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Category: Americas
Australia and China: Besties again? It’s complicated
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese wrapped up a three-day trip to China Tuesday, calling for the “full resumption of free and unimpeded trade” in a meeting with counterpart Li Qiang. The previous day, he held wide-ranging talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, covering everything from Tasmanian Devils to New Zealand wine, not to mention improving relations with Australia’s largest two-way trading partner in goods and services. In the next step towards mending the previously fraught relations and stabilizing them, Albanese told reporters in Beijing on Tuesday that both sides have agreed on practical steps to advance dialogue in areas of common interests, including climate change, trade and people-to-people links. He also said he raised the plight of detained Australian writer Yang Hengjun – although he provided no details about his possible release – and human rights issues within China, in a move that highlighted the controversial nature of the trip in Australia. It was the first visit to China by an Australian prime minister since 2016, with the two sides visibly making an effort to reframe a relationship marred by disputes on trade, human rights and the COVID-19 pandemic during the tenure of the previous prime minister Scott Morrison. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese delivers his speech at the opening ceremony of 6th China International Import Expo and the Hongqiao International Economic Forum in Shanghai on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2023. Credit: Jin Liwang/Xinhua via AP “It is wise for Labor to ‘stabilize’ the relationship with China,” Han Yang, a former Chinese diplomat turned political commentator, told Radio Free Asia. Albanese has been the leader of the Labor Party since 2019. “Australia is a middle power. It’s not in Australia’s interest to pick a quarrel with China, a superpower and its largest trading partner. ‘Cooperate where we can and disagree where we must’ is the right mantra to approach the relationship,” Yang said. Chinese misjudgment? Yang pointed out that Canberra did not make major strategic concessions, nor was it simply acting on the orders of the U.S. as some pro-China activists have argued. “It’s worth noting that Australia didn’t concede on any national security strategic goals. AUKUS is pushing on,” he said, referring to the trilateral security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States in the Indo-Pacific region. Australia’s ban on Huawei remains, as does its anti-foreign interference law. “What has changed is the tone, and China got the message. “That is why it welcomed Albo with a red carpet,” Yang said, referring to the Australian prime minister’s nickname. “If you look at the foreign ministry read out, it gives significantly more space to Xi’s speech compared to meetings with other second-tier power world leaders.” Another China watcher Gerry Groot, senior lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Adelaide, told RFA that whatever transpired from Albanese’s meetings with the Chinese leaders was driven more by Australia’s own policy than American interests. “It’s Chinese actions and demands in the South China Sea and South Pacific – Australia’s own backyard – which are so alarming to Australian politicians and defense planners,” Groot said. Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visits the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, China, November 6, 2023. Credit: AAP Image/Lukas Coch via Reuters He said he believed that Chinese strategic analysts had miscalculated the effect of weaponizing economic relations with Australia to drive a wedge between the U.S. and Australia or force more concessions, as well as punish the previous Morrison government for its anti-China stance.. “The grudging concessions on some of these sanctions have come about because the cost to China’s reputation internationally was greater than anticipated and the impact on Australia in economic terms was less, while at the same time driving relations with America closer,” he said. Exiles push back Australia’s relationship with China is made more complex by the fact that it is home to probably tens of thousands of exiles from China who have fled due to human rights violations, ethnic or religious oppression, or personal safety. “I think Albo’s China visit is morally corrupt, economically miscalculated and contradictory to Australia‘s national security interests,” exiled Chinese artist Ba Diucao told RFA. “Morally it is unacceptable to keep doing business as normal with a regime like China amid ongoing genocide against millions of Uyghurs and [while it is] supporting Russia’s invasion in multiple ways. “Also, an Australian citizen Yang Hengjun is still in jail as a political hostage in China,” Ba Diucao added. The writer was detained in 2019 while visiting family and charged with espionage. Some Uyghurs and Tibetans living in Australia, such as Ramila Chanisheff, president of the Australian Uyghur Tangritagh Women’s Association, reject any deals with the “devil.” Chanisheff told RFA that she and Tibetan representatives had petitioned against Albanese’s visit to China in Canberra ahead of the trip. “I think it was when we learned that Albanese was taking 400 trade reps [representatives] to China that it hit us the hardest. One Tibetan colleague of mine said she found it triggering,” she said. “Of course, as Australians, we feel shame at what happened to indigenous Australian youth, forced education etc, but now we’re facilitating a massive state that is doing the same in East Turkestan and Tibet.” Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese meets with China’s President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, November 6, 2023. Credit: AAP Image/Lukas Coch via Reuters Groot added, “While PM Albanese is beaming in his photos with CCP General Secretary Xi, we can only hope it is because the Chinese side has decided that more concessions to Australia are needed and perhaps that Yang Hengjun will be released shortly, rather than the grandeur of the occasion.” “In the meantime,” he added. “Gordon Ng [an Australian citizen charged with subversion] languishes in a Hong Kong jail on trumped up retrospective charges also.” Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.
