Day: April 12, 2022

The deputy governor of Myanmar’s Central Bank is alive and recuperating at a military hospital in the country’s commercial capital Yangon, junta officials said Tuesday, dispelling reports that she had died after being shot last weekend.

Than Than Swe was shot by unknown assailants at her apartment complex in Yangon’s Bahan township on April 7 amid a public outcry over a new directive ordering the sale of all U.S. dollars and other foreign currency at a fixed rate to licensed banks. Initial reports by the Associated Press and domestic media suggested that the bank official had died at the hospital from injuries she sustained in the shooting, citing sources close to the deputy governor and a local official. 

On Tuesday, junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun told RFA that Than Than Swe is being treated at Yangon’s Mingaladon Military Hospital and is in stable condition.

“There were no deaths. She is recovering,” he said.

“We are now seeing attacks on civilians who have nothing to do with the security forces. We are currently working to prevent such attacks with a system that includes security forces and the public,” he added, without providing details.

Aung Kyaw Than, director general of the Central Bank’s financial management department, also confirmed to RFA that Than Than Swe is alive and undergoing medical treatment.

Than Than Swe, 55, was sworn in as deputy governor of the Central Bank after the military seized power from Myanmar’s democratically elected National League for Democracy (NLD) government in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup.

Believed to be the most senior junta official to be shot since the takeover, she is known to have led efforts to reduce the cash flow in the banking and financial system under the NLD, according to a report by The Irrawaddy online news agency.

The attack on Than Than Swe came days after an unpopular April 3 bank directive ordering all foreign currency, including the U.S. dollar, to be resold within one day of entering the country to licensed banks at a fixed rate of 1,850 kyats to the dollar. The order also requires government approval before any foreign currency can be sent overseas.

Attacks on junta targets

On the day of the attack, a group known as the Yangon Region Military Command (YRMC) announced that it had “successfully carried out” the attack on Than Than Swe as it’s “latest target.” The YRMC is an anti-junta paramilitary group that has pledged loyalty to Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) and claims to have carried out more than 1,100 attacks since the NUG declared war on the military in September.

On Tuesday, a member of the Free Tiger Rangers told RFA that his group of anti-junta fighters was involved in the attack and that Than Than Swe had been targeted for supporting the military regime and carrying out its policies.

“We attacked Than Than Swe, the Central Bank deputy governor,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

He said the attack was the last objective of a seven-month operation targeting junta members and their supporters and had been carried out “under the direction of the NUG Ministry of Defense.”

The Ranger said his group considers anyone who did not join the nationwide Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) that has seen thousands of people leave their jobs to take part in anti-junta protests “our enemies.”

“[However] we don’t kill every non-CDM employee. We only try to get rid of those who have become a huge help to the junta and brought trouble to the people,” he said.

The NUG, which has distanced itself from attacks on civilians, did not immediately respond to RFA requests for comment on Tuesday.

No ‘normalcy’ in Myanmar

Than Soe Naing, a military observer, told RFA that targeted attacks like the one on Than Than Swe are likely to rattle the junta.

“The military wants to show the world that the situation in the country is stable and peaceful, and they can do whatever they want,” he said. “These activities [by the opposition] are effective because they reject the military’s claim that normalcy has returned to Myanmar.”

Than Soe Naing added that while he didn’t want to comment on whether targeted attacks on civilians like Than Than Swe are right or wrong, they are “surely a consequence of the military coup.”

Junta security forces have killed at least 1,745 civilians and arrested nearly 10,200 others since February 2021, mostly during peaceful anti-coup demonstrations, according to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

China’s abuses targeting Uyghurs, Hongkongers and Tibetans are among some of the worst human rights violations around the world, the U.S. Department of State said Tuesday.

“The Chinese government continues to commit genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang against predominantly Muslim Uyghurs among other minority groups, to erode fundamental freedoms and autonomy in Hong Kong, and to carry out systematic repression in Tibet,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a press briefing before the release of the department’s 2021 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.

The report, which the State Department is required to release each year by law, details the state of human rights and worker rights in 198 countries and territories.

