Day: March 21, 2023

Dang Zalian was out looking for something to feed his goat earlier this month when he stepped on a landmine.

The 25-year-old from Hakha township in northwestern Myanmar’s Chin state sustained serious injuries and is now recuperating in the hospital, said a member of his family who, like other sources interviewed for this story, spoke to RFA Burmese on condition of anonymity.

“It happened only 200 or 300 feet away from his home. He stepped on the mine while looking for goat food, leaving both of his legs injured,” the family member said. “The military troops are stationed on the campus and they’ve buried landmines around the school.”

Now Dang Zalian is worried that both of his legs will have to be amputated.

“Even if his legs aren’t amputated, they’ll never be the same again,” the family member said.

Dang Zalian’s story is an increasingly common one in Chin state, where the Chin Human Rights Organization says at least 11 civilians have been killed and 20 others injured by mines since Myanmar’s military seized power in a February 2021 coup.

The victims, many of whom are young, often lose limbs in the explosions and are disabled for life.

Chin civil society organizations told RFA that at least 37 members of anti-junta Chin Defense Force groups have also been killed by landmines since the coup.

Tragic toll

Dang Zalian is only the latest civilian to be maimed by a landmine in the state since the start of the year.

In February, two residents in Mindat township were seriously injured while traveling to the nearby township of Tilin.

On March 1, 34-year-old Slawm Bu stepped on a mine buried near the monument to Myanmar’s independence in Hakha’s Myo Thit Ward while she was on her way to tend to her farm. The blast destroyed her left leg, which she had to have amputated below the knee.

And on March 13, a man, woman and 17-year-old boy were left seriously injured when the motorcycle they were traveling on set off a mine in Tedin township, along Myanmar’s border with India.

Residents of Chin told RFA that landmines were never an issue prior to the coup. They said that these days, anywhere junta troops are stationed becomes a high risk area, including schools, urban roadsides, and the outskirts and farmland of more rural villages.

No longer feel safe

A resident of Hakha, who declined to be named for security reasons, said that they no longer feel safe when they have to enter the jungle or mountains to cut wood, grow crops or hunt.

“The local media has warned us not to go to places that we shouldn’t, such as where military junta troops are stationed, and not to go into mountains or jungle unless it is absolutely necessary,” the resident said.

“But we can’t live without going into the mountains or the jungle, so some of us have stepped on landmines because of that.”

Other residents told RFA that not only junta troops, but also Chin Defense Force groups, deploy landmines in their conflict. But Chin National Front spokesperson Salai Htet Ni said that Chin revolutionary groups take care “not to harm civilians.”

“Either CNF troops or other local defense forces retrieve the landmines that we plant while fighting the junta forces, when the fighting is over,” he said. “We use the landmines carefully.”

“There has never been any civilian hurt because of us, although there have been times when our own members have been injured in accidents while handling the mines.”

Salai Htet Ni said that civilians “are only injured or killed by the military’s landmines.”

Targeting civilians

The director of the Chin Human Rights Organization, Salai Mang Henlian, told RFA that when the military encounters difficulties in ground operations, they often target civilians with landmines “to scare them and prevent them from supporting the local defense forces.”

“We have uncovered the junta’s systematic planting of landmines to attack civilians when we investigate mine incidents. We consider this a serious human rights violation and a war crime.”

Attempts by RFA to contact Thant Zin, the junta’s social affairs minister and spokesman for Chin state, about allegations that the military had intentionally targeted civilians went unanswered Tuesday. 

However, junta Deputy Information Minister Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun has previously told RFA that “the military does not bury landmines in areas where civilians live.”

Lway Po Myam, who promotes landmine awareness for the ethnic Ta’ang Youth Group, said residents of Chin state need to be better educated about the dangers of the explosives.

“People in other states, such as Kayin, are working on landmine awareness programs for civilians. Shan state is doing that, too,” he said. “They should network with other organizations to provide training to the people in Chin state.”

Lway Po Myam said awareness can spread more effectively by setting up a “training of trainers” program whereby safety instructors can educate a select group of people who will then share what they have learned with others.