Uyghur artist wins prize at prestigious art exhibit in Italy
Lékim Ibragimov was well into his career as an artist when he visited the Kizil Thousand-Buddha Caves in Xinjiang in the 1990s. It was a seminal experience that would shape his already renowned work and earn him a special commendation at one of the most prestigious exhibitions for contemporary art, the Florence Biennale in Florence, Italy. The series of rock-cut grottoes, each containing murals of Buddha, sometimes surrounded by other figures, date from the 5th to 14th century and sit on cliffs near Kizil township in Aksu prefecture. The caves, reputed to contain the most beautiful murals in Central Asia, were an important medium for Buddhist art at a time when Buddhism prevailed in Xinjiang for more than a thousand years until it was replaced by Islam around the 13th century. Now they are a source of pride and symbol of desired freedom for Uyghurs who live in the region and abroad. Ibragimov, a Uyghur graphic artist and painter who lives in Uzbekistan, explored the regional capital Urumqi and the town of Turpan. But when he went to the caves, the ancient murals and their historical richness deeply moved him. “I was particularly inspired by the Kizil Thousand-Buddha Caves [near] Kucha,” he told Radio Free Asia. “These paintings can’t be found anywhere else in the Turkic world. They are the epitome of Uyghur paintings, encapsulating the history and art of the Uyghurs. I found myself captivated.” One of the five works of Uyghur artist Lékim Ibragimov displayed at the 2023 Florence Biennale contemporary art exhibition in Florence, Italy, October 2023 Credit: Courtesy of Lékim Ibragimov Now 78, Ibragimov said he has dedicated more than 40 years to studying the cave murals and incorporating their style into his work. “Over the years, I introduced these artworks to the world with support from prominent artists who encouraged me to continue,” he said. “Through art, I paved a way for the Uyghur people. I became an academic in Russia, a national-level artist in Uzbekistan, and received many awards. I am delighted to have made this artistic contribution for the Uyghur community.” Cave frescoes Lékim Ibrahim Hakimoghli, as the artist is known among Uyghurs, has incorporated the style and colors of the cave frescoes into his abstract, surreal artwork that combines drawing, painting and calligraphy. His paintings earned him widespread recognition in Russia, Germany and other European countries after the 1990s as well as numerous awards, including the special commendation in the painting category at this year’s Florence Biennale, an event that has been held every two years since 1997. The five pieces Ibragimov presented at the exhibition were among 1,500 works by over 600 artists from 85 countries at the Oct. 14-22 event. Three of his works were of Turkic figures, outlined and accented by muted colors against a light brown background in the style of the frescoes at the Kizil, also known as Bezeklik, Thousand-Buddha Caves. Another one depicting a neighing steed trying to break free of its tether resembles a Chinese ink-and-water painting, while his rendering of an ancestral angel is reminiscent of the style and motifs of Belarussian-French artist Marc Chagall. All the works were created between 2008 and 2020. Piero Celona, the vice president and founder of the Florence Biennale, who is knowledgeable about the cave paintings in Xinjiang, expressed admiration for Ibragimov’s work. “Germany and other European countries have preserved and respected Uyghur culture, and he noticed the similarities [to the cave murals] in my paintings,” Ibragimov told RFA. “He commended my work and emphasized the Uyghur people’s yearning for freedom, predicting a brighter future for them.” Chinese suppression The award comes as the Chinese government is repressing Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples living in Xinjiang and trying to Sinicize the vast northwestern region in part by destroying Uyghur culture. Beijing has denied committing severe human rights violations in the region, despite credible reports, witness accounts and growing condemnation by Uyghur advocacy groups and the international community. One of the five works of Uyghur artist Lékim Ibragimov displayed at the 2023 Florence Biennale contemporary art exhibition in Florence, Italy, October 2023. Credit: Courtesy of Lékim Ibragimov Marwayit Hapiz, a Uyghur painter who lives in Germany and is well-acquainted with Ibragimov’s works, said the inclusion of his paintings in the Florence Biannale was a significant achievement for Uyghur art. “Lékim Ibrahim’s selections for this exhibition were a rare distinction among Turkic ethnicities,” she told RFA. “He is the sole Turkic artist to have earned this recognition.” Hapiz, who first met Ibragimov in Urumqi in 1991, calls him one of the leading artists in the field of contemporary Uyghur fine art, whose works in the style of the cave murals highlight the traditional art