Day: May 19, 2022

Myanmar’s 15-month-old military junta is suffering a diplomatic downgrade as Western and some Southeast Asian neighbors are withholding ambassadorial appointments to the country and increasingly meeting with elected officials overthrown by the army early last year, diplomats said.

The trend of posting a number two in missions comes as the junta has been shunned by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which held a summit last week with the U.S. in Washington, where Myanmar was represented by an empty chair symbolizing rejection of the February 2021 coup.

The Australian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on May 16 that Australia has appointed a senior official to replace its ambassador in Myanmar, Andrea Faulkner, who completed her tenure last month.

Britain likewise downgraded its ties with Myanmar from ambassadorial level to chargé d’affaires level in August 2021. The junta found that unacceptable and the British Ambassador, Pete Vowles, who went abroad on business, was barred from re-entering the country in February 2022.

“The UK has a longstanding policy and practice of recognizing states, not governments,” Stephen Small, the embassy’s liaison officer, wrote in an emailed reply to RFA’s Myanmar Service.

“We are engaging with the junta only where strictly necessary to deliver our political, development and humanitarian objectives and [for] the functioning of our embassy,” he added.

“Changing the status of our head of mission ensures we can continue our role supporting the people of Myanmar without giving the military credibility by presenting our credentials to the Commander-in-Chief,” said Small.

Vowles arrived in Myanmar in August 2021, seven months after the coup, and refused to hand over his credentials to the junta. In April the military regime told the embassy it would not accept him as ambassador any longer, the spokesman said.

London did not recall Vowles, but decided to let him head the mission at a lower level and he is waiting for a new visa and entry permit for Myanmar, said Small.

Shunning an ‘unethical group’

Germany has likewise downgraded its representation in Myanmar, said embassy press officer Markus Lubawinski.

“I can confirm that the German Embassy in Yangon, where we continue with our embassy work, is headed by a chargé d’affaires,” he wrote in an email to RFA.

“The reduction from ambassadorial level to charge d’affaires, is, in layman’s terms, degrading,” said Kyaw Swa Tun, the third secretary at the Myanmar Embassy in Washington who joined the opposition after the coup.

“It’s like saying we don’t need to pay attention to an unethical group,” he told RFA.

“At present, most countries, including Europeans, have lowered their statuses in dealing with the regime. It also shows that they are not recognizing the junta and thus, the junta’s role is downgraded,” added Kyaw Swa Tun.

Min Zaw Oo, executive director of the Myanmar Institute for Peace and Security said countries lowered the level of their diplomatic representation to avoid the poor optics of recognizing the junta. The regime is estimated to have killed at least 5,600 civilians in nearly 16 months since the coup.

“When an ambassador comes in, he has to be officially recognized by the head of state. So, they do not want a big blaring photograph in the newspapers showing the current junta leader accepting their new ambassadors,” he said.

Diplomatic sources in Yangon say Denmark, Italy, Israel and South Korea are considering following Britain, Germany and Australia in downgrading their level of representation.

The U.S., European Union and Japan, however, are maintaining ambassadors at their embassies in Yangon.

Hiram J. Ríos Hernández, spokesman for the U.S embassy in Yangon told RFA in an email that the US will continue to put pressure on the junta to return to the path of democracy in Myanmar.

“Amb. Thomas Vajda presented his credentials to democratically elected President U Win Myint on January 19, 2021,” he told RFA by email.

“The U.S. will continue to press the military regime to cease its violence, release all those unjustly detained, provide unhindered humanitarian access, and restore Burma’s path to democracy.”

Outreach to the NUG

The European Union (EU) embassy in Yangon has said it will not change its current ambassadorial post, a spokesperson told RFA on behalf of Amb. Ranieri Sabatucci.

“The EU does not envisage any change to my accreditation for the time being. The movements in the diplomatic sphere do not have any effect on our dealings with the military council,” he said, using a shorthand for the junta.

Germany and Britain, the colonial ruler of what was formerly called Burma, and the EU have held meetings with representative of the country’s National Unity Government (NUG), a parallel administration made up of former lawmakers and officials of the government of leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

“The federal government in Germany has spoken to individual members of the NUG. These exchanges have been made public,” said Lubawinski.

“The U.K. sees the NUG as an important stakeholder for resolving the crisis,” said Small of the British Embassy.