According to the data compiled by RFA, at least 218 civilians were killed and 592 others injured by landmines, heavy artillery and airstrikes across Myanmar between August 2022 and the end of January.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said in a report in April 2022 that at least 102 civilians were killed and 288 others injured by landmines and other explosive weapons in Myanmar since the coup. It said that the victims included 133 children and 257 adults – most of whom were residents of Rakhine, Chin, Kayah, Shan, and Sagaing states.

The tally was a 37 percent increase from a year earlier, when UNICEF said that a total of 284 people were killed or injured by landmines and other explosives in the country.

Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

Prime Minister Hun Sen declared that Cambodia does not need foreign aid or preferential trade agreements because its economy is strong enough to survive on its own. 

The remarks, which came at a ceremony Monday to launch the country’s fourth phase of its financial management reform program, which will last from 2023 to 2027, were in response to a European Union resolution. 

It called on Cambodia to release jailed opposition leader Kem Sokha, improve its human rights situation and hold free and fair elections this year – or risk further suspension of its participation in the regional bloc’s “Everything But Arms” scheme, or EBA, which allows Phnom Penh access to the European market without tariffs.

The EU already withdrew about 20 percent of the EBA scheme in 2020, equivalent to about $1.1 billion of the country’s Europe-bound exports. 

Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia since 1985, repeatedly said that Cambodia can still survive without EBA status, but critics told RFA’s Khmer Service that it is an indication that he does not care about Cambodian workers and their rights.

“When Mr. Hun Sen says he does not need EBA status, that means he does not need to respect human rights or women’s rights,” said Mu Sochua, the vice president of the banned Cambodia National Rescue Party, or CNRP, which was the country’s main opposition party prior to its dissolution by the Supreme Court on unsubstantiated claims of election fraud in 2017.

Mu Sochua said that losing EBA status completely would result in catastrophically high unemployment in Cambodia and would disproportionately affect women, who make up the majority of factory employees.

“Not only would factory workers lose their jobs, but also farmers and their families, small food vendors, and grocery stores around the factories, they would all lose their businesses too,” she said, adding that the female workers would then have to look for jobs in the entertainment sector or risk their lives looking for jobs abroad.

Reforms sparked survival

At Monday’s reform launch, Hun Sen also said that after the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979, Cambodia carried out major political and economic reforms under his leadership to restore the country without waiting for any assistance from abroad, and that is the reason it has survived until now.

“In my life, I have encountered countless risks all the time,” he said. “Not only when I risked my neck for the survival of the people by leaving the Khmer Rouge regime, and not only when I risked my neck for peace that UNTAC was not able to attain, but I also risked my neck for reforms when I acquired formal post as the prime minister.”

Following the 1970 coup d’etat that installed Prime Minister Lon Nol as Cambodia’s head of state, Hun Sen joined the Khmer Rouge and fought what he considered to be foreign interference for the next seven years. 

When internal purges in the Khmer Rouge regime started in 1977, Hun Sen fled with many of the soldiers under his command to Vietnam, returning with the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia that defeated the Khmer Rouge. He was installed as deputy prime minister of the Vietnamese backed People’s Republic of Kampuchea in 1979, then in 1985, the national assembly elected him as prime minister.

With the Khmer Rouge still in control of parts of the country, Hun Sen was instrumental in the 1991 Paris Peace Talks that would broker a ceasefire and an end to the Cambodian-Vietnamese War and and brought in the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia, or UNTAC, to keep the peace as the country held elections in 1993.

When the elections favored another party over his Cambodian People’s Party, Hun Sen threatened to secede with seven provinces. It was then that UNTAC and the other party agreed to allow him to serve as second prime minister until 1997, when he led a coup that installed an interim first prime minister until elections the following year where his party was successful enough that it was able to elect him as the country’s lone prime minister, the office he holds today. 

Praise and criticism

Hun Sen on Monday also accused the United States of supporting the 1970 coup and supporting the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime led by Pol Pot. 

He also took the opportunity to praise Vietnam, saying that the presence of Vietnamese troops in Cambodia during the earlier years of his reign not only helped to overthrow and prevent the return of the Khmer Rouge, it also helped Cambodia advance in its political, economic and social relations.   