of Uyghurs. “I wouldn’t hesitate to call him the foremost artist in Uyghur arts,” Hapiz said. “In Europe, whenever someone inquires about painters of symbolic Silk Road paintings, his name comes up.” “Lékim Ibrahim’s paintings emanate the spirit of Uyghur art from the era of the Uyghur Buddhas,” she said. “Our Uyghur artistic legacy essentially originates from these stone wall paintings.” Narratives Through extensive research, Ibragimov developed a deep understanding of the narratives and tales depicted in the cave wall paintings and incorporated them into his creative spirit, Hapiz said. “He innovatively adapted their expression and aesthetics, establishing a unique method of painting,” she said. Ibragimov has played a pivotal role in introducing Uyghur art to the world, alongside other renowned Uyghur painters Ghazi Ehmet and Abdukirim Nesirdin, she added. “He stands as a distinctive artist from the Silk Road and Asia primarily due to his ability to reflect the ancient paintings,” said Hapiz. Other artists familiar with Ibragimov’s work took to social media to offer their congratulations and praise. The special commendation certificate and medal presented to Uyghur artist Lékim Ibragimov at the 2023 Florence Biennale contemporary art exhibition in Florence, Italy, October 2023. Credit: courtesy of Lékim Ibragimov Gulnaz Tursun, a Uyghur artist from Central Asia, who like Ibragimov, serves as a mentor…
Myanmar junta shutters independent news outlet in Rakhine state
Myanmar junta troops raided and shuttered an independent news outlet in Rakhine state on Sunday, arresting one reporter and a guard, while the rest of the staff went into hiding, relatives of the employees said. Soldiers arrested Htet Aung, the Sittwe-based reporter for Development Media Group, or DMG, and night watchman Soe Win Aung, and no one has had any contact with them yet, they said. DMG was established in 2012 along the Thailand-Myanmar border, but later moved its operations to Rakhine’s capital Sittwe. The news outlet covers armed conflict and human rights violations in the western state that borders Bangladesh. When some family members went to the Sittwe police station where the two were detained, police did not allow them to meet, said Ma Aye Yi, mother of Htet Aung. “When I went there to take lunch [to my son], they told me that [he] had been taken to the military security affairs office for interrogation,” she said. Silencing news outlets The ruling military junta, which seized power in a February 2021 coup, has cracked down on independent media outlets in Myanmar to silence them from reporting about the coup, its violent aftermath, and armed conflict. In 2021, the junta shut down five media outlets that provided independent coverage of the protests against military rule. This year, the regime threatened legal action against Democratic Voice of Burma TV and Mizzima TV, demanding the shuttered independent news broadcasters pay thousands of dollars in transmission fees, VOA reported in July. Soldiers arrested Htet Aung while he was taking news photos at the Wingabar open field in Rakhine’s capital city. Sometime later, about 20 junta troops with police raided DMG’s office and arrested the night watchman. Development Media Group reporter Htet Aung was arrested by Myanmar junta forces in Sittwe, capital of western Myanmar’s Rakhine state, Oct. 29, 2023. Credit: Htet Aung/Facebook The soldiers and police also confiscated cameras, computers and office accessories before sealing the building, DMG news agency officials said. It was a violent suppression of the independent news media, one news agency official said. “We condemn the arresting of journalists and office staff and raiding of the office,” the person said. “It is an act of terrorism. No matter how they suppress us, we will report the truth from the ground as much as we can.” Not the first time Meanwhile, the families of the other workers who fled to safety said they don’t know about their whereabouts. RFA’s calls to the state attorney general, who is the junta’s spokesman for Rakhine state, went unanswered. The State Administration Council, as the junta regime is known, has not yet issued a statement about the raid. This isn’t the first time the military has targeted DMG. In 2019, the military and the military-controlled Home Affairs Ministry under the previous civilian-led government filed a criminal case against DMG editor-in-chief Aung Min Oo for allegedly violating Section 17(2) of the country’s Unlawful Associations Act. The military filed defamation lawsuits under Section 66(d) of the Telecommunications Law against other DMG reporters in 2021. Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
Migration throws Laos’ communist government a lifeline
