Day: September 1, 2022

Chinese authorities sentenced two Tibetan monks to at least three years in prison for possessing photos of the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s foremost Buddhist spiritual leader who has been living in exile since 1959, RFA has learned.

RFA reported in December 2021 that Tenzin Dhargye, a monk in his 30s, had been arrested in September 2020, and sources said that several other monks had been arrested along with him. RFA has since learned that Rigtse, whose age is unknown, was among them. Tenzin Dhargye got three years and six months; Rigtse was sentenced to three years.

Both Monks were among the 250 living at the Barong monastery in Kardze (in Chinese, Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture’s Sershul (Shiqu) county. They had photos of the Dalai Lama on their cell phones and have been in custody for the past two years, a source in Tibet, who requested anonymity for security reasons, told RFA’s Tibetan Service

“In May of this year they both were convicted of committing an act of ‘separatism’ by possessing photos of the Dalai Lama,” the source said. 

“They were both convicted by the People’s Court in Sershul county and no one knows how fair the trial was as their families and relatives were not allowed to see them,” said the source.

“Tibetans are threatened by the Chinese authorities so they do not share or discuss any information about them, so we don’t know about their health or which prison they are detained in.”

More information about them is hard to come by, a Tibetan living in exile who requested anonymity to speak freely told RFA.

“Due to tight restrictions in the region, it is difficult to obtain [records on] arrests made by the Chinese authorities,” the second source said. 

“Since 2021, the Chinese government has been aggressively inspecting each and every home and threatening Tibetans, telling them that possessing photos of the Dalai Lama is as felonious as possessing arms and guns.” 

The Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists around the world, and is a global representative advocating for the protection of Tibetan culture, language and history.

The Dalai Lama fled Tibet into exile in India in the midst of a failed 1959 Tibetan national uprising against China, which sent troops into the formerly independent Himalayan country in 1950.

Displays by Tibetans of the Dalai Lama’s photo, public celebrations of his birthday, and the sharing of his teachings on mobile phones or other social media are often harshly punished.

Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on Tibet and on Tibetan-populated regions of western China, restricting Tibetans’ political activities and peaceful expression of cultural and religious identity, and subjecting Tibetans to imprisonment, torture and extrajudicial killings.

Translated by Tenzin Dickyi. Written in English by Eugene Whong. 

Though staunch communists in Vietnam reflected on Mikhail Gorbachev’s passing on Tuesday by calling him a traitor for causing the USSR’s 1991 collapse, others in the country credited reforms he implemented as the Soviet Union’s last leader with starting Vietnam on its own path to modernization.

Gorbachev, who passed away on Tuesday at age 91, is most remembered for his policies of glasnost, or more transparency in government, and perestroika, the political and economic restructuring meant to kick start the stagnant Soviet economy of the 1980s that eventually led to the end of the Cold War.

Those policies had a ripple effect well beyond Soviet borders, eventually affecting the entire communist world, including Vietnam, sources said.

“In my opinion, what Gorbachev did was to establish peace for the world,” Dinh Kim Phuc, a former history lecturer from Ho Chi Minh City Open University, told RFA’s Vietnamese Service.

“He was one of the historic figures of the 20th century who turned into a new chapter in world history. After 1991, international relations came into a new age — the time of one superpower, multi-powered and multi-centered world orders,” he said.

Dinh Kim Phuc also said that the Soviet Union’s collapse made all other communist countries nervous and forced them to reform.

Gorbachev, during his 1985-1991 tenure, eliminated socialist and Stalinist economic models that eventually transformed Eastern Europe, Le Cong Dinh, a lawyer, told RFA.

“He gave Eastern European and Baltic countries the freedom to choose their own political system, which helped Germans to reunify their country. He withdrew Russian troops from Afghanistan, ended the Cold War and stopped the nuclear weapons race, ending many decades of hostility with the West,” Dinh said.

But communists in Vietnam at the time saw Gorbachev as someone who “betrayed communist ideology, caused the collapse of socialism, and may have even been an agent of the U.S.

