime opponents was preceded by posts on the channels just a few days before.

The connection has led some regime critics to believe that the social media accounts are actually run by military officers, Aye Myint Aung, a protest leader from Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city, said.

“If they want to find out some information, it will not take long as they have a long reach in many places,” she said. “I think the account owners of these channels are from military intelligence.”

London-based Burma Campaign UK added Telegram to its blacklist of businesses over the links to the Myanmar military, saying that the company allows military propagandists to use its platform and allows the spread of hate speech.

Telegram and the owners of the popular pro-military accounts did not respond to requests for comment.

Many followers on Telegram

Junta forces have used information on the pro-military accounts since late 2021 to promote distorted doctrines, and attacks on democracy, human rights activists, and opposition politicians in the interest of the junta, observers and political activists said.

“Following the coup, Facebook paid more attention to monitoring content, and these people switched to Telegram where they gained many followers,” said a spokesman for a Yangon-based civil society watchdog, who requested anonymity because of safety concerns.

“There are popular channels like those of Kyaw Zwar, Thazin Oo and Han Nyein Oo,” he added. “We are now closely watching the Han Nyein Oo Channel.”

RFA monitored the channels of these users and found that they re-posted pro-junta news and propaganda, although it was not clear if the Telegram channels are controlled by a single person or a particular group.

Thazin Oo, a reporter who regularly attends junta press conferences, has more than 36,000 subscribers to his account, while Kyaw Swar has more than 50,000 followers, and Han Nyein Oo has over 100,000.

Han Nyein Oo posted the home addresses, businesses and property owned by anti-military dissidents and CRPH and NUG supporters who usually post messages on Facebook.

There also are reports of political activists who had been arrested and their property confiscated by the military in the past two months after their whereabouts were disclosed on Telegram.

On Feb. 1, Han Nyein Oo’s account posted the personal information of people who wrote posts supporting the anti-military Silent Strike on Facebook and called for their arrest. More than 200 people were detained by the military council after the post.

“Han Nyein Oo posted a statement on her account stating that she was in support of the Silent Strike, and my husband was immediately arrested,” said a Mandalay-based housewife who did not want to be named for safety reasons.

She said that her husband’s business had to close and that he had been charged with causing fear, spreading false news and agitating crimes against a government employee. He faces up to three years in prison.

‘It is meant to intimidate the people’

Another Yangon resident who ran an online small business and spoke on condition of anonymity told RFA that after Han Nyein Oo published a screenshot of her profile and business location, she was afraid to stay at home and fled to the border. On the day she left, junta forces searched her home and sealed off the house because she was a NUG and PDF supporter.

After Kyaw Swar’s Telegram channel accused the owner of Yangon Lanmamyer, a book publishing house, of leaking information on Facebook about Air Force servicemen who led a nationwide air raid campaign against PDFs, the regime confiscated the business. The owner escaped arrest, however.

Award-winning film director Htun Zaw Win, whose professional name is Wyne, was arrested in February hours after the same Telegram channel posted information about him, according to local media reports. The junta had placed him on a wanted list nearly a year before after he encouraged government employees to join the protests against the Myanmar military.

There were also reports that model and actress Thin Thin was arrested after a similar posting on a Telegraph channel.

Many people whose personal information have been posted on the Telegram accounts also have had homes and property confiscated.

Pencilo, a pro-democracy political activist and well-known influencer on social media now living in the United States, said her home in Yangon was taken in February.

“When the military wants to confiscate a house, they will let the Han Nyein Oo channel post something about it, even though they already have the required information from their intelligence services,” he told RFA. “Only after that, will they shut down the house or make arrests. It is meant to intimidate the people, kind of psychological-war style. They want to hinder or stop people’s agitations through Telegram.”

Han Nyein Oo states on her Telegram account that he is a citizen who tries to find out information that pertains to the national interest.

Junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun told RFA that the Telegram channels were not affiliated with the military and that the junta did not monitor them.

“There are individuals who monitor pages on social media,” he said. “They may be people who are doing research on their own. The military does not have to form such a group. Some of the information just comes up through their sharing of posts.”

Zaw Min Tun did not deny that the military had arrested those who wrote anti-military messages online, however.