In a rare moment in the international spotlight, Laos was the topic of two articles published by major world media outlets in early October, although not with the sort of headlines the ruling communist party wanted to read. The BBC ran a piece on October 8 under the banner: “’I feel hopeless’: Living in Laos on the brink”. Days later, the Washington Post went with “China’s promise of prosperity brought Laos debt — and distress”, presumably because the editors thought Laos isn’t interesting enough unless tales of Chinese debt traps are also included. But both gave an accurate sense of the grim situation most Laotians, especially the young, now find themselves in. As the BBC report began: “Confronted with a barren job market, the Vientiane resident holds no hope of finding work at home, and instead aims to become a cleaner or a fruit picker in Australia.” Laotians are leaving the country in droves. My estimate is that around 90,000, perhaps more, will have migrated officially by the end of the year, joining around 51,000 who left last year and the hundreds of thousands who have moved abroad earlier. Laos has had a horrendous last few years. The landlocked Southeast Asian nation didn’t do particularly well during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the early months of 2021, it has had one of the worst inflation rates in Asia, peaking at 41.3 percent in February and still hovering at around 25 percent. The kip, the local currency, is collapsing; it hit an all-time low in mid-September when it was trading in commercial banks at 20,000 to the U.S. dollar, compared to around 8000 (US$44) in 2019. An acquaintance in Vientiane tells me that it used to cost 350,000 kip to fill up his car with diesel in 2019; today, it’s closer to 1.2 million kip (US$58) and the price keeps rising—and bear in mind that the minimum wage is now just 1.6 million kip (US$77), per a tiny increase in October. Another correspondent of mine, a foreigner, says he’s now leaving: “It’s got to the point where I’m just… done!” Motorcyclists line up for gas in Laos amid shortages, May 10, 2022. Credit: RFA The communist government is hopeless in responding, and not even the rare resignation of a prime minister last December has added any vitality to its efforts. Worse, far larger structural problems remain. The national debt, probably around 120 percent of GDP, puts Laos at risk of defaulting every quarter. It cannot continue to borrow so the authorities are jacking up taxation, and because of flagrant corruption, the burden falls more heavily than it should on the poor. Looking ahead, what is the national debt if not a tax deferred on the young and yet-to-be-born? There are not enough teachers in schools and not enough schools for students. Attendance rates have plummeted. Public expenditure on education and health, combined, has fallen from 4.2 percent of GDP in 2017 to just 2.6 percent last year, according to the World Bank’s latest economic update. More than two-thirds of low-income families say they have slashed spending on education and healthcare since the pandemic began, it also found. According to the BBC report, 38.7 percent of 18-to-24-year-olds are not in education, employment or training, by far the highest rate in Southeast Asia. A Laotian youth told me that few people want to waste money on bribes to study at university when they can quickly study Korean and try to get a high-paying factory job in Seoul. In June, an International Labour Organization update gave a summary of the numbers of Laotians leaving by official means, as estimated by the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare: Thailand 2022: 51,501 (29,319 women) 2023, up until 30 June: 42,246 (23,126 women) Malaysia 2022: 469 men Japan 2022: 312 (122 women) 2023, up until 30 June: 289 (120 women) South Korea, long-term (3 years contract) 2022: 796 (194 women) 2023, up until 30 June: 389 (54 women) South Korea, short-term seasonal workers (5 months contract) 2022: 1,356 (598 women) The first thing to note is that this is emigration by official channels. To Japan and South Korea, that official process is arduous and involves a lengthy contract procedure before leaving the country. However, the workers in South Korea can earn in a day what they would earn in a month in Laos. It’s less strenuous getting to Thailand although a considerable number of Laotians emigrate there by unofficial means, hopping across the border and not registering that they’ve left. In 2019, the Thai authorities estimated that there were around 207,000 Lao migrants working legally and 30,000 illegally, but the actual number of legal and illegal workers could have been as high as 300,000. (No one really knows how many Laotians work illegally in Thailand.) Also, consider how many Laotians have left the country so far this year compared to 2022. If we assume that emigration flows keep the same pace in the last six months of 2023 as they did in the first six, around 84,000 Laotians will have officially emigrated to Thailand by the end of this year, up from 51,000 in 2022. In April, a National Assembly delegate castigated the government for the fact that “workers have left factories in Laos for jobs in other countries because the wages paid by factories here are not keeping pace with the rising cost of living…As a result, factories in Laos are facing a labor shortage.” Saving grace? But isn’t this actually a saving grace for the communist Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP), at least in the short term? Much woe betide is made of Laos’ land-locked geography but it is rather convenient to border five countries, four of which are wealthier, if you want to avoid a situation of having disaffected, unemployed or poorly paid youths hanging around doing nothing but getting increasingly angry at their dim prospects. Conventional wisdom holds that authoritarian regimes constrain emigration as it can lead to mass labor shortages, one reason…