“These days, however, such blind and historically unknowledgeable criticism has dwindled and humanity has come to realize it is truly indebted to him for hammering the first nail into the coffin of communism in Europe,” Dinh said.

The collapse of the USSR was not Gorbachev’s fault, but rather that of the cancer that had festered in the country’s “inhumane and unnatural” political regime for many years, Vo Thi Hao, a writer, told RFA. But she said Gorbachev undeniably deserves the credit for causing the fall of socialism. 

The bad reputation among Vietnamese communists needs to change, Nguyen Quang Vinh, a former officer in Vietnam’s military, told RFA.

“Many Vietnamese see him as a traitor who dissolved the Soviet Union. However, many reforms and achievements that Vietnam has made so far can be partly attributed to his work. I think Vietnamese people should have a more open minded and fair view on him,” Vinh said.

Party lines

The Vietnamese Communist Party “hated Gorbachev” by the end of his tenure, a former party member who requested anonymity for security reasons told RFA.

“In Vietnam, there were some people with a conscience wishing to follow Gorbachev to bring in democracy and liberal spirit. Unfortunately, this force was too weak and was cracked down on by the Vietnamese Communist Party,” he said. 

“Moreover, China, the Vietnamese Communist Party’s teacher and boss, has provided it with hundreds of measures to harm and persecute democratic forces,” the former party member told RFA.

Opinions on Gorbachev also differ based on where people live, Tuan Khanh, a musician from Ho Chi Minh City, told RFA.

“People from the South like him very much, but many people in the North hate him,” Khanh said. Communist North Vietnam defeated the anti-communist South and unified the country at the conclusion of the Vietnam War in 1975.

“In the North, there were people who dreamed of a stable, subsidized life under socialism and communist world dominance. But their dreams were broken, and they could not accept the reality,” he said.

Southerners view Gorbachev as a reformer and revolutionary.

Even during Gorbachev’s tenure, the Vietnamese Communist Party viewed Gorbachev as a traitor, because he had asked Vietnam to reform, Tho Nguyen, a Vietnam observer from Germany, told RFA.

“Their viewpoint is that he was a traitor, but even back then there were more modern-minded party members who hoped that his reforms would drive Vietnam along a similar path,” he said.

“His policies forced Vietnam to reform because he took away aid,” said Nguyen. “At that time, the party got angry because he eliminated socialism in the Soviet Union, and took away their support. But, thanks to this, Vietnam had no choice but to take more risks with its own reforms.”

Blurred headlines

News of Gorbachev’s death published in state-owned media included sharp criticism of the former leader, although the accounts were later replaced with more neutral reports.

The Industry and Trade newspaper published a report initially entitled “Mikhail Gorbachev, traitor who caused the Soviet Union to collapse, passes away.” The headline was later changed to “Former Leader of Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev passes away.”

The People’s Army Newspaper translated a report by Russian newspaper Pronedra entitled, “The Soviet Union’s collapse and Mikhail Gorbachev’s role in disintegrating an extensive country.” 

The report describes Gorbachev as the driving force in ending the Soviet Union, claiming he started a five-year plan to dismantle the superpower from 1985. Within days, the report was removed and is now no longer available on the newspaper’s website.

VietnamNet said in a report that Gorbachev was seen as a divisive figure and “his supporters say that he played an important role in ending the Cold War while his opponents accuse him of causing the Soviet Union’s collapse and undermining Moscow’s global prestige and influence.”

Nguyen said that the change to a more neutral tone shows a split between the communist party and the government in general.

“From the Party’s standpoint they are angry with Gorbachev as he caused the collapse of communism. However, the Vietnamese government wanted to be balanced to a certain extent. They did not criticize Gorbachev as much as the Party did within itself,” Nguyen said.

“Gorbachev” was the third most-heavily Google search term in Vietnam on the day of his death.

