Author: ASEAN Tribune

Vietnamese police this week arrested a Facebook user for criticizing the government online, posing as medical workers fighting the COVID-19 pandemic in order to gain quick entry to his house, sources said.

Bui Van Thuan, 40, was taken into custody on Aug. 30 by a large number of police officers after police cut power to his house in the Huu Nhan hamlet of Nghi Son town in northern Vietnam’s Thanh Hoa province, Thuan’s wife told RFA on Wednesday.

“The power went off at around 8:15 a.m., and the whole area was blacked out,” Trinh Thi Nhung said. “I then saw three people wearing medical clothes standing at our front gate, and they asked me to let them in to take a statement on our health because we are from another region and only have temporary registration in the area.”

“They said they were in a hurry and urged me to open the door quickly so that they could go to see others, so I invited them to come into the living room,” she said, adding that the disguised officers wanted to know how many people were living in the house and asked to see her husband, who was sleeping.

One of the male officers then asked to use the restroom, Nhung said.

“After I showed him the way to the restroom, he broke into the bedroom and restrained and handcuffed my husband just as he had woken up and was about to come out,” she said.

Thuan was then formally arrested for “using his Facebook account ‘Thuan Van Bui’ to store materials and publications against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam under Article 117 of Vietnam’s Criminal Code,” Nhung said.

Police then carried out a search of the house, handcuffing both Thuan and Nhung and assigning an officer to comfort their daughter, who began crying when she could not find her parents after she woke, Nhung said.

Both knew that Thuan could be arrested at any time, and were not frightened when the moment came, she said.

“Those who raise their voices against what is bad and evil can be arrested at any time,” she said. “I knew that my husband often speaks out about human rights, so I was mentally prepared and am not afraid of any force sent against us.”

“I trust him and still hold my head high,” she said.

Many officers deployed

An unusually large number of police officers, both in uniform and in plain clothes, had been deployed to secure Thuan’s arrest, a nearby farmer who witnessed the incident told RFA.

“While working in the paddy field in front of my house, I saw three or four cars in front of Thuan’s home, and dozens of other cars were parked along the road. Nearly a hundred people surrounded the house, while those who stayed farther away rode motorbikes and didn’t wear uniforms, ” he said.

Thuan had never been affiliated with any political parties or groups, a friend said, speaking to RFA on condition of anonymity. “But because he spoke up so strongly, some people advised him to keep quiet for a while or to escape to another country.”

“However, he always said no,” his friend said, adding that Thuan felt he would lose his legitimacy as a dissident voice if he left. “He said, ‘I’d rather let [the authorities] hate me than have them look down on me.’”

“He raised his voice because he was upset with social injustices, and what made him special was his level of speaking up. Thuan is famous for his so-called ‘dog-fighting bulletins,’ which revealed many hidden stories from the [government’s] inner sanctums.”

In a Sept. 1 report, the Public Security newspaper of Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security said that police searching Thuan’s house had seized “six computers, three iPads, three mobile phones, and many documents and other items related to his criminal work.”

They also left with a jar of lime-flavored honey and a copy of The Handbook for Families of Prisoners, published by Pham Doan Trang, a human rights activist who was arrested by government authorities in October 2020, Nhung said.

“Our family refused to let them take the honey jar, as it had nothing to with their investigation. But the police said that they would take it anyway, and that was that,” said Nhung.

According to the California-based Vietnam Human Rights Network, Vietnam is currently holding around 300 political prisoners in the country’s prisons, jails, and detention centers.

As of 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday, Vietnam has recorded 473,530 cases of COVID-19 infection in the country, according to data tallied by the CDC, WHO, and other sources. Total number of deaths now stands at 11,868.

Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Branches of the People’s Defense Force (PDF) militia from a dozen different regions in Myanmar have formed an alliance to collectively take on the country’s junta, despite each group facing respective offensives since the military seized power seven months ago, members said Wednesday.

The PDF groups, which are mostly based in embattled Sagaing region and Chin state, but are also located in of Mandalay and Magway regions, as well as Kachin and other ethnic states, announced on Aug. 28 that they had allied to bolster their resistance to the military and told RFA’s Myanmar Service they would welcome additional militias into the fold.