Ailing rights lawyer Li Yuhan jailed for 6 ½ years
Chinese authorities have given a six-and-a-half year prison term to human rights lawyer Li Yuhan for “fraud” and “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble” – a charge often used to target peaceful critics of the ruling Communist Party. The Heping District People’s Court in Shenyang, in northeastern China’s Liaoning province, imposed the sentence at a hearing on Oct. 25 amid tight security and a large police presence in the streets outside, a family member told Radio Free Asia on Thursday. Li, who is in her 70s and needs assistance to walk, has spent the past six years in a detention center, so would be freed in April. Still, she said she will appeal the sentence. For her brother, Li Yongsheng, it was the first time he had seen her since her trial two years ago – after which no verdict was rendered. “She has aged significantly,” he said. “Two police officers had to assist her to walk; she was no longer able to walk normally.” He said there are also signs that her long incarceration has taken a toll on Li’s mental state. “Her thinking is confused, and her reactions are slower, and she has muddled logic,” he said. Her brother said the court building was cordoned off on all sides with iron barriers, with dozens of police and security personnel in the area. No passers-by were allowed through, and no other business was conducted in the court that day, he said. Defended rights lawyer Li is widely believed to have been targeted for her defense of prominent rights lawyer Wang Yu, who was among the first people to be detained in a nationwide operation targeting rights lawyers and activists in July 2015. “Another reason is that before her arrest, my sister had been handling other sensitive cases, various complaints and accusations, which had caused a lot of trouble for local governments,” Li Yongsheng said on Thursday. Li is being held in the Shenyang No. 1 Detention Center, where she has reportedly spent some time on hunger strike. Lawyers say China’s police-run detention centers are often overcrowded and lack facilities to ensure adequate medical care for inmates. Li has been hospitalized at least twice and given a number of medications, but applications for medical parole have been denied. A legal expert who asked to remain anonymous for fear of political reprisals told Radio Free Asia that the long delay in Li’s case was likely because the authorities were trying to elicit a “confession” from her, which she has repeatedly refused to give. He said the authorities had to sentence her for at least as long as she has already spent behind bars, but said the April 2024 release date was still a “relatively good outcome” for such a politically sensitive case. “The authorities can’t afford to admit to any error; now that they’ve detained her for that long, they have to sentence her accordingly,” the expert said. She paid ‘a huge price’ Li initially went missing on Oct. 9, 2017, and has been “at risk of torture and other ill-treatment” in the detention center, London-based Amnesty International said at the time. The group called for her immediate release. Li has paid “a huge price” for her defense of individuals unjustly accused of wrongdoing, said Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for China Sarah Brooks. “She should be released immediately and unconditionally, and the multiple allegations of her ill-treatment in detention independently investigated,” Brooks said. “Lawyer Li has been arbitrarily detained for six years [and] should be at home with her family, not in prison for merely doing her job to defend peoples’ human rights,” she added. Li Yongsheng, her brother, said the family has made written complaints over the authorities’ handling of the case, in particular questioning why it was given to the Heping district court in the first place. “Heping district isn’t her place of residence, nor where her household registration is, and it’s not where the alleged ‘crimes’ occurred, either,” he said. “So there are indeed questions about its jurisdiction here.” But he said that despite “brilliant arguments” from Li’s defense team, “we can’t influence this kind of trial.” Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