Translated by Khin Maung Nyane for RFA’s Myanmar Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

A new ASEAN statement about the situation in Ukraine calls for a ceasefire without naming Russia or using the word “invasion” – in puzzling contrast to most of the bloc’s members supporting a strongly worded U.N. resolution that condemned Moscow the day before.

The foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), in the collective statement they issued on Thursday, said they were deeply troubled by the intensifying gravity of the situation resulting from the “military hostilities” in Ukraine.

“We therefore, call for an immediate ceasefire or armistice and continuation of political dialogues that would lead to sustainable peace in Ukraine,” the statement said.

“We underline the importance of a ceasefire to create an enabling environment for negotiations to address the current crisis and avoid expanding suffering of innocent people.”

By contrast, the U.N. General Assembly resolution “deplored” the aggression by Russia against Ukraine.

The General Assembly “demands that the Russian Federation immediately cease its use of force against Ukraine and to refrain from any further unlawful threat or use of force against any member state,” the resolution said.

It “also demands that the Russian Federation immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces from the territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders,” the resolution added.

General Assembly resolutions, though non-binding, have political heft and reflect international opinion. So the fact that 141 of the assembly’s 193 member-nations supported the resolution means showed there is overwhelming support for Ukraine worldwide.

‘Statement on Ukraine invasion was weak’

In Southeast Asia, too, there was similar overwhelming support for the former Soviet republic as eight of 10 ASEAN countries voted in favor of the forcefully worded U.N. resolution, even though the regional bloc itself issued what one political analyst called a “weak” statement.

Among the ASEAN member-states, Vietnam and Laos abstained from voting in favor of the resolution. In ASEAN, Vietnam has the strongest historical ties with Russia. Laos also has had a close relationship with what was the Soviet Union and has been expanding military ties with Russia.

But Southeast Asian nations such as Malaysia, Thailand and Cambodia, which individually did not condemn Russia, voted in favor of the strong U.N. resolution. The Myanmar ambassador to the U.N. was among those voting for the resolution, but he opposes Myanmar’s junta, which has voiced support for the Russian invasion.

In Thailand, apparently, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha told the cabinet on Tuesday that the kingdom would be neutral in the Russia-Ukraine affair, because the longstanding relations between Thailand and Moscow must be factored in, a source told The Bangkok Post.

Therefore, not surprisingly, Thailand’s statement at the U.N. did not mention Russia or “invasion,” and yet Thailand did vote for the resolution condemning Russia.

But the statement by Suriya Chindawongse, permanent representative of Thailand to the U.N., said Thailand was gravely concerned with the worsening violence as a result of “the use of military force in Ukraine.”

Also, the kingdom has “particular respect for the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of states, and refraining from the use of force or threat of use of force against another state,” he said.

Similarly, Malaysia, which had until two days ago not condemned Russia or even mentioned it by name in its statements at home, voted in favor of the U.N. resolution in New York, saying the principles of sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of states were “sacrosanct” to the country.

And yet, it also said that it had “strong and close relations” with both Russia and Ukraine.

Cambodia, ASEAN’s chair this year, also had said at home that it was staying neutral, but voted for the U.N. resolution noting that its “firm position” was that U.N. member-states “must respect the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of other member states.”

“ASEAN statement on Ukraine invasion was weak, as were most national responses apart from Singapore,” Ben Bland, director of the Southeast Asia program at the Lowy Institute, a Sydney think-tank,  said on Twitter.

On Monday, Singapore broke from ASEAN’s line by saying it would impose sanctions on Russia and suspend exports of items that could be used as weapons in Ukraine, as well as block some banking and financial transactions linked to Russia.

Analysts called the city-state’s move unprecedented.

As for ASEAN’s statements, Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said on Twitter that their “real value …is …[they] allow … its members to duck and hide, and avoid taking a stand on sensitive issues.”

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.

North Koreans working in Russia are suffering collateral damage from their host country’s invasion of Ukraine, as the ruble’s collapse has made their earnings close to worthless while they still have to send U.S. dollars back to Pyongyang.

An estimated 20,000 North Koreans have been dispatched to Russia to earn foreign cash for the regime. Pyongyang sets a quota for each worker in U.S. dollars and keeps the lion’s share of the wages the workers earn while abroad.

Until the Russian military invaded Ukraine last week, the ruble had been relatively stable, but the currency’s crash has left some workers bordering on destitution, sources said.