“It means a stronger united force through which each group can help the others with whatever is needed,” said a member of the Nhalone-hla Hardcores, a group based in the seat of Mandalay’s Myingyan township.

“Right now, we are 12 in a unified group. If other groups want to join us, our leaders will consult with them and decide whether to accept them or not.”

Myanmar’s military overthrew the democratically elected NLD government on Feb. 1, claiming the party had stolen the country’s November 2020 ballot through voter fraud. The junta has yet to provide evidence of its claims and has violently repressed anti-coup protests, killing at least 1,041 people and arresting 6,107 others, according to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP).

Amid nationwide turmoil, the military has stepped up offensives in remote parts of the country, triggering fierce battles with local PDF militias and some of the dozens of ethnic armies that control large swathes of territory along Myanmar’s periphery.

The alliance of a dozen PDF groups announced over the weekend expands on one formed by the Mindat PDF, which had been engaged in frequent clashes with the junta forces, the Kanpetlet Defense Force (KDF), the Chin National League—comprised of the Falam, Kalay and Kabaw PDFs—and the Zomi Federal Union—comprised of the Tedim and Tunzan PDFs—formed on Aug 24.

A spokesman for the Mindat PDF in Chin state told RFA that there had been several clashes with the junta troops throughout the month of August and said the military’s advantages in ammunition and manpower necessitated the merger.

“The main reason is to be able to help one another in case the whole country revolts against the junta at the same time … We can exchange information among ourselves as well as with the [shadow National Unity Government] NUG,” the spokesman said.

“But most of what we agreed to was our own decision. After several clashes, we were running out of weapons and ammunition while they became more powerful in strength as well as in weaponry. We were also struggling with manpower. The dictatorship will not be overthrown just by winning one or two clashes. We need to be well-prepared in resources and fight together as one.”

PDF groups in Chin state have been fighting with the military since mid-April and in Mindat township clashes took place as recently as Tuesday, a Chinland Defense Force member said.

“Our priority is not to get people hurt. We all have agreed to what we want as our ultimate goal—those in one area should rise up when another area is under pressure. Otherwise, that area might be wiped out,” he said.

“We have to be ready at all times to help other groups as soon as we get information. Though the NUG is the main vehicle that connects us, it would make more sense if our resistance groups came together with the same desire to uproot this dictatorial junta.”

Call to surrender

Reports of the alliance came a day after junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun urged the PDFs to surrender and called on the public to provide information on the groups to assist in shutting them down.

“These are very serious and devastating acts of violence,” he told a press conference in the capital Naypyidaw. “I don’t think any country has ever faced such degrading acts. We want to ask the public to oppose such extremists and terrorists in our nation.”

It also came as Police Chief Kyaw Lin of the junta’s Ministry of Home Affairs warned that legal action has been taken against NUG, Parliament’s Pyidaungsu Hluttaw Committee of Representatives (CRPH), and PDFs under anti-terrorism laws and that arrest warrants were being sent to InterPol’s 194 member countries.

Political analyst Ye Tun, a former member of the Burmese Communist Party (BCP), told RFA Wednesday that no matter how many resistance groups are formed, only a good leader can lead them to victory against the military.

“Only by forming a single army under a unified military commander can the whole nation be victorious,” he said.

“The groups are currently fighting in a loose alliance through guerrilla warfare. They need a strong unified leader to become a formidable force.”

The NUG recently said it will soon announce a date for local PDFs to join in a “D-Day” military strike against the junta.

Likelihood of power transfer

Also on Wednesday, several key political parties expressed doubt about the military regime’s promise that it would hold a new election and transfer power to a civilian government within two years.

On Aug. 27, the junta’s deputy information minister announced during a press conference in Naypyidaw that preparation was “already underway … [to] transfer the power and government authority to the winning party of the new election according to democratic principles.”

However, representatives of the country’s top political parties were quick to dismiss the pledge.

Sai Leik, the general secretary of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD), noted that the junta has reneged on its promises to transfer power to a civilian government in the past and said his party “doesn’t trust them this time either.”