Junta sentences 7 men to death in Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady region
Myanmar’s military regime sentenced seven men in Ayeyarwady region to death, Pyapon township residents told Radio Free Asia over the weekend. Pyapon District Court issued the sentences on Friday, ordering another seven men to spend up to 55 years in prison in the country’s southern delta. The court found Wunna Tun, San Linn San, Kyaw San Oo, Thura Phyo, Tun Tun Oo and Aung Moe Myint guilty of murder. The junta accused them of killing two women who worked for Pyapon township’s administration department, as well as of being members of local People’s Defense Force, Black Dragon Force Pyapon. On lesser charges, the district judge found Hein Thu Lwin, Win Myat Thein Zaw, Kaung Sithu, Kyaw Ko Ko, Zaw Myint Thu, Kyaw Thura and Ye Zaw Htet guilty under Counter-Terrorism Laws. Their charges included involvement in bombings and other terrorism-related activities. Their sentences ranged from five to 55 years in prison. Authorities took the group to Pathein Prison in the region’s capital and are keeping them isolated, sources close to their families told RFA. “Yesterday, 15 prisoners appeared in court. But one man was able to leave because his order wasn’t correct,” a person close to the court said, asking to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. “Fourteen people were sentenced. The cases are the same. Then they were sent to Pathein Prison. They are being kept in solitary confinement.” But their cases aren’t over yet, he added. Officials are still processing additional charges. The group is one of the largest sentenced to death since the 2021 February coup began. A secret military court in Insein Prison gave seven student activists from Yangon’s Dagon University the death penalty on the same murder charge the Ayeyarwady men face. RFA’s calls to Ayeyarwady region’s junta spokesman Maung Maung Than went unanswered. Pyapon District Court also sentenced three men to death last month on accusations of murder as members of a People’s Defense Force. The judge issued the verdict to Kyaw Moe Lwin and Win Htay, both from Bogale township, as well as Maubin township’s Wai Yan Kyaw on Sept. 29. Four residents from the Ayeyarwady region’s Bogale township, including Zaw Win Tun, Naing Wai Linn, Min Thu Aung and Pyae Sone Phyo, were given the death penalty on Sept. 4 for allegedly killing a local woman. The regime has sentenced a total of 156 people to death since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
Junta razes village in northern Myanmar, opens fire on residents
A man died and eight were injured when troops laid landmines in their village in Sagaing region after raiding it and burning the houses to the ground. Two mines exploded while residents were cleaning up the remains of their houses, one Pyawbwe resident told Radio Free Asia. After the troops left the village, they turned back to shell the survivors. “After they left, we went in and cleared the burnt houses in the village. The two mines planted by the junta soldiers were stepped on and blew up,” said the man who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. “The troops shelled the area that had been blown up, injuring nine people with landmines and heavy artillery. One of them died this morning.” The column trekked from Ye-U township to Tabayin township. Villages along the route were systematically raided and bombarded with heavy artillery, he added. Across the south of Sagaing region, military convoys have carried out brutal attacks, causing thousands to flee their homes in early October. Troops killed one man and arrested 30 on a five-day raid across Shwebo, Khin-U, Pale and Kanbalu townships during the third week of October. On Saturday, villagers found three teenagers beaten and shot to death outside their village in Yinmarbin township. RFA contacted Sagaing region’s ethnic affairs minister and junta spokesperson Sai Naing Naing Kyaw seeking comment on the attack, but he did not reply by time of publication. Nationwide, junta convoys killed eight civilians from Oct. 1 to 17 with airstrikes and heavy artillery, according to data compiled by RFA. Forty-one people were injured. More than 800,000 people have fled their homes in Sagaing region due to the conflict since the military coup, according to the United Nations. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
Blast at Myanmar camp sounded like it came from the ‘world wars’