“The EU is having informal exchanges with the NUG. These are entertained by and from a number of interlocutors including our HQ in Brussels, the EU Mission to ASEAN and the EU Mission to the UN in New York,” said the EU mission in Yangon.

“The EU retains the right to entertain relationships with any relevant party in Myanmar, including the NUG,” the statement issued on behalf of Sabatucci.

Analyst Kyaw Swa Tun said that although the NUG has not yet been officially accepted by the international community, these contacts can been as a sign the group in increasingly being recognized as a legitimate government.

Zin Mar Aung, who represents the NUG on the world stage, held key meetings on the sidelines of the U.S.-ASEAN summit in Washington last week with Wendy Sherman, a senior U.S. State Department official, and Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah. The junta strongly denounced those contacts.

Among ASEAN states, Malaysia, which recalled its ambassador last April, Brunei, and the Philippines have yet to appoint an ambassador to Myanmar. 

Russia and China, authoritarian powers which have good military and economic ties with the junta, have not changed the status of diplomatic relations, while India and Saudi Arabia officially appointed their ambassadors to Myanmar last month. China’s mission did not reply to RFA’s attempt to seek comment.

Spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun said the junta is “will continue to work with countries who show respect to Myanmar and its national interests and other international organizations that support our work and consider us friends.”

He added: “There are people who want to interfere in [our] internal affairs. We will respond to them in accordance with diplomatic procedures.”

Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written by Paul Eckert.

Attorneys in Vietnam say their ability to defend their clients in court is being undercut by threats and physical abuse the lawyers themselves face, often at the hands of state authorities.

Defense lawyers in civil cases and politically charged ones said they not only encounter the usual obstacles to their work in a country with a long history of corruption — long pre-trial detentions of clients, witness intimidation, and politically motivated charges — but they also have been threatened and, in some cases, beaten by police and investigators who want defendants to be found guilty.

Attorney Le Hoang Tung from Everest Law Firm filed a complaint after he was assaulted this month by an investigator while meeting with police officers in Ho Chi Minh City.

City police denied the accusation on Wednesday, saying that the investigator did not assault Tung and that the lawyer was injured when he slipped and fell. They failed to explain why there were shoe marks on Tung’s shirt — evidence supporting the accusation that the investigator kicked the lawyer.

In response, the Vietnam Bar Federation (VBF), which protects the rights of lawyers, submitted a request to police to investigate the incident, and to act against people who abuse attorneys or otherwise interfere with their ability to practice law.

Attorney Nguyen Van Hau, a standing member of the VBF, told RFA on Wednesday that the organization sent requests to the directorates of the Ho Chi Minh City police and procuracy, which must provide public responses and handle the case in accordance with the law.

“As for our part at VBF, we will monitor [the case] and protect the legitimate rights of lawyers participating in legal proceedings,” he said.

Vietnam’s Law on Lawyers ensures that attorneys have the right to take part in legal proceedings, provide legal services, and protect justice, individuals and organizations’ rights and interests, and citizens’ rights to democracy and freedom.

“No one can violate these rights,” Hau said.

Tung’s case appears to involve the wrongdoing of single person, he said.

“Sometimes, after lawyers raise an issue, the two sides [lawyers and investigators] start to argue with each other, and then they lose control,” said Hau. “If violations are detected, they should be handled properly and seriously. According to the Constitution, the body of a person is inviolable. Assaulting an ordinary person is already an infringement.”

Defending their rights

Other lawyers have suffered physical attacks in recent years.

In November 2015, attorneys Tran Thu Nam and Le Van Luan were attacked by a group of eight people wearing face masks after they visited Do Thi Mai, whose son, Do Dang Dung, had been beaten to death at a temporary detention center.

Prior to that, Mai said that Hanoi police had forced her to refuse access to lawyers. Nam and Luan then met with her to learn more about the case.

In November 2021, attorney Ngo Anh Tuan from the Hanoi Bar Association reported that local police chased him away when he visited a client in Thanh Khuong commune, Bac Ninh province.

“I will fulfill the responsibilities and protect the dignity of a lawyer until the last day I have my lawyer’s card,” he wrote on Facebook at the time. “I will have zero tolerance and will fight against all the violations of mine and my colleagues’ lawful rights.”