Social development researcher Meas Ny told RFA that Hun Sen’s remarks reflect the reality of post-war political turmoil in Cambodia. 

However, he said that the current sanctions on Cambodia are a result of Phnom Penh’s lack of respect for human rights and unwillingness to follow the path of democracy in accordance with the principles of international law. 

Meas Ny said that although Cambodia claims to be able to survive without foreign aid, its development and economy may be sluggish compared to other countries in the region.

“At the present, every country needs commercial and economic relations with other countries,” said Meas Ny. “If we lose part of a relationship, it could lead us to an abnormal economic situation and we will be unable to catch up with other countries.”  

Former CNRP lawmaker Oum Sam An dismissed Hun Sen’s claims as overly political fabrications of facts intended to draw votes in this year’s elections, scheduled for July.

He said reforms invoked by the People’s Republic of Kampuchea between 1978 and 1992 focused only on strengthening party power, and because of its adherence to the Marxist-Leninist ideology, it made the country’s economy reliant on the aid of communist allies like Vietnam and the Soviet Union. This made Cambodians suffer from hunger and hardship. 

“If the international community left Cambodia alone and let Cambodians depend on the economic reforms of Hun Sen, our Khmer people would still be living in misery and Cambodia would not have a bustling garment factory industry like today,” said Oum Sam An.  

“The livelihood of Cambodian people would have been the same as it was back in the 1980s.”

Translated by Sok Ry Sum. Written in English by Eugene Whong. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin traded compliments in Moscow at the start of a key state visit that is being closely watched around the world for possible movement on the war in Ukraine. Xi and Putin, both effectively leaders for life, have met around 40 times and are stressing bilateral cooperation. Xi has floated a peace plan for Ukraine, but critics say his visit throws the isolated Putin a lifeline and that a Beijing-brokered ceasefire could allow Russia to rearm for future aggression against its neighbor.

Vietnamese authorities have searched the homes of four flight attendants who say they unknowingly transported illegal synthetic drugs hidden in toothpaste tubes into the Southeast Asian country, Vietnamese state media reported Tuesday.

But authorities did not find any illegal narcotics at the homes of Vietnamese Airlines flight attendants Nguyen Thanh Thuy, Vo Tu Quynh, Tran Thi Thu Nga and Dang Phuong Van, crew members on a plane from Paris that landed in Ho Chi Minh City on March 16, according to The Ho Chi Minh City Law Newspaper. 

The flight attendants were carrying 154 toothpaste tubes containing 11.4 kilograms (25 lbs.) of tablets and white powder, which customs officers Tan Son Nhat International Airport identified as MDMA, commonly referred to as ecstasy, ketamine and cocaine.

They were arrested at the airport, but Ho Chi Minh City police said Tuesday that they have not yet been charged.

The four flight attendants told police they had contacted liaison points in France and Vietnam for the purpose of collecting and delivering the toothpaste tubes. 

Police also said the tubes passed through French customs successfully and that they have summoned one of the alleged contacts for questioning.

After customs officials discovered the synthetic drugs during a security clearance check, the flight attendants said they agreed to transport the toothpaste tubes for an individual who approached them in Paris and paid them more than 10 million dong, or about U.S. $424, as a shipping fee. They also said they did not know the toothpaste tubes contained illicit narcotics.

Ho Chi Minh City police said Thuy and Quynh each carried 31 tubes of MDMA and 2 tubes of ketamine. Nga transported 780 grams of MDMA in her luggage, while Van carried over 2 kilos of MDMA and 2 kilos of ketamine and cocaine. 

A representative from Vietnam’s flagship airlines said the company was working closely with relevant government agencies to investigate the case and hold the perpetrators accountable in accordance with Vietnamese law as well as the airlines’ rules and regulations. 

From Jan. 1 to March 14, customs officials at Tan Son Nhat International Airport detected eight cases of drug trafficking and confiscated nearly 15 kilos (33 lbs.) of various illegal narcotics.

Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Matt Reed.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin held hours of talks in Moscow on Tuesday, vowing a deeper partnership between the two anti-western, nuclear-armed powers in meetings overshadowed by a surprise trip to Ukraine by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

Wearing matching red ties on the second day of a state visit to show Chinese support for Russia in the face of Western sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine, Xi and Putin held a dramatic ceremony in the Kremlin’s ornate St. George’s Hall, meeting on a long red carpet under large national flags.

Russian state news agency TASS reported that their informal meeting had lasted nearly four and a half hours, with a second, formal meeting to be held later Tuesday.

Putin said he and Xi had signed joint statements on plans for economic cooperation and on deepening their partnership, which has grown as Beijing and Moscow increasingly seek a united front against the U.S. and the West. Xi said he invited Putin to visit China later this year for a top-level meeting of China’s One Belt, One Road initiative.

A statement on Ukraine issued late on Tuesday reinforced a clear message of Chinese support for Russia in the conflict, despite Beijing’s assertion of neutrality.

“Russia welcomes China’s readiness to play a positive role in a political-diplomatic settlement of the Ukrainian crisis and the constructive ideas set forth in the document drawn up by the Chinese side,” said the statement, translated by Reuters news agency.

“The Chinese side positively assesses the willingness of the Russian side to make efforts to restart peace talks as soon as possible,” it said without elaborating.

Japan PM in Kyiv

As the Moscow meetings unfolded, Japan’s Kishida, who will chair the Group of Seven summit in May, made his way by train to Kyiv for a meeting with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The Japanese leader also visited Bucha, scene of an alleged massacre last year by Russian forces, and laid a wreath outside a church.

“I really feel great anger at the atrocity upon visiting that very place here,” Kishida said.

Zelenskyy called Kishida “a truly powerful defender of the international order and a longtime friend of Ukraine,” after they met in central Kyiv, according to Reuters.

Kishida’s trip, the first by a post-war Japanese leader to a war zone, showed “two very different European-Pacific partnerships,” U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel tweeted on Tuesday.

“Kishida stands with freedom, and Xi stands with a war criminal,” Emanuel said, referring to an arrest warrant issued Friday by the International Criminal Court, which wants to put Putin on trial for the abductions of thousands of children from Ukraine.

Denying the abduction allegations, Vassily Nebenzia, a top Kremlin envoy to the United Nations, said in a briefing at the U.N. on Monday that Russia took the children because it “wanted to spare them of the danger that military activities may bring,” the Associated Press reported.

Kremlin talking points

The United States and its allies remain wary of Xi’s 12-point peace plan for Ukraine, because it backs major Kremlin talking points and fails to call for the removal of Russian occupying troops from Ukraine’s territory.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday warned against a ceasefire that left the conflict unresolved and would allow Russia to rearm and resume fighting at a time of its choice.

“The world should not be fooled by any tactical move by Russia, supported by China or any other country, to freeze the war on its own terms,” Blinken told reporters in Washington.

Defending China’s proposal from the podium in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin accused Washington of prolonging the conflict. 

“The U.S. should view objectively the efforts of China and the wider world to promote peace talks, rather than hold on to the Cold War mentality, still less be a factor in the protraction and escalation of conflict,” he said. 

“What we call for boils down to supporting talks for peace,” added Wang.

Amid an ongoing shortage of graduate jobs, the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda machine has started telling young people they shouldn’t be too picky about the work they do, even if they hold high-level qualifications from top universities.

A March 16 joint social media post from the Communist Party Youth League and state broadcaster CCTV hit out at growing online complaints from highly qualified graduates about a lack of employment opportunities, as more than 11 million young people graduate this year only to face the prospect of grueling shift work in the gig economy.

The complaints went viral on a recent social media hashtag referencing a scholarly antihero from a story by late revolutionary author Lu Xun after an unnamed graduate complained in a now-deleted post that he was stuck on a scholarly pedestal like Lu Xun’s fictional character Kong Yiji, with no jobs available to suit his qualifications.

The Youth League and CCTV post hit back, saying that “the value of academic qualifications can only be realized when one’s potential is fully explored in creative, practical activities.”

“The reason why Kong Yiji fell into his predicament wasn’t because of his learning, but because he couldn’t let go of the airs of a scholar and was unwilling to change his situation through labor,” the CCTV and Youth League post said.