A farmer who lost his wife, three children and his mother when a bomb was dropped on his Kachin state village earlier this week said the powerful explosion wiped out buildings up to one mile away and sounded like something “used in the world wars.” “Houses built by NGOs and the locals are now left with only iron pillars.” Maran Bauk Lar told Radio Free Asia. “This was a type of bomb that has never been used in Myanmar.” The explosion at the Mung Lai Hkyet internally displaced persons camp at about 11 p.m. on Monday killed 29 people, including 11 children, and left 57 others wounded, relief workers told RFA. The camp is near Lai Zar in the mountainous border area between Kachin state and China. Lai Zar is the headquarters of the Kachin Independence Army, or the KIA, which has fought the Burmese military for decades and controls areas of northern Myanmar. KIA information officer Col. Naw Bu told RFA earlier this week that he believed the junta was targeting the headquarters in the attack. Maran Bauk Lar, whose wife and three children were killed in the Mung Lai Hkyet attack, found their bodies when he returned to the camp. His mother and sister-in-law also were killed. Credit: Provided to RFA Maran Bauk Lar said he was walking to his farm when he heard the explosion. When he returned, he found a deep pit and the remains of his sister-in-law and the other family members. “My mother’s body was completely dismembered, and her skull was broken,” he said. “Only the bones remain. My wife and children were killed under the collapsed building. Our dormitories were completely destroyed. There is nothing left.” ‘Emboldened by the indifference’ The Mung Lai Hkyet camp has 658 residents, many of whom are now suffering from psychological trauma as they recover from the explosion, relief workers said. Survivors have been temporarily relocated to a church in Woichyai, an internally displaced persons camp in Lai Zar. “At the moment, they are sleeping on the floor of the church,” a person helping them said. “They have to start a new life from scratch. They don’t have a single penny in their hands.” Coffins are lined up next to graves as a mass funeral takes place to bury victims of a military strike on the Mung Lai Hkyet camp near the northern Myanmar town of Laiza on Oct. 10, 2023. Credit: AFP The Special Advisory Council for Myanmar, a group of independent experts working to support human rights efforts in the country, urged the United Nations and its member states to hold the junta responsible for the attack. “The Myanmar military is so emboldened by the indifference of the international community in response to its decades of atrocity crimes that it is now attacking camps for internally displaced people,” said Yanghee Lee, a member of the council and a former U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar. “The military is flagrantly massacring the most vulnerable people in society, and yet U.N. entities in Myanmar will not even publicly name the military as the perpetrator,” he said. At the State Department, spokesman Matthew Miller said that the United States was “deeply concerned” by reports of the explosion. “We strongly condemn the military regime’s ongoing attacks that have claimed thousands of lives since the February 2021 coup and continue to exacerbate the region’s most severe humanitarian crisis,” he said on Tuesday. A girl cries next to a grave as a mass funeral takes place to bury victims of the military strike on Mung Lai Hkyet camp near Laiza, Myanmar, on Oct. 10, 2023. Credit: AFP ‘The culture of military dictatorship’ Fighting in the area between junta forces and the KIA has intensified since July. Lately, there have been artillery strikes from the junta almost every day, local residents said. While some residents said they heard a plane just before Monday’s explosion, others told RFA that they heard nothing. The KIA has formed an investigation team to determine what caused the blast, Naw Bu said, adding that it may have been a bomb dropped by a junta-operated drone. “They always target the public, not only in our territory in Kachin state, but across the country,” he said of the junta. “It is the culture of military dictatorship.” A man stands amid debris left by the military strike on the Mung Lai Hkyet camp on Oct. 11, 2023, two days after the assault. Credit: AFP RFA’s calls on Wednesday to Win Ye Tun, the junta’s social affairs minister and spokesman for Kachin state, for comments on the death toll at Mung Lai Hkyet went unanswered. Junta spokesman Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun told RFA that junta troops were not behind the attack on Mung Lai Hkyet. He speculated that it was caused by an accidental explosion at a warehouse where the KIA stores gunpowder. A Mung Lai Hkyet resident told RFA that it was “totally untrue” that there are weapons factories and arsenals in the camp. “There is no arsenal,” he said. “There are only civilians who are displaced persons.” Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
A tamer tomorrow
Legendary Hong Kong movie star Chow Yun-fat told a film festival in South Korea that the Chinese city’s once vibrant cinema has lost its freedom under Beijing’s tightened controls on free speech and expression. Chow, named Asian Filmmaker of the Year at the Busan International Film Festival, is the first prominent figure in the industry to publicly discuss how China’s strict movie censorship requirements have crimped freedom and creativity in the former British colony.