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

More than 3,000 residents in Kachin state’s Waingmaw township have fled their homes since early July to escape heavy artillery and air strikes from Myanmar junta forces and affiliated militias trying to dislodge an ethnic army fighting there, residents and rebel soldiers said.

The forces backing the ruling junta have attacked Kachin Independence Army (KIA) camps in Waingmaw, Hpakant, Tanai, and Shwegu townships, sources told RFA Burmese.

“We’ve been on the defensive because the military is attacking our areas in a move to expand their territory so that they can deploy the Shwe Min militias,” said KIA spokesman Col. Nawbu.

“The same is happening in the Se Zin area [of Hpakant township], where there were also air strikes,” he said. “We’re seeing more clashes in Kachin state where their militia groups are present.”

Famous for its jade mines, Hpakant is one of the most heavily-armed townships in the state and the scene of frequent clashes between the KIA and Myanmar military. It is close to the border with Sagaing region, where resistance to junta forces is also robust.

Fighting between the two sides intensified on July 10 after the junta army and the Shwe Min militia group attacked a camp near Nam Zaw Ran village in territory controlled by KIA Battalion (3), which comprises Waingmaw township.

The military used heavy artillery and air strikes as it clashed with a combined force of KIA soldiers and anti-regime People’s Defense Force (PDF) units in Se Zin village on Aug. 8 and 9.

The fighting came in response to an attack by KIA and PDFs, who captured a military camp in Se Zin and a pro-junta Shanni Nationalities army camp at a village in Homalin township.

Following the battle, junta soldiers set fire to over 400 houses, forcing more than 2,000 residents to flee.

A villager whose home was destroyed told RFA that the State Administration Council, the formal name of the military regime, has lost support in the area because of the actions of its troops.

“One thing is certain now. Even those who have been supporting the junta to this day have lost their homes and are furious because of these acts,” said the resident who declined to be identified for safety reasons.

“To say it frankly, there are no more ties with this junta,” he said. “As long as these people are there, everyone will be susceptible to these fires. Not only in our region, but in all regions.”

Villagers left homeless said it is not possible for them to return to their communities because armed groups of men are coming and going all the time.

Nearly 120 residents of Waingmaw’s In Wan Kawng village have fled their homes since July following clashes, locals said.

Heavy weaponry is ‘only advantage’

Win Ye Tun, the junta’s spokesman in Kachin state, denied having knowledge about the national army’s offensives there, though he said authorities continue to support civilians from the SeZin area who are fleeing hostilities.

The state government has donated 10 million kyats (U.S. $4,700) for the internally displaced persons and is planning to contribute more funding, he said.

“We are working together with the disaster management team and the social welfare team to continue helping out children, the elderly, pregnant women and disabled people,” he said.

Naing Htoo Aung, secretary of the Ministry of Defense of the parallel National Unity Government, told RFA that heavy weaponry is the main advantage of the junta forces.

“The junta’s current fighting power is dependent on its weapons,” he said. “The morale of its troops is already very weak. Their only advantage is that they can use their weaponry, which they have obtained with the country’s funds. They have only weapons power, which is why they mainly carry out these aerial attacks.”

Military troops and KIA soldiers engaged in at least 13 battles in Kachin state in July alone, with about six of them air strikes, according to the Institute for Strategic and Policy Studies of Myanmar (ISP-Myanmar), a domestic research and policy group.

The institute’s senior research officer, Kyaw Htet Aung, said the attacks may be aimed at cutting off the connections between the KIA and the PDFs.

“They are launching offensives in cities, villages and townships all along the Mandalay and Myitkyina railway line,” he said. “Though I said ‘offensives,’ they are mostly providing supporting fire with heavy weapons and air strikes to gain more control on the ground.”

Junta forces are patrolling KIA supply routes, including rail lines, to cut off the connections between the army and the local PDFs in neighboring Sagaing region, Kyaw Htet Aung said.

Northwestern Myanmar’s Sagaing region has been a hotbed of resistance against the military forces ever since they overthrew the elected government in a February 2021 coup.