Attorney Nguyen Duy Binh was representing colleague Tran Vu Hai, who as a lawyer defended political dissidents until he was accused of tax evasion, when Binh was forcefully escorted out of the courtroom by police for asking a defendant if the court had denied her request to petition five other lawyers to represent her. Binh was detained for a short time, before being released.

Speaking about the incident, Binh told RFA on May 18 that he had been treated violently at least three times by people working in the justice system and that police had confiscated his mobile phone and deleted all of his data.

Binh said that more attorneys are being assaulted by police due because Vietnam’s judiciary system” that enables investigative agencies and police investigators to prevent lawyers from doing their job.

“Investigators don’t want lawyers to get involved in the cases they are working on because lawyers will make it harder for them to accuse suspected people and prove them guilty,” he said.

“Perhaps, they think that lawyers will give advice to their clients in accordance with the law, making their clients more confident in answering questions and issues raised by investigative agencies,” said Binh.

Lack of judicial independence

In its annual worldwide human rights report last year, the U.S. State Department identified the lack of judicial independence as a key shortcoming in Vietnam.

“The law provides for an independent judiciary, but the judiciary was effectively under the control of the [Communist Party of Vietnam], it said in the report, covering the year 2020. “There were credible reports political influence, endemic corruption, bribery, and inefficiency strongly distorted the judicial system,” it added, noting that “most, if not all, judges were members of the CPV.”

Observers say attorneys who work as defense lawyers in political or sensitive cases are more likely to be assaulted.

The number of cases in which police officers “raised their arms” or “lifted their legs” and “bumped” into people, including lawyers, with the intent to injure them have become common, attorney Dang Dinh Minh told RFA Wednesday.

“Even lawyers who have good understanding of the law are sometimes victims of this problem,” he said.

He suggested that authorities take a hard look at the problem and prosecute perpetrators.

“Calling it by its true name would make it easier to address the issue in accordance with the law,” Minh said. “This is not only a sanction but also a deterrent to prevent the violation from being perpetuated. It would also help the relationship between citizens and law enforcement officers be healthy again.”

Translated by Anna Vu for RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

The top U.S. official responsible for Tibetan issues met on Thursday morning with Tibet’s Dalai Lama at the exiled spiritual leader’s residence in Dharamsala, India. The meeting came on the second day of an official visit to the seat of Tibet’s government in exile, the Central Tibetan Administration, and drew a quick rebuke from China’s Foreign Ministry.

Uzra Zeya, the State Department’s special coordinator for Tibetan issues, spoke with the Dalai Lama for more than an hour in the meeting, which was also attended by exile government leader Penpa Tsering, who accompanied Zeya and her delegation, and by Namgyal Choedup, representative of the Dalai Lama at the Office of Tibet in Washington D.C.

“I am President Biden’s special coordinator for Tibetan issues, and it is my greatest honor to be received by you,” Zeya said, addressing the Dalai Lama at their meeting. “I bring greetings from our president and the American people and best wishes for your good health and gratitude for your message of peace for the world.”

The Dalai Lama in turn expressed his happiness at meeting the U.S. diplomat, who was named to her post in December 2021.

Speaking to reporters following the meeting, Sikyong Penpa Tsering — the democratically elected political leader of Tibet’s exile government — confirmed the meeting and said that Zeya and the Dalai Lama had discussed U.S. efforts “to preserve Tibet’s religion, language and culture to protect Tibet’s identity.”

Formerly an independent nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force more than 70 years ago, and Tibetans frequently complain of discrimination and human rights abuses by Chinese authorities and policies they say are aimed at eradicating their national identity and culture.

At a May 19 press conference, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian denounced Zeya’s meeting with the Dalai Lama, calling Tibet’s exile government an illegal organization and the Dalai Lama himself “a political exile disguised as a religious figure.”

“The appointment of the so-called ‘US Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues’ constitutes an interference in China’s internal affairs. China is firmly opposed to this and has never acknowledged it,” Zhao said.

In the debate over how best to advance the rights of the 6.3 million Tibetans living in China, some Tibetans call for a restoration of the independence lost when Chinese troops marched into Tibet in 1950.

The CTA and the Dalai Lama, however, have adopted a policy approach called the Middle Way, which accepts Tibet’s status as a part of China but urges greater cultural and religious freedom, including strengthened language rights, for Tibetans living under Beijing’s rule.

Nine rounds of talks were previously held between envoys of the Dalai Lama and high-level Chinese officials beginning in 2002, but stalled in 2010 and were never resumed.