A member of the NLD’s central executive committee who spoke on condition of anonymity told RFA that the junta is working to remove his party from politics altogether and would likely only hold elections if it is guaranteed to win them.

“They will purge the opposition either through [failure to contain] COVID-19, violence, or detention,” the NLD member said.

“They will only allow the candidates they want to participate and create a situation that will guarantee their victory. Only then, they will hold an election.”

Political analyst Ye Htun said that if the military holds an election without the NLD’s participation, the new government will lack the support of the public.

“Without the NLD’s participation, [the military] will never hold a free and fair election,” he said.

“Whichever party wins will have no legitimacy; this is for sure. There are an endless number of instabilities in the country. I think it is the best to allow NLD to participate in the election, instead of disbanding it.”

Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane and Ye Kaung Myint Maung. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

Four years after his arrest on unsubstantiated treason charges, former Cambodian opposition leader Kem Sokha wants to resume the long-suspended trial that has sidelined him from politics, his lawyer said Wednesday, the eve of the anniversary of his 2017 arrest.

Kem Sokha, 68, is in political limbo awaiting the resumption of a trial that has been put off in what analysts say is a government tactic to tie him down through the next election cycle.

His trial opened on Jan. 15, 2020, more than two years after his arrest in a case denounced by his family as a “farce” and considered by the United States as politically motivated. The trial was suspended in March of that year on the pretext of the coronavirus pandemic until 2021, when it was further delayed. 

The acting leader of the banned Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), Sam Rainsy, lives in exile in France and was sentenced in absentia in March to 25 years for attempting to overthrow the government.

Cambodia’s Supreme Court dissolved the CNRP two months after Kem Sokha’s arrest in September 2017, launching a wider crackdown by Prime Minister Hun Sen on the political opposition, NGOs, and the independent media that paved the way for the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) to win all 125 seats in parliament in the country’s July 2018 general election.

Attorney Pheng Heng said Kem Sokha, who maintains his innocence, is living with anxiety because he has been banned from involvement in politics while the Phnom Penh Municipal Court has refused to hold his trial.

“In principle, he has continued to deny the allegations, and he wants to see all charges against him dropped,” Pheng Heng said.

“If it is a political dispute, only politicians can talk to quickly end it. His stand is that he wants to see national reconciliation and not take any Cambodians as enemies,” he said.

The attorney said he has met both formally and informally with the judges to discuss expediting the case, but to no avail.

“Submitting letters for interventions [from the court] is not an answer at this time due to political tension. The court is using the excuse of the COVID-19 [virus pandemic] to delay the hearing,” Pheng Heng said.

RFA could not reach Taing Sunlay, director of the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, for comment on Wednesday.

CPP spokesman Sok Ey San refused to comment on Kem Sokha’s freedom or his possible participation in the next general election in 2023, saying that the CNRP has been dissolved.

He also said that the CPP has no plan to negotiate with the defunct CNRP, which he called a “rebel group.”

“The government is a legitimate government. It can’t negotiate with an outlaw group regardless of circumstances. The individual case is being handled by the court so there is no negotiation,” Sok Ey San said.

Political analyst Meas Ny told RFA that Kem Sokha’s case is a politically motivated one that the court has delayed as “a strategy to weaken [his] influence and ensure the ruling party’s victory.”

“As long as the ruling party does not have the confidence that it will get full support from the people, Kem Sokha’s trial will be delayed until 2023 or 2024,” he said. “If the situation does not improve for the ruling party, then the democratic movement will continue to come under pressure.”

Meas Ny said that court cases against Kem Sokha and the CNRP have plunged Cambodia into a prolonged political crisis and damaged relationships with Western countries, some of which have imposed trade sanctions or visa bans on the country and its officials.

Without a quick political solution, Cambodia will fall into an even deeper crisis, he said.

In early August, former CNRP officials formed new parties to try to restore democracy to Cambodia, after asking Hun Sen to reinstate their political rights by dropping an order banning them from politics for five years that accompanied the court-ordered dissolution of the party.

Reported by RFA’s Khmer Service. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Four men from Vietnam’s Hmong ethnic minority have walked from the capital Hanoi to their remote rural hometown wearing only slip-on sandals after losing their jobs when the city shut down due to the coronavirus, the men told RFA.