The ruble lost nearly a third of its value against the dollar, falling below one cent this week as a result newly imposed sanctions over the Ukraine invasion.

“After the Western world imposed strong economic sanctions on Russia the ruble and the workers’ salaries have been essentially halved,” a Russian citizen of Korean descent from St. Petersburg, in the country’s northwest, told RFA’s Korean Service March 1.

“Right after the outbreak of the war, the ruble began crashing. The North Koreans here cannot afford their own accommodations, let alone saving any income,” said the source, who requested anonymity for security reasons.

“They barely made a living at all [before the war] because they were paying the North Korean government its cut each month. North Korean human resources companies are in a panic because of the ruble’s plunge. They have even begun skimping on meals to save money so they can meet their annual assignment,” he said.

Before sending the money to North Korea, the job firms must convert the rubles their workers earn into dollars. And after the government takes its cut, the companies must again divide the wages.

“They pay a commission to the local broker who arranged the job. Then they cover their living expenses of the workers. The remaining money after these fees are paid are given to the individual workers for their monthly salary,” the source said.

“As the war with Ukraine began, the ruble sunk lower and lower with each passing day. After converting into dollars to pay their home country and paying brokerage fees, the remaining money is not even enough to purchase food for the workers,” he said.

The source said he knew of about 3,000 workers in their 20s and 30s dispatched by Pyongyang to work on construction sites in and around St. Petersburg and Moscow.

“There is absolutely no possibility that the North Korean authorities will lower the amount of money that the workers are assigned to pay. They will not consider the Russian-Ukraine war or the trends of the local exchange rate,” he said.

“The state-assigned money for North Korean human resource companies varies slightly from one company to another. The average quota one worker pays is about $7,000 to $8,000 per year.”

In the Russian Far East city of Vladivostok, about 20,000 North Korean workers are suffering financially due to the war more than 4,500 miles away, another Russian of Korean descent there told RFA.

“North Korean workers here start their work at 7 in the morning and work nonstop until late at night, except for lunch and dinner breaks. Once the ruble crashed because of the war, it became impossible to pay the North Korean government quota and still have enough for living expenses,” he said.

“Prior to the start of the war between Russia and Ukraine, the exchange rate was stable at around 70 rubles per dollar. These days, it is over 110 rubles per dollar. If this trend continues, the real value of North Korean workers’ wages in Russia will be a fraction of what it was before the war.”

North Korean labor exports were supposed to have stopped when United Nations nuclear sanctions froze the issuance of work visas and mandated the repatriation of North Korean nationals working abroad by the end of 2019.

But Pyongyang sometimes dispatches workers to China and Russia on short-term student or visitor visas to get around sanctions.

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

The people of Myanmar may be in solidarity with their Ukrainian brethren, but they have every reason to be infuriated by the contrasting response from the international community to the crisis they face at home.

Western nations and key Asian allies responded within days to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with tough sanctions and weapon supplies. The international reaction to the bloody military takeover in Myanmar one year ago has been half-hearted by comparison.

The citizens of Myanmar have been bravely resisting the military through civil disobedience and armed insurrection since a Feb. 1, 2021, coup. The exiled civilian administration, the National Unity Government, has also been quick to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, while the junta, which counts Russia as one of its few international partners, has slovenly supported the invasion as an “appropriate measure to preserve its (Russia’s) sovereignty.”

And yet, the NUG, which enjoys a broad popular mandate to establish a federal democracy in Myanmar, is largely fighting on its own. It may still hold Myanmar’s seat in the United Nations, from which it voted to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but no governments formally recognize it, although some like the United States are increasing their engagement with it.

The United States and the European Union have imposed sanctions on top junta leaders and family members, the military’s conglomerates, and crony corporations. Recent European Union sanctions have focused on the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise, which is the key revenue earner for the junta.

But key international partners including Japan, South Korea, Australia and Singapore have imposed no sanctions. While the U.S. government quickly froze some $1 billion in Myanmar’s foreign reserves that was parked in the Federal Reserve, allies like Japan and Singapore refused to follow suit.

Some governments, like the United States, have directed humanitarian aid away from the junta and towards the NUG, or affiliated civil society organizations. But the NUG has not gotten access to any of the frozen Myanmar assets abroad, nor have they been allowed to borrow against it. And unlike Ukraine, the NUG has not received lethal assistance.