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

A prominent Chinese democracy activist in exile has been indicted on spying charges in the United States alongside four intelligence officers, suggesting successful infiltration of exile groups by China’s state security police.

Wang Shujun, 73, a U.S. citizen resident of Queens, New York, was accused in an indictment of taking part in “an espionage and transnational repression scheme in the U.S. and abroad,” according to a statement on the Department of Justice’s official website.

Wang was indicted along with People’s Republic of China (PRC) intelligence officers He Feng, Ji Jie, Li Ming and Lu Keqing and arrested on March 16, while his co-defendants remain at large, the statement said.

“We will not tolerate efforts by the PRC or any authoritarian government to export repressive measures to our country,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen said.

Olsen said the accused had sought to “suppress dissenting voices within the United States and to prevent our residents from exercising their lawful rights.”

Wang, who had been known as an elder of the pro-democracy movement in exile, was a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) mole in that movement, “spying on and reporting sensitive information on prominent pro-democracy activists and organizations to his co-defendants, who are members of the Chinese government’s Ministry of State Security,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said.

He said the operation had been threatening the safety and freedom of PRC nationals in the U.S., targeting them for their pro-democracy beliefs.

According to the indictment, Wang was turned in 2011, after which he started covertly collecting information about prominent activists, including advocates for independence for Taiwan, a Uyghur state of East Turkestan, and Tibet, and giving it to Beijing.

‘Transnational repression’

Alan E. Kohler Jr.,  Acting Executive Assistant Director of the FBI’s National Security Branch, said the CCP’s intelligence operations now reach far beyond the borders of the PRC.

“The PRC is targeting people in the United States and around the world,” Kohler said, adding that the FBI would continue to fight “transnational repression.”

Wang had communicated with He, Ji, Li and Lu using encrypted messaging apps and emails, as well as during face-to-face meetings in the PRC.

Wang recorded details of his conversations with activists in around 163 draft email entries in accounts that were also being accessed by the state security police, it said.

Wang is also accused of transferring telephone numbers and contact information belonging to Chinese dissidents to his handlers, as well as making materially false statements to federal law enforcement about such contacts, court documents said.

All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law, it said.

‘An attack by the enemy within’

U.S.-based activist Zeng Jianyuan said that Wang Shujun was very active in the U.S.-based pro-democracy movement.

“Wang Shujun was very active in those circles. I had no contact with him, but I know him,” Zeng told RFA. “Many of us do. Nobody had fears or suspicions … I wasn’t wary of him.”

“This was an attack by the enemy within,” he said. “He was at the heart of this circle, and could get intelligence first hand, which is why the CCP turned him.”

Among the conversations Wang may have reported to state security police was one with former Hong Kong Democratic Party chairman Albert Ho, who also led the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Democratic Patriotic Movements of China, as well as the names and contact details for several Hong Kong activists who have since been arrested for their involvement in the 2019 protest movement.

The 32-year-old Alliance now stands accused of acting as the agent of a foreign power, with leaders Chow Hang-tung, Albert Ho, and Lee Cheuk-yan arrested on suspicion of “incitement to subvert state power,” and the group’s assets frozen.

Current affairs commentator Sang Pu said the indictment shows that the CCP has fully and successfully taken control of Hong Kong.

“There are at least three kinds of infiltration practiced by the CCP,” Sang said. “One is red, in the case of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) and the Federation of Trade Unions.”

“Another is gray, and uses a variety of methods and hiding places, so people think it’s harmless: that could take the form of a person, an ordinary businessman,” he said. 

A Chinese citizen and former resident of Beijing who gave only the nickname Joseph took one look at the newly emerging COVID-19 restrictions in the Chinese capital, and decided he wanted no part of another lockdown like the one still under way in Shanghai. He spoke to RFA’s Mandarin Service about his roller-coaster exit from China.

RFA: Did you feel you were on the run?

Joseph: Of course I was on the run. I just escaped from Beijing. The Beijing authorities announced an eight-point rule on May 10, which seemed to imply that if a single person tested positive on your street, you and everyone else will immediately be barred from leaving town. When I saw that, I panicked, and said ‘that’s it. I’m running away’.

RFA: You had already postponed a planned trip to New Zealand — how hard was it to leave?