The administration of former President Donald Trump officially determined in January 2021 that abuses in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Regions (XUAR) amounted to state-sponsored genocide and crimes against humanity. President Biden’s administration has agreed with the designation and has worked with its international allies on measures to hold the Chinese government to account.

The 90 pages in the report that are dedicated to China focus on the XUAR and the arbitrary imprisonment of more than 1 million civilians in extrajudicial internment camps and the additional 2 million who are subjected to daytime-only “re-education” training. The report also cited evidence of forced labor, forced sterilizations of women, coerced abortions, more restrictive birth control policies, rape and torture, and draconian restrictions on freedoms of religion and expression.

The report cited an Oct. 21, 2021, report by RFA that said more than 170 Uyghurs, including woman and minors, in Hotan (in Chinese, Hetian) were detained by national security authorities on China’s National Day holiday because they allegedly displaying resistance to the country during flag-raising activities.

Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress, said the State Department’s report is important because it highlights the most urgent crises around the world.

“The Uyghur genocide is one of them,” he told RFA. “This reports is important in the sense that it must be used as a reminder that international inaction in the face of Uyghur genocide will lead to the deterioration of human rights around the world.”

“The international community must act,” he said. “The Uyghur people have suffered enough in the past five years.”
Campaign for Uyghurs also welcomed the human rights report.

“Uyghurs are really delighted to see this strong stance to call China out for its crimes of genocide, and standing firmly on the values that ought to be advocated by the United States precisely concerning liberty, respect and freedom for the principles of humanity,” said the organization’s executive director Rushan Abbas in a statement.

The report also notes rights violations in Hong Kong, Tibet and other parts of China, including
serious limits on free expression and the media. Journalists, lawyers, writers and bloggers have suffered from physical attacks and criminal prosecution.

The U.S. supports human rights by meeting with advocates, journalists and others to document abuses and works with the Treasury Department to apply sanctions and visa restrictions on human rights abusers, Blinken said. It also collects, preserves and analyzes evidence of atrocities.

In March, the U.S. government imposed new sanctions against Chinese officials over the repression of Uyghurs in China and elsewhere, prompting an angry response from Beijing and a pledge to respond with sanctions of its own.

At the time, Blinken said the U.S. would restrict visas on unnamed individuals he said were involved in repressive acts by China against members of ethnic and religious minority groups inside and outside the country’s borders, including within the U.S.

Blinken noted that even though the U.S. has its own human rights shortcomings, the country openly acknowledges them and tries to address them.

“Respecting human rights is a fundamental part of upholding the international rules-based order which is crucial to America’s enduring security and prosperity,” he said. “Governments that violate human rights are almost always the same ones that flout other key parts of that order.”

A former Vietnamese policeman who in January was sentenced to two years over a traffic spat received an additional charge for recording his interaction with traffic police, state media reported.

Le Chi Thanh was once an officer at Han Tan Prison in the southern coastal province of Binh Thuan. He was fired in July 2020 after he accused his supervisor of corruption. Afterwards he became an active social media user, often livestreaming videos that monitored traffic police.

Police in Ho Chi Minh City impounded his car on March 2, 2021, for occupying a lane reserved for two-wheeled vehicles. He argued with the police in an attempt to stop them from taking his car, while recording and livestreaming the incident.

He was later arrested on April 14, 2021, on the charge of “resisting officers on official duty.”

The Ho Chi Minh City Law online newspaper reported that the procuracy in the southern province of Binh Thuan filed an additional charge of “abusing the rights to freedom and democracy to violate the state’s interests, legitimate rights and interests of organizations and individuals” in accordance with Article 331 of Vietnam’s Penal Code.

Thanh’s lawyer, Dang Dinh Manh, confirmed the new indictment to RFA’s Vietnamese Service. If convicted, Thanh could get two to seven years on top of his earlier two-year sentence, which he has since appealed.

During his pre-trial detention, in a video posted on October 29, 2021, Le Thi Phu, Thanh’s mother, called for justice for her son. She said in the video that detention officers had tortured him by cuffing his hands and legs and hanging him over a dung pit for seven days in a row.

Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

Five Lao villagers were beaten and detained Sunday in a village north of Vientiane by soldiers who said the group and their families were living on land owned by the country’s military, according to Lao sources.

Around 40 families had lived in Sisawat and Houay Nam Yen villages in Naxaithong district since 1989, when they fled homes damaged by floods at the nearby Nam Houm Reservoir. Soldiers claiming ownership of the land began around five months ago to build there, one local villager told RFA.

“Officers from Section 513 of the Vientiane Military Division have been building shelters and a gate on the land for the last four or five months, barring us from farming there,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “And on Sunday, they detained five of us and took them away in a truck, beating them and threatening them with rifles.”

Around 60 to 70 soldiers are now present at the conflict site to prevent disturbances and make further arrests, she added.

Villagers have lived and farmed in the disputed area for 20 to 30 years, another local source said, also declining to be named.

“Our parents lived there until they died, and before the soldiers came. But the soldiers now tell us that we’re living on their land, even though they have no documents to show our village chief proving their ownership.

“Their own word is all they have,” she said.

Military officers are required to make a report to village authorities of any incident in the area involving their troops, the source added. “But they just took our villagers to a truck and drove away,” she said.

Speaking to RFA, a local village authority confirmed Sunday’s arrests.

“The five villagers are now reportedly being held in the Vientiane Military Division and are not being allowed to see their relatives and family members,” the source said.

Vientiane’s Agriculture and Forestry Department had formerly used the disputed land for feeding livestock. But when the Nam Houm Reservoir collapsed in 1989, villagers moved to the area’s higher ground to escape the flood, he said.

The disputed land is now fertile and well suited to feeding livestock and raising crops for cash, he said, adding that villagers had invited army officers to a meeting to help resolve the conflict, but that officers had ignored their request.

“The Vientiane Military Division said this was the duty of Section 513, while Section 513 said it was the military division’s responsibility,” the local village authority said.

The five detained villagers were residents of Houay Nam Yen village and had temporary documents proving their right to their land, the source said. “But the military officers took these away from them,” he added.

Naxaithong district deputy head Phouvone Phong-Latkeo said, however, that local villagers have no right to the disputed land, saying the Vientiane Agriculture and Forestry Department had handed it over to the military following the Nam Houm flood and that it was now property of the state.

“Villagers grabbed and repurposed the land without authorizing documents. In fact, the land is reserved for the Nam Houn Reservoir and does not belong to them,” he said, adding that villagers displaced in 1989 by the reservoir’s collapse had already been compensated for their loss.

The five villagers detained by soldiers on Sunday had not been formally arrested but were taken away for “re-education” because they had gathered others to stage a protest and cause disruptions, Phouvone said. “Thus, the officers had to assert their control and prevent more problems.”

Sources told RFA on Tuesday that the five now held are being questioned by military authorities, with no word given yet on when they may be released.

“The military will release them later, but they may still end up being held for a while,” a Naxaithong district official said. “Their families have asked the military for permission to visit and bring them some food, but their request was denied.

“The military officers haven’t said when they’re going to release the villagers. But some rumors say they might be freed sometime after the Lao New Year on April 15,” a district villager added.

Reached for comment, family members of some of those now held declined to speak about the case, fearing retaliation by authorities, while one family member was ordered on Monday to delete a video he had taken of the arrests.

An official of the People’s Council, meanwhile, said his office had received no reports of the conflict or arrests.

“A report may have been sent to the economic committee, though, because the conflict involves land,” he said.

Some of the families living on the 25-hectare area of land now claimed by the army had inherited the land from their parents even before the 1975 communist takeover of Laos, and had paid property taxes on the land ever since, another villager told RFA.

“The military says that the land belongs to the army, but everybody knows that the land belongs to the villagers,” the villager said, also speaking on condition of anonymity. “Before building anything, the military should at least have asked for approval from the village authorities, but in this case they began building things without any warning,” he said.

Translated by Ounkeo Souksavanh for RFA’s Lao Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.