All of this is in incredibly sharp contrast to how democratic nations are imposing a swath of crippling economic, banking, and travel sanctions on Russia. International actions have put more than 40 percent of Russia’s $630 billion  beyond reach, propelling its economy into freefall.

Why the Difference?

So what’s the difference? Why have countries like Singapore and Australia that have refused to impose costs on Myanmar moved so quickly to sanction Russia? Why are states like Finland and Sweden jettisoning neutrality to arm Ukraine? Why are offshore banking centers like Switzerland and Monaco moving to freeze the assets of Russian oligarchs?

The first reason is that Russia has invaded a sovereign state. By doing so, Russia has upended core principles of international law and the foundations of international peace and security.

Myanmar had a violent overthrow of a democratic government. The junta has clearly committed egregious war crimes, but its actions have been within Myanmar’s sovereign territory. Its neighbors in Southeast Asia and other states can hide behind their avowed principles of non-interference in the internal affairs of states.

Second, there are very real concerns that the Ukraine conflict will escalate. Russia has threatened a wider war in Europe, and should they get bogged down in an insurgency in Ukraine, they could target NATO members who are supplying Ukraine with lethal assistance. Former members of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc states have every reason to fear Putin’s justifications for war.

Russia’s use of military force is also of different magnitude. While the Myanmar military has provoked outrage by torching hundreds of homes at a time, Russia has resorted to dropping thermobaric weapons and cluster munitions, leveling cities. Russia has even made veiled threats to use nuclear weapons.

Third, Myanmar is of marginal global importance. It was once a darling of much of the international community because of its brief period of democratization after decades of direct military rule. But it is otherwise strategically and economically insignificant in the eyes of most nations.

Compare with Ukraine, which is a key supplier of food to Europe, an industrial power, and an important supply route for energy. More to the point, and one of the reasons for President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade, is that Ukraine was becoming even closer and more interdependent with Europe.

Fourth, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has won over the West through his leadership. While civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi may maintain broad support in Myanmar, she has discredited herself in the West due to her defense of the military’s ethnic cleansing of minority Rohingya Muslims. It is striking how little international sympathy there has been for her since the coup despite her prosecution in closed, kangaroo court trials.

Finally, there is a degree of racism. The West is quick to defend a fellow and easily identifiable Western state. In part, it speaks to diaspora politics in the West, given the presence of Ukrainian communities in the U.S. and across Europe, something Myanmar does not enjoy to the same extent.

What can the NUG learn from Ukraine?

The NUG has every reason to feel slighted, and should be cognizant that the situation in Ukraine is going to dominate international attention. But it does present some opportunities.

The United Nations recently reported that Russia and China remain the two most important arms suppliers to the junta since the coup. As Russian forces get bogged down in Ukraine, and Moscow struggles to service its own needs for armaments and ammunition, middling clients like Myanmar will be a low priority. That will force the Tatmadaw to become even more dependent on China, a country they distrust.

Even if Moscow were able to sell arms and ammunition to Myanmar, there are questions about how the junta could pay for it given international banking sanctions. The international community could also begin to impound ships that are caught violating sanctions against Russia.

Second, the Russian invasion has reinvigorated international support for the defense of democracy. Myanmar’s military thought they could get away with their coup because democracy and the liberal international order were in retreat. That is no longer the case. Ukraine has been able to remind its neighbors that the economic pains caused by the sanctions were worth it. The NUG has to do the same in Myanmar. We started to see this with Total and Chevron’s divestments, but more has to be done.

Third, despite improvements in their messaging, the NUG could learn from the Ukrainian government’s success in controlling the narrative. Their cyber operations, psy-ops, and other information campaigns have been effective in reaching Ukrainian, Russian and Western audiences.

Fourth, the International Criminal Court has already announced investigations into Russian war crimes in Ukraine. That immediate response should terrify despots around the world, especially those waging war against civilian populations.

Finally, the NUG and citizens of Myanmar would be empowered by knowing that they are not the only ones fighting for their freedom. They too want to chart their own political and economic future, rather than be dictated to by a capricious tyrant.

Zachary Abuza is a professor at the National War College in Washington and an adjunct at Georgetown University. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of the U.S. Department of Defense, the National War College, Georgetown University or RFA.