Joseph: I thought at first I could perhaps get on a flight on May 11, so I arrived in Shanghai on May 10. But I was wrong. The flight never left. I eventually took a flight on May 13.

RFA: So even though you’d bought the ticket, you still didn’t know if you’d be able to get on the plane?

Joseph: Everyone has to just guess. I could see the daily departures and arrivals on an app, which showed that Pudong, Hongqiao, and Guangzhou airports, the hardest-hit areas. You can tell from looking at it that the departure rate [for scheduled flights] is less than one percent, so it’s a guessing game that you can’t win.

RFA: What did you do when your flight was canceled at Pudong International Airport?

Joseph: I had brought some food, some cooked food, as well as crackers and the like. I was ready for a bit of hardship. I looked for a place to spend the night, but these airports all have marble floors. I had brought a sleeping bag, but I wasn’t well prepared because the floor was cold. I was OK, but cold. I made it through the nights.

RFA: Was there no way to go anywhere else? You just had to stay at the airport?

Joseph: Yes, all of the routes were cut off, so it’s basically an island there. There was an old lady in her 70s who flew to New Zealand on the same plane as me. New Zealand required the PCR test results in English, so we took the bus together for her to get the English test results. The bus was a bit late getting back. She’d done a PCR test but the results weren’t back yet, and it had been more than 48 hours after her earlier test. She was stopped and prevented from entering the terminal building. She begged them, saying her luggage and food were inside, and that she would starve, but she wasn’t allowed in. I tried to put in a word for her, and they nearly dragged me away.

RFA: Were there other people in your situation?

Joseph: There was a college student next to me, a guy called He Siyuan who made the news a couple of days ago. It was broadcast on CCTV, and he slept next to me. The guy was very kind and very honest. He had been there more than 40 days, and I asked him how he was feeling. He said that it was quite bad at first, but that he had gradually gotten used to it. He said that he was worried at first, but now he is fine. He was barred from going back home by his neighborhood committee in Beijing, so he had no choice. He did a PCR test every two days at the airport, and every time it was negative.

It was incredible all the people in Area A of Terminal 2. There was a gentleman from Zhejiang who was in Wuhan during the lockdown. When that ended, he went to Shanghai, where he was caught up in the lockdown there. He got there on April, like the college student. He had wanted to fly to Wuhan, but couldn’t, so he was stranded [at the airport]. I was touched by what he did. He started picking up the moisture-proof mats and sleeping bags left by the passengers from April 1, and used them to built a platform that could sleep more than 20 people along one of the walls in Area A. He surrounded it with luggage carts, leaving an exit, making a temporary shelter. He didn’t charge people to go in and sleep there. He would let you in if you asked him, as long as there was a spot.

RFA: Where there any domestic flights leaving?

Joseph: Yes, but sometimes only one, and sometimes none. Nobody knew exactly where they would be flying too, and they’d often be canceled. There was only the bus to Hongqiao or downtown Shanghai, but none to other provinces. There was the high-speed rail, but it was very, very hard to get tickets for it, so hard that it wasn’t worth bothering.

RFA: What about international flights?

Joseph: If there were eight flights a day, seven would be international and only one domestic. Maybe it’s because there would be diplomatic incidents if you cut off international flights and left foreigners in China for longer than they were supposed to be there. There were still international flights leaving Pudong and Guangzhou Baiyun airports.

RFA: But people couldn’t actually get to Pudong Airport from Shanghai, could they? Some people were walking for 10 hours to get there.

Joseph: Because there are almost no buses, and the buses that were running were on odd schedules.

RFA: Didn’t you say that there was a bus from the airport to the city?

Joseph: Yes, but only going to the Southern Railway Station. It’s intended for rail passengers, and doesn’t serve residential areas.

RFA: Could people get on that bus at the Southern Railway Station?

Joseph: They may not have that information. Before I made the decision to go to Shanghai, I joined a group called Shanghai Outbound Information Exchange. If it wasn’t for their help, I wouldn’t have dared to go at all. I did’t want to have to walk for 10 hours. I tried calling the disease control and prevention hotline, and relevant party and government departments, but no one answered.

RFA: When you were at the airport, how did the people around you feel about these restrictions?

Joseph: All of the people around me said the same thing: they will never go back to Shanghai again, ever. One older guy from Shandong was even more vehement … he said he won’t go back in his next life either. He said he was heartbroken [at the way people were treated].

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.