There would be more civilian casualties and displaced civilians amid widespread conflicts if the air strikes continued, he added.

From February 2021 until the end of this July, ISP has counted at least 191 battles in Kachin state.

Before the coup, Kachin state had more than 160 internally displaced persons (IDP) camps and nearly 150,000 civilian IDPs, according to Kachin-based organizations that work with displaced residents. Hostilities since then have added over 10,000 more refugees.

Translated by Khin Maung Nyane for RFA Burmese. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Indonesia’s government said Thursday it would tighten supervision at exit points to prevent workers from going to Cambodia with fake job offers, as the number of citizens who have been scammed like this has nearly quadrupled over the last year.

Last month, Cambodian police rescued dozens of Indonesians allegedly being held against their will, tortured, and forced to work long hours with little or no pay, after they were duped into working as cyber scammers in fraudulent investment companies.

Meanwhile, reports have emerged from Cambodia in recent months about migrants from neighboring countries such as Thailand and Vietnam being held against their will by criminal gangs and being forced to work. These include dozens of Vietnamese who reportedly tried to escape from a casino complex in Kandal province in mid-August by jumping into a river.

In the case of Indonesian citizens, many people were being lured to work in Cambodia with the promise of high salaries, Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi told parliament on Thursday.

“There has been a sharp rise in the number of Indonesian victims from a total of 119 in 2021 to 446 from January to August 2022,” Retno said.

She added that Indonesia had managed to repatriate all of the victims this year so far, and in July-August alone brought back 241 citizens who had been victims of fraud and held captive in the Cambodian seaside city of Sihanoukville.

Retno said that her ministry immediately followed up on reports about fraud and human trafficking committed against many Indonesians in Cambodia by going to see the Cambodian foreign minister, the home affairs minister, and the police chief.

“On Aug. 4, we held a meeting with the Cambodian home affairs minister, who also supervises the police and migration issues in Cambodia,” according to Retno.

Meanwhile, Judha Nugraha, who directs the office for the protection of Indonesians overseas at the foreign ministry, said the ministry had planned several measures to tighten the supervision of migrant workers’ departures from the country.

“To prevent more fraud, we have compiled several prevention steps, one of which is to tighten the supervision of migrant workers’ departures, particularly at the border and exit points of international ports and airports,” Judha told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated news service.

Another step planned by the ministry is the dissemination of public education about migration to prevent prospective workers from becoming victims of fraud, he said.

The government, he said, must play an active role in helping safeguard workers from being lured into employment scams abroad.

“The country must be present. From various interviews that we conducted on cases of migrant workers, we found that the majority of Indonesian migrant workers received information from brokers or sponsors, not from the government,” he said.

Public education ‘essential’

Sukamta, a member of parliament who goes by one name, said public education was “indeed essential.”

“If someone is offered a job abroad with a monthly salary of Rp. 5 million, they will immediately take it. They don’t care about who made the offer, what the risks and the procedures are,” Sukamta said in a meeting with Retno.

Another expert on migrant issues said that human traffickers lure their targets with offers of high salaries, which the Indonesian people have not been well educated about.

“The general pattern of migration is usually from less developed countries to the more developed country. Indonesia is economically better than Cambodia. From that fact alone, [such advertisements or offers] are already suspect,” said Yuherina Gusman, a lecturer on migrant issues and international relations at Al Azhar University in Indonesia.

“The salary range for migrant workers in the ASEAN region is still below 5 million. They offer a salary of 9 million to work in Cambodia, which is above the ASEAN average,” said Yuherina, referring to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a regional bloc.

Another MP, Nihayatul Wafiroh, said the government needed to strengthen its inter-agency cooperation.

“There must be strengthened coordination between labor stakeholders,” she told BenarNews.

Judha, of the foreign affairs ministry, spoke of a recent cooperative success story in preventing more than 200 Indonesian migrant workers from traveling to Sihanoukville on Aug. 12.