Although Vietnam had been one of the 2020 pandemic success, it has been struggling with a fourth wave that began in April. As confirmed cases climb, authorities have instituted and extended temporary lockdowns in the provinces and cities.

The lockdowns have led to unemployment for much of the country’s labor force, and many workers are struggling to survive on their savings.

“We are going home because we ran out of money,” said Giang A Khai, one of the four men making the 250-km (155-mile) trek from the capital to a tiny hamlet in the northern province of Yen Bai, not far from Vietnam’s border with China.

“I called the local authorities to ask for financial support from the Yen Bai government, but they said no, so we have to walk,” Khai told RFA’s Vietnamese service.

The 35-year old Khai and his three companions left Hanoi Monday and Sao A Cho, another member of the group, estimated that it would take three or four more days to walk the remaining 100 kilometers (62 miles) to Yen Bai.

Khai has documented their journey on Facebook. Several posts on his account show the four hiking along the road wearing slip-on sandals, and others show their badly blistered feet. Along the way they had to beg for food and sleep on the roadside.

Another post shows the group on the road at the Yen Bai province border. The most recent post on Khai’s Facebook account contains a video of the four riding in the back of what appears to be a truck and indicates they made it home.

Though the Yen Bai government has no plan in place to help people returning home from provinces and cities in Vietnam’s north, it has announced that it would provide assistance to people returning from areas in the south.

In the south, Ho Chi Minh City has been a hotbed for the fourth wave, with the ministry of health attributing more than 221,000 confirmed cases to the country’s largest city, a little less than half of the country’s total caseload.

A group of people from Yen Bai who live in Ho Chi Minh City set up a group on Facebook to ask for help from their home province. The group has about 2,200 members, with about 60 percent of them saying they can only hold out another week before they run out of money.

The government of Luc Yen, a district in Yen Bai province, recently fined five people returning from Hanoi for “administrative offenses” during the pandemic.

Khai, Cho and their two companions are not the only Yen Bai natives traveling from Hanoi on foot. Several other groups have posted similar stories and pictures on Facebook, saying they also had to sleep on the streets.

RFA attempted to contact authorities in Yen Bai province but they did not respond.

The Hmong number about 1.4 million in Vietnam, a country of 98 million people.

As of Wednesday, Vietnam has confirmed 462,096 coronavirus cases and 11,064 deaths, according to statistics from the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine’s Coronavirus Resource Center.

Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

Police in western China’s Sichuan province have ramped up their enforcement of a ban on photos of exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, arresting a further 53 Tibetans found with the prohibited images in their homes last week, Tibetan sources said.

The arrests in the Dza Wonpo township of Sershul (in Chinese, Shiqu) county in the Kardze (Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture follows the arrests earlier this month of at least 60 other township residents, bringing to over 100 the total number taken into custody during the campaign.

Following a first raid on Aug. 25, Chinese authorities swept through the town, searching every house, a Tibetan living in India told RFA, citing sources in the region.

“They were looking for pictures of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and for any messages that may have been shared on their cell phones with people outside Tibet,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“And from Aug. 25 to Aug. 29, 53 more Tibetans were arrested,” he said.

Almost all of the Tibetans taken into custody in the recent raids were arrested for possessing photos of the Dalai Lama or for sharing messages and information with contacts outside Chinese-controlled areas, while others were arrested for “discussing social issues in the community,” he said.

Four Tibetans—two laymen, a monk, and a woman—arrested in the first raid were released on Tuesday, but their names and other details about them are still unknown, he said.

Monks from Dza Wonpo’s local monastery over the age 18 are now being summoned in batches of 20 each day to report to police authorities to affirm they have never taken part in political activities and will not do so in the future, the source said. Two members of the monastery’s staff have been assigned to check for compliance, the source added.

“Chinese authorities have been harassing and threatening Tibetans, not just in Dza Wonpo but in many other parts of Tibet,” the source said. “And the only reason they do this is to oppress Tibetans and eventually keep the younger Tibetans unaware of their own religious faith, culture, and identity.