“The scholar’s long gown can shackle the mind, and temporary difficulties do not equal a lifetime of failure,” it said.

It was picked up in copycat editorials and short videos following the same line, including one short video on Bilibili in which a young woman is shown making deliveries to a home and removing packaging, while musing that having a degree shouldn’t ‘shackle’ the mind.

‘Life for cash’

The propaganda attempt immediately sparked further backlash, however.

“Why is Kong Yiji going viral? Not because young people can’t let go of their airs, but because we produce more than 10 million highly educated college graduates every year, but without job opportunities for them in the current environment,” Weibo user @FengLengMoshi wrote in a comment on the Youth League post.

Some comments supported the government line, but many doubled down on complaints of a lack of good jobs after years of personal investment and sacrifice by themselves and their families to get them a university education.

“If turning screws [menial labor] made enough money to support a family and buy a home and car, I wouldn’t hesitate to do it,” wrote @GloryToKingBukharas. “The problem is that it doesn’t.”

“Workers should be given the remuneration and respect they deserve – we can take off the scholarly gown, but we’re not going to take off our pants as well, which is the respect and remuneration,” wrote @gogoLing0103.

Others cited China’s poor industrial safety record.

“Turning screws can be fatal – you’re just exchanging your life for cash,” @SNM_wind_20093 wrote. “My dad used to transport coal in a power plant, and left due to illness at the age of 44.”

@even_home cited widespread exploitation in blue collar jobs.

“Unless you’re in the big cities, there are a lot of companies that don’t even offer basic social security or weekends,” the user wrote, while @Lin Zhongshanmin quipped sarcastically: “Why not just strip naked and sell ourselves, our skin, our organs!?”

The Youth League and CCTV post gave the example of a young man who had returned to his rural hometown to take up agricultural work, one among a generation of “new farmers.”

Young people told Radio Free Asia that they are unwilling to sacrifice themselves for the government’s attempt to kickstart the economy without relying on export manufacturing to drive growth.

A Chinese student in Germany who gave only the nickname Jacob for fear of reprisals said the government is trying to whitewash the dire situation many highly educated young people find themselves in.

“[Higher education] is similar to a Ponzi scheme, making you struggle to succeed in the wrong environment,” he said. “In the end, you find that all your work has been for nothing.”

“If anyone is unwise enough to believe this, then they will wind up much worse off than before,” Jacob said. “In the end, nobody is going to believe any of this stuff.”

‘Confused and angry’

Germany-based poet Yang Lian said many young people in China feel as if they don’t have a future under Communist Party leader Xi Jinping.

“They no longer see any opportunities, so why wouldn’t they be confused and angry?” Yang said. “It’s going to be impossible for them to keep young people in line by brainwashing them given the current situation.”

He said the authorities should be grateful that young people were only reacting by “lying flat,” an internet buzzword referring to young people’s refusal to fight for jobs, cars, spouses or apartments, as they had done since economic reforms began in the 1980s.

Meanwhile, those who take the plunge into the gig economy are reporting a big drop in earnings, as delivery platforms including Meituan, Dada and SF Express slash rates for food delivery.

“I’ve been doing food delivery for a few months now, and today I’m completely broken for the first time,” a delivery rider who gave only the surname Yu said in a social media video on Sunday.

“Current order volumes are only 25 per hour, and I have made just 100 yuan after … 13 hours’ work,” he said. “That meant 80 yuan after deductions for the vehicle battery and rental.”

China’s National Consumer Price Index rose by 1% year-on-year in February, 1.1 percentage points lower than for the previous month, while the Producer Price Index fell by 1.4% year-on-year, a fall of 0.6 percentage points from the previous month, indicating an ongoing deflationary recession despite attempts by the government to kickstart the economy through consumption.

And there are scant opportunities in manufacturing, even for seasoned industrial workers, amid a widespread slump in orders triggered by three years of stringent lockdowns under Xi Jinping’s zero-COVID policy.

Apple supplier Foxconn has declined to renew the contracts of agencies supplying 8,000 dispatch workers and forced others to resign after just six months of work, according to social media posts from Foxconn workers.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Matt Reed.