“They had chartered a flight to Sihanoukville,” Judha said, adding the Indonesian authorities managed to stop the flight from taking off.

“Thanks to the cooperation of various parties, we succeeded in thwarting and arresting the traffickers.”

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.

Three years after Hong Kong riot police attacked train passengers at Prince Edward MTR, at the height of the 2019 protest movement, journalists and activists are having difficulty piecing together a coherent answer to remaining questions, as much of the evidence remains in the hands of the authorities.

Hong Kong residents have repeatedly left flowers outside the subway station to commemorate one or more people whom many believe died when police attacked unarmed train passengers with batons and tear gas on the night of Aug. 31, 2019.

While police and government officials have hit out at ‘malicious rumors’ that someone died, the selective release of stills from surveillance footage from cameras inside the station has done little to assuage public mistrust in the official narrative.

Hong Kong journalist Ka Yan, who stood outside Prince Edward station as police chased away all the journalists, sealing it off for more than 30 hours, said they have only been able to glean a few fragments of evidence about what really went on inside that night.

“The biggest question we can’t answer is what happened in Prince Edward station after all of the reporters were expelled,” Ka told RFA, using a pseudonym. “Why did they lock down the station for 30 hours, and how many trains did the MTR provide that night to pick people up from the station?”

“How many police officers were in the station that night and what did they do? Where did the people who were inside the station go? Were there any serious injuries or medical emergencies?”

“Did the police or anyone else present make a mistake, or do something really awful?”

Normally, people investigating the incident might expect to be able to view CCTV footage from inside the station, as happened in the inquiries into the deaths of student Chow Tsz-lok and Chan Yin-lam, Ka said.

“But not in the case of Aug. 31 at Prince Edward MTR,” Ka said. “There were so many question marks at the time, because every time the government reported the number of injuries, it was a different story.”

“It’s that kind of inaccuracy and ambiguity that has led the public to question the authorities’ claims,” she said.

“In the end, the MTR only released screenshots from CCTV footage, and wouldn’t release the video,” Ka said. “The police and the MTR lost public trust … because they didn’t explain what having, leaving the whole incident an unsolved mystery in people’s minds.”

Independent inquiry

Former pro-democracy district councillor Derek Chu has been trying to launch an independent inquiry into the Prince Edward attacks, but has been hampered at every turn by official stonewalling.

“I still can’t be sure that nobody died that day,” Chu told RFA. “The reason I requested an independent investigation was to clarify this.”

“The government has said all along that nobody died, but won’t let anyone else investigate; just relies on its power to … arrest anyone spreading rumors that somebody died,” he said. “The way they have handled it just fuels public suspicion that there is much more to the story.”

Chu said Aug. 31 was a huge turning point for the way the general public viewed Hong Kong’s police force.

“We always believed that the police were there to protect citizens, but we saw with the events of Aug. 31 [2019] that they … only protected citizens who supported the government,” he said.
 
“One Aug. 31, they sealed off the area and directly attacked citizens … so there was a loss of trust in the police.”

The attacks came a few weeks after gangs of thugs wielding batons and poles believed to be acting on behalf of pro-CCP supporters laid into passengers and passers-by at Yuen Long MTR on July 21, 2019.

According to sociologist Chung Kim-wah, Hong Kong is now getting a taste of China’s “stability maintenance” tactics, that aren’t merely attempts to suppress unrest, but more about terrorising the local population to prevent future unrest.

“They paid people to take part in [pro-government street protests], and participants would all get given meals or gift packages,” Chung told RFA. “During the 2014 Umbrella movement, I understand that they also dispatched groups of supporters in areas like Mong Kok and Causeway Bay.”

“It’s obvious that there are organizations that are involved in beating people up in mainland China, and now they’re using the same methods to maintain stability in Hong Kong,” he said.

Chung, who now lives in the U.K., says he has long been subjected to phone calls from pro-CCP individuals, warning him what not to do.