‘A real concern’

“The increasing numbers of arrests in Dza Wonpo are a real concern, and it shocked us today to learn that at least another 50 Tibetans were arrested because they have images of the Dalai Lama, “ said John Jones, Campaigns, Policy and Research Manager at London-based Free Tibet.

“It is not the Chinese Communist Party’s business what Tibetans have on their phones or in their homes,” he said. “The CCP should have learned a long time ago that it’s not going to bully Tibetans either into renouncing their loyalty to the Dalai Lama or into giving up their freedom.”

In January, a Dza Wonpo monk named Tenzin Nyima died of injuries inflicted on him by police while he was being held in custody, Jones said, adding, “We don’t want to see that happen again.”

“We want to see a resolution of these confrontations, and that means the CCP really just has to take a step back and listen to what Tibetans want rather than forcing them to come around to its own point of view.”

Already tightly restricted following widespread protests in Tibetan regions in 2008, Dza Wonpo monastery drew increased police scrutiny in 2012 when monks refused to hoist Chinese national flags on the monastery’s roofs, sources told RFA in earlier reports.

Considered a separatist by Chinese leaders, the Dalai Lama fled Tibet into exile in India in the midst of a failed 1959 national uprising against rule by China, which marched into the formerly independent Himalayan country and annexed it by force in 1950.

Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on the region, restricting Tibetans’ political activities and peaceful expression of cultural and religious identity, and subjecting Tibetans to persecution, torture, imprisonment, and extrajudicial killings.

Reported by Pema Ngodup for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Tenzin Dickey. Written in English by Richard Finney.

New details have emerged about the alleged plot to assassinate Myanmar’s ambassador to the United Nations and how the conspiracy to attack this key critic of the nation’s military junta was foiled.

Sources close to the ambassador tell Radio Free Asia that one of the plotters arrested in early August was on a team of security volunteers at Myanmar’s U.N. mission in New York, but was sidelined because he was suspected of intruding into the ambassador’s office. He later confessed to his involvement in the plot to kill Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun.

U.S. authorities revealed the plot on Aug. 6, after they arrested the security volunteer, Phyo Hein Htut, 28, and another suspect, Ye Hein Zaw, 20, who is said to have been an intermediary who sent money from an arms dealer in Thailand to bankroll the attack. The alleged goal was to force Kyaw Moe Tun to step down as Myanmar’s permanent representative to the UN. Both suspects are Myanmar citizens residing in New York.

RFA spoke at length with Thaung Hlaing and Phoe Khwar, who are among Burmese democracy activists living in New York who volunteered to help provide security for the ambassador because of fears for his safety after he spoke out against the military junta that seized power Feb. 1. Phoe Khwar was once a student activist, who served as a bodyguard for Aung San Suu Kyi after her release from house arrest in 1995 – long before she emerged as the nation’s civilian leader.

The ambassador has previously told RFA that he learned of the plot from the Burmese community in New York who have rallied around him since he gave a high profile address Feb. 26 to the U.N. General Assembly, appealing to the international community to end military dictatorship and help restore democracy in Myanmar. The junta has demanded he step down as an ambassador, which he has refused to do.

A U.N. credentials committee is expected to meet to decide about who represents Myanmar at the world body, which opens a new General Assembly session and holds its annual gathering of world leaders in mid-September.

Thaung Hlaing said the Burmese pro-democrats in New York had been concerned that the ambassador could be shut out of his own embassy by the military – the fate of Myanmar’s ambassador to London in April. So they changed locks at Myanmar’s U.N. mission in New York, guarded it day and night, and provided an escort to the ambassador when he traveled outside the mission.

Among the volunteers assigned to guard the building was Phyo Hein Htut who had befriended Phoe Khwar.

Phyo Hein Htut had past associations with Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party. He had participated in the Mother’s House, or Amay Eain, an NLD-run education network. He spoke good English and was part of a delegation from the network that visited China in 2017, according to Myo Yan Naung Thein, an NLD researcher. Phyo Hein Htut had also attended the Yangon School of Political Science.