North Korean soldiers who were injured during their service are now unable to depend on the state to care for them due to worsening economic conditions, sources in the country told RFA.

Officially known as “honorable soldiers,” many of the disabled rely on the government for basic support. For those who are incapable of working, a sudden drop-off in government-provided stipends and food rations can be devastating.

“Everyone is having a difficult time because the prices of goods are ridiculously expensive and business has not yet recovered,” a resident of Paegam county in the northern province of Ryanggang told RFA’s Korean Service April 6 on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

“The honorable soldiers are facing a miserable situation, especially as the nation’s benefits have been reduced due to economic difficulties,” she said.

The source discussed the case of an honorable solder in her neighborhood who lost both of his legs and cannot work.

“There is no woman who wants to marry him, so he is living with his mother, who is the only person who can care for him. Since last summer, though, her health has become worse since she is getting older,” the source said.

“She normally has a vegetable business that she’s been doing for a long time, but she is no longer able, so their livelihood has been badly affected,” she said.

Honorable soldiers are classified as grade 1-3 depending on the severity of their injuries. Soldiers who have lost multiple limbs or have become paralyzed and must rely on others for basic tasks are classified as special grade. These soldiers are supposed to get support from the government for the rest of their lives, the source said.

“But I know that there is no other support except for a small amount of corn due to the poor economic situation of the country. The military provided firewood after his mother stopped her business, but now even that support has been cut off,” she said.

The daily supply of corn from the government amounts to less than 500 grams (1.1 lbs.), hardly enough to live on, the source said. Meat and cooking oils are rarely ever provided in the government support ration.

“I haven’t seen our honorable soldier in a while. His wheelchair is broken and he isn’t able to go outside,” the source said.

“If you go to the market in Hyesan, there’s a place there that sells Chinese-made wheelchairs, but they cost 200,000 to 400,000 won (U.S. $33 to $66). With no money he cannot afford to get a new one,” she said.

The source said she did not know how the soldier had lost both of his legs but many of the injuries to soldiers occur when they are assigned to construction duty. If an accident occurs, their injuries are officially recorded as having occurred while the soldier was on a military mission.

The soldiers are often reluctant to reveal how they were injured, except to their closest family members, according to the source.

Living conditions for honorable soldiers in the northwestern province of North Hamgyong is “appalling,” a resident of the province’s Orang county told RFA.

“The honorable soldiers in Pyongyang and other large cities work at  ‘Honorable Soldier Factories’ which operate at full capacity because they are important to the country, but out here in the small-town rural areas the factories for them aren’t running,” he said.

“In our county, we have more than 70 honorable soldiers with relatively minor disabilities. Most of them work at the honorable soldier fishing gear factory, but it has been a long time since they shut down due to a lack of electricity and raw materials,” the second source said.

The source said that when the factories shut down, the able-bodied were able to support themselves through other means.

“The ordinary residents can survive by going out to sea to fish or going to the mountains to collect firewood to sell, but the honorable soldiers cannot do those things because they can’t move around freely. The lives of the honorable soldiers are far more miserable than those of the able-bodied,” he said.

“Even now, the number of honorable soldiers continues to increase. They either have an injured limb or they lost an eye, or things like that. The authorities say that those soldiers are the precious treasures of the country and that they should be taken care of, but there’s no actual support.”

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

Authorities in Shanghai extended a citywide lockdown on Tuesday, in the face of growing public anger over ongoing restrictions under ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping’s zero-COVID policy.

“Shanghai’s epidemic prevention and control is at the most difficult and most critical stage,” municipal health official Wu Qianyu told journalists.

“We must adhere to the general policy of dynamic clearance without hesitation, without wavering.”

Wu’s announcement came amid public anger over food shortages amid a citywide logistics crisis, the separation of parents and children in compulsory isolation facilities and the culling of family pets.

More than 1,000 Shanghai residents petitioned online for asymptomatic children to be allowed to isolate at home, but the petition was no longer available on the social media platform WeChat on Tuesday, Reuters reported.