‘Eliticide’ as China jails Uyghur intellectuals to erase culture
Over a fortnight, a Uyghur folklorist missing since 2017 was revealed to be serving a life prison for “separatism,” while another Uyghur scholar who had vanished into Chinese custody years earlier appeared on shortlists and oddsmakers picks for the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize. The cases of ethnographer Rahile Dawut, whose life conviction in December 2018 was uncovered by a U.S. NGO only last month, and economist Ilham Tohti, put away for life on similar charges in 2014, share key similarities that highlight the personal and family tragedies behind China’s relentless assimilation policies in the northwestern Xinjiang region. Both Dawut, who was born in 1966, and the 53-year-old Tohti built their academic careers inside the Chinese system, teaching at prestigious universities and releasing their work through major state publishing houses. The two scholars collaborated with and were respected as authorities by their Chinese and international peers. Uyghur professor Rahile Dawut talks with a man in northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in an undated photo. Photo courtesy of Akide Polat/Freemymom.org Dawut created and directed the Xinjiang University ‘s Minorities Folklore Research Center and wrote dozens of articles in international journals and a number of books on the region and its culture. An economist at the Central University for Nationalities in Beijing, Tohti ran the Uyghur Online website, set up in 2006, which drew attention to the discrimination facing Uyghurs under Beijing’s rule over Xinjiang and its increasingly restrictive religious and language policies. The families of Dawut and Tohti share the common fate of not having heard anything from their jailed loved once since 2017, the year that China’s harsh crackdown in Xinjiang went into overdrive, with the establishment of a network of internment camps for Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other Turkic minorities. “My first reaction was that I couldn’t believe it, I couldn’t believe it at all,” Dawut’s U.S.-based daughter, Akide Polat, told Radio Free Asia last month. “None of my mother’s work, nor the way she went about it, nor anything in her personal life had anything to do with ‘endangering state security,’” she said of the charges on which her mother was convicted. ‘No intellectual resistance’ The Dui Hua Foundation, which revealed Dawut’s life sentence, noted estimates of as many as several hundred Uyghur intellectuals who have been detained, arrested, and imprisoned since 2016. RFA Uyghur has documented scores of disappearances and detentions of Uyghur writers, academics, artists and musicians in recent years. “What we’ve seen inside the Uyghur region of China is what is often termed ‘eliticide,’” said Sean Roberts, a Central Asia expert at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs in Washington, D.C. “There’s a particular focus on the intellectual elites, many of whom were working at state institutions, have been loyal to the state, did not did not present any sort of real resistance. Their only crime was basically maintaining the idea of a Uyghur nation and identity,” he told RFA Uyghur. Akida Polat holds a photo of her mother, imprisoned Uyghur folklore expert Rahile Duwat. Credit: X/@Kuzzat_Altay Roberts said eliticide “is often identified as occurring at the beginning of a genocide, where there’s an attempt to get rid of the entire political, economic and intellectual elite to ensure that there is no intellectual resistance to the erasure of a people and their identity.” In early 2021, after years of cumulative reports on the internment camp system in Xinjiang, the United Nations, the United States, and the legislatures of several European countries, officially branded the treatment of Uyghurs as genocide or crimes against humanity. China has angrily rejected the genocide charges, arguing that the “reeducation camps” were a necessary tool to fight religious extremism and terrorism, in reaction to sporadic terrorist attacks that Uyghurs say are fueled by years of government oppression. Beijing has also waged an information counterattack, with a global media influence campaign that spreads Chinese state media content to countries in Asia and beyond, invites diplomats and journalists from China-friendly countries on staged tours of Xinjiang and promotes pro-China social media influencers. Awareness-raising on genocide Last month, the pushback saw Chinese diplomats pressuring fellow United Nations member states not to attend a panel on human rights abuses in Xinjiang sponsored by a think tank and two rights groups on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York. Tohti, who has been nominated for the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s Peace Prize since 2020, was listed by the U.S. news outlet Time as one of top three favorites to win the medal this year, following Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Tohti was given higher odds on many of London’s famed betting sites of winning the prize than the recipient, jailed Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi. “There are many human rights issues around the world that are equally as important as the suffering that the Uyghurs are going through, but the international status and power of the perpetrators of these human rights abuses aren’t considered equal,” said Jewher Ilham, Tohti’s daughter. “The Chinese government is known to have a much more powerful political and economic influence than the Iranian government in the western world,” she told RFA Uyghur. Jewher Ilham holds a photo of her father, Ilham Tohti, during the Sakharov Prize ceremony at the European Parliament, in Strasbourg, France, Dec. 18, 2019. Credit: AP Photo It is not clear that that China would be moved by a Nobel Prize to release Tohti or moderate policies in Xinjiang, where Communist Party chief Xi Jinping appears to be doubling down on draconian security measures and policies to suppress Uyghur culture. Beijing lashed out at the Nobel Committee and imposed trade sanctions on Norway after the Nobel 2010 went to Chinese dissident writer Liu Xiaobo. With Liu in jail, the Chinese capital Beijing won the right in 2015 to host the Winter Olympics, and Beijing largely shrugged off the global outcry when in 2017, Liu became the first Nobel laureate to die in jail since German journalist and Nazi opponent…