He departed Myanmar for the United States in September 2019, spent time in San Francisco before coming to New York, his Facebook history shows. He did various casual jobs, and after the coup in Myanmar, he took part in a pro-democracy demonstration in New York on Feb. 12. He also attended an anti-coup protest in front of the White House in Washington, D.C., on May 22, a photo of the event taken by an RFA reporter shows.

But his behavior on the ambassador’s security detail raised suspicions. Thaung Hlaing told RFA that one night Phyo Hein Htut entered the room of the ambassador’s secretary to take pictures.

“We had four guys during the day and four guys during the night taking turns on sentry duty,” Thaung Hlaing said. “Each man slept for three hours at a time. And this guy (Phyo Hein Htut) while on sentry duty went into the room of the ambassador’s secretary, a Filipino woman, and took pictures.”

“Nobody knew about that at first. After two days, the ambassador told Phoe Khwar that his secretary had complained someone had entered the room. I think she was talking about some documents not being in the proper place.”

After that Phyo Hein Htut was not allowed to enter the mission premises.

It would later emerge after the two suspects were charged, that Phyo Hein Htut had been contacted over Facebook and Facetime by the arms dealer in Thailand. According a deposition by an FBI agent, Phyo Hein Htut said the arms dealer had seen a picture of him at the Myanmar mission and had offered him money to hire attackers to kill the ambassador.

Thaung Hlaing identified the arms dealer, who has not been named by U.S. authorities, as a Bangkok-based friend of Phyo Hein Htut’s father. He allegedly appears in a photo at the Myanmar Embassy in Bangkok taken in August 2017. RFA was not able to independently verify the identity of the person named by Thaung Hlaing or trace him to seek comment.

Phyo Hein Htut’s motives for allegedly conspiring in the plot, which he would subsequently reveal to Phoe Khwar and Thaung Hlaing, remain obscure. RFA has sent e-mails to his lawyer for comment, but has received no reply as of Wednesday.

Phyo Hein Htut may have been short of money. A restauranteur in New York who requested anonymity to speak about the suspects who had visited his restaurant, said that a friend of Phyo Hein Htut’s father who had provided him accommodation in New York had kicked him out of the house.

“The young man said he didn’t want to do it but he accepted the money as he needed it,” Thaung Hlaing said of the plot. “And he told me that he had planned to tell us about the plot. We asked him to tell us everything and promised we would try to extricate him from the plot.”

Given the gravity of the alleged conspiracy, the amount of money he got for his role in it seems small. According to the FBI deposition, the other suspect, Ye Hein Zaw transferred $4,000 from the arms dealer to Phyo Hein Htut through a money transfer app as an advance payment on the plot to attack the ambassador. Phyo Hein Htut then requested another $1,000 to finish the job.

And who ordered the plot remains murky. Logic suggests that those who would benefit from forcing the ambassador to step down were supporters of coup leader Gen. Min Aung Hlaing. The junta has denied involvement.

But there are some clues suggesting Phyo Hein Htut and his family had ties to senior figures in the military. A photo provided by Phyo Hein Htut to Thaung Hlaing shows him next to Kyaw Kyaw Naing Tun, a grandson of former junta chief Senior Gen. Than Shwe. The two men used to frequent Yangon nightclubs together, Thaung Hlaing recounted Phyo Hein Htut as saying.

Phyo Hein Htut initially revealed the plot to kill the ambassador to Phoe Khwar. Thaung Hlaing said he subsequently met with Phyo Hein Htut on Aug. 2 and listened in on a phone conversation he had with the arms dealer. They met again in New York’s Central Park with Phoe Khwar, at which point Phyo Hein Htut revealed that hotels had been booked in New York and Westchester for two other alleged plotters who were to arrive from overseas.

At this point, Thaung Hlaing informed ambassador, who alerted U.N. security officials. The FBI questioned Thaung Hlaing that night, and the following day, Aug. 4, Phyo Hein Htut was arrested. Ye Hein Zaw was arrested Aug. 5.

On Aug. 6, Phyo Hein Htut and Ye Hein Zaw were charged with conspiracy to assault and make a violent attack upon a foreign official, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

Translated by Khin Maung Nyane and Ye Kaung Myint Maung.