“I would get summoned by the state security police, or get strange letters and emails,” Chung said. “People from mainland China would call me up saying they were a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.”

“All of that is stability maintenance work.”

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

A Chinese-owned company operating a coal plant in a village in China’s far-western Xinjiang region is paying Uyghur laborers less than their Han Chinese counterparts, according to a Uyghur worker at the plant and local officials.

A Uyghur from Chuluqai village in the town of Ghulja (in Chinese, Yining) recorded an audio complaint against Qinghua Energy Company, where he has worked as a coal miner and maintenance worker since the plant opened there in 2009, saying that he has never received an increase in his monthly salary of 1,500 yuan (U.S. $217) despite working both day and night and while his health deteriorated.

“I am a long-time worker of this factory,” the Uyghur laborer, who did not provide his name, says on the recording. “Whether in coal mining or in other positions, I have done all sorts of work in this factory.”

“I worked for so many years but haven’t earned 5,000 yuan (U.S. $725) [like my Han Chinese counterparts] in my entire work life,” he says. “Now what they pay is only 1,500 yuan a month. We’ve been working night and day, and you can see we only sleep here without leaving our workplace. They give that amount, and it is never enough for our daily needs.”

The Uyghur worker says there has been no improvement in work conditions or his wages during the more than 10 years that he worked at the plant. As a result, he has become increasingly impoverished and has fallen ill, though he did not say whether hard labor was to blame. 

“Now my health has deteriorated and still I try to work hard without abandoning my duties at work,” he says. “We asked them to give us more, but they never did, and we are just accepting what they give. What can we do?”

Since 2017, Chinese authorities have arbitrarily imprisoned an estimated 1.8 million predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in Xinjiang without legal justification in a vast network of internment camps and prisons. They have also coerced many detainees into state or factory jobs where they endure dreadful conditions, according to credible and well-documented reports by human rights groups.

China has angrily denied accusations of forced Uyghur labor and other rights violations in Xinjiang, though the U.S. government and several Western parliaments have declared the abuses amount to genocide or crimes against humanity.

Beijing has claimed that the camps were vocational training and education centers meant to prevent religious extremism and terrorism, and that Uyghurs and others who “graduated” from them have landed jobs in factories or enterprises in the region.

Qinghua Energy, which has about 2,800 office staff and factory workers at the plant, has paid Uyghurs lower wages for the most difficult positions such as mining coal, according to the audio complaint obtained by RFA.

The Uyghur worker initially sent his recorded complaint to a Ghulja-based fanghuiju — a team of officials from different agencies sent out to villages and local communities to safeguard social stability in the region.

A security director who is a Chinese Communist Party official in Chuluqai told RFA that Uyghur workers at the plant usually are paid a monthly salary of about 1,000 yuan (U.S. $145), after hearing the Uyghur worker’s audio complaint. He also praised Qinghua Energy for providing employment opportunities to Uyghurs.

“There are many Uyghurs, including men and women, working at the factory,” said the official who did not give his name. “From our hamlet alone there are over 350 Uyghurs working in that factory right now. They get around 1,000 yuan a month. The ones who work there on a long term basis get 1,500 yuan a month.”

The official also said Han Chinese workers recruited from Ghulja receive monthly salaries of at least 3,000-5,000 yuan (U.S. $435-725), and that Han factory technicians and workers from other Chinese provinces received higher pay as well despite doing the same jobs as their Uyghur counterparts.

The head of the police station in charge of the district where Qinghua Energy is located told RFA that the factory delivers coal to poor local families and said that local Uyghurs perform the most labor-intensive work there, such as cleaning coal dust and moving gas pipes and tanks.

But he dismissed claims that the Han Chinese employed there do the same menial labor as Uyghurs.

“The Chinese who work there are mostly in administrative positions such as accounting and other administrative work,” the police officer told RFA.

When RFA contacted the company for comment, an employee said, “We don’t accept telephone interviews. You have to come to our factory.”

Translated by RFA Uyghur. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.