Shanghai reported 13,086 new asymptomatic coronavirus cases on Monday compared with 8,581 the previous day, following a mass testing program that covered almost all of the city’s 26 million residents.

The announcement came after vice premier Sun Chunlan “rushed” to to Shanghai from the northeastern city of Jilin to call on the city not to relax its grip on the virus.

“We must adhere unswervingly to the general policy of ‘dynamic zero’ without hesitation, have a resolute and firm attitude, and act swiftly and powerfully,” Sun told municipal leaders in comments reported by state news agency Xinhua.

Sun called for expanding mobile cabin hospitals and designated hospitals, preparing a sufficient number of isolation rooms, tracking down infected persons to achieve “daily clearing and settlement” of cases, and “strictly increasing community management and control and guaranteeing basic living conditions and regular medical care,” the report said.

An online video clip showed Shanghai municipal party secretary Li Qiang inspecting a residential compound under lockdown, where he was mobbed by residents wanting to share issues.

“We want to ask if you’re going to solve our livelihood issues,” one resident asks Li, who proceeds to listen to some of their concerns.

Reports of price-gouging

A Shanghai resident surnamed Zheng said the lockdown is a crude way of managing the virus, and its impact on people’s daily lives has been huge.

“I wrote a letter to the mayor myself, and they replied that it had been passed on, but no one came, so I had to find a way to buy food by myself,” Zheng told RFA.

“It is hugely troublesome because courier companies aren’t allowed to deliver now, supermarkets aren’t allowed to open and stores are closed,” he said. “They said they would organize group buying, but the vegetables were horribly expensive.”

“We haven’t seen any of the vegetables sent by other provinces to support us here in Shanghai,” Zheng said.

Zheng said local officials had been accused of price-gouging in the group-buying business and some had resigned.

“The party secretary and mayor of Cai township in the northeast of Pudong stepped down … they earned 20 to 30 million yuan out of just a few days [of lockdown],” he said.

‘No different than a lockdown’

While authorities announced on Monday that residents of thousands of residential communities would be allowed to move around in a limited manner for the first time in weeks, a resident surnamed Chen said this didn’t appear to have been implemented on the ground.

“It just allowed people to move around within their compound, not to go out,” he said. “It’s no different than a lockdown.”

Meanwhile, seriously ill patients across the city remain locked out of life-saving medical care by COVID-19 restrictions and ward closures that are being blamed in part on the diversion of the city’s healthcare personnel to compulsory mass testing programs.

Economist Lang Xianping posted on Weibo that his mother had died of kidney failure after multiple PCR tests had failed to yield results soon enough to get her admitted to hospitals in the city.

“I was in shock,” Lang wrote. “My mom left me forever after waiting at the door of the ER for four hours.”

He said he had been unable to see her one last time. “This tragedy could have been avoided,” Lang wrote.

‘Little better than a slum’

Tensions were running high in locked-down communities, with people shouting out of windows that they were “going crazy” or “dying” or “need supplies.”

Several videos circulating online showed authorities unable to respond to the explosion of numbers in need of quarantine beds, with 6-12 people to a room in hastily built field hospitals.

In one, the person shooting the scene says the facility is “half-finished” and that everyone had to go and fight for their own bedding.

“It’s little better than a slum,” the person says.

Another video, titled “one person, one box”, showed confirmed COVID-19 patients sleeping in rows of long cardboard boxes alongside their personal belongings.

Li Zhenghong, president of the Shanghai Taiwan Business Association, said member companies are having trouble sourcing supplies of coal, gas, water, electricity and food to take care of their employees.

“Logistics is a bigger problem,” Li told RFA.

Taiwan epidemiologist Ho Mei-hsiang said the lockdown would have to lift eventually, which would give rise to a larger wave of infections.

“Even if they’re successful [in getting to zero] after 20 or 28 days, the question is what happens next?” Ho said. “There is still a bunch of virus circulating outside [Shanghai]. The next time the virus comes in, will they lock down again?”

“As long as the virus exists in the world, completing the first three doses of vaccine should be the top priority, not lockdowns,” Ho said.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.