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Friday, November 6, 2015

The Irrawaddy Magazine

Aid Worker Jailed for Facebook Post Suffers From Ailing Health
China-Taiwan Summit Two Years in Making, As Leaders Eye Legacies
Thai Junta Launches Crackdown on Organized Crime Figures
Tacloban’s Gays Enjoy Spirit of Acceptance after Typhoon Haiyan

Aid Worker Jailed for Facebook Post Suffers From Ailing Health

Posted: 06 Nov 2015 05:34 AM PST

Patrick Khum Jaa Lee has been jailed for more than three weeks over a Facebook post he denies sharing. (Photo: Steve Tickner / The Irrawaddy)

RANGOON — Aid worker Patrick Khum Jaa Lee, who was jailed last month over a Facebook post he disputes sharing, has been denied a request for bail submitted on the grounds of his deteriorating health condition.

After more than three weeks of detention in Rangoon's infamous Insein Prison, Khum Jaa Lee appeared in Hlaing Township court on Friday visibly weak and having lost a considerable amount of weight.

His wife, renowned peace and women's rights activist May Sabe Phyu, said her husband's health has deteriorated and she is concerned that he may suffer a stroke, as he did in June 2014.

The defendant's second request for bail on the grounds of his severe health condition was denied on Friday, and he is set to return to court on Nov. 13.

"The court is not taking any consideration about his health," May Sabe Phyu told The Irrawaddy shortly after the proceedings. "They are denying bail without giving any proper reason, this is my opinion."

His wife said he alerted her of symptoms such as numbness of the hands and legs, high blood pressure and stomach pains.

"These are not good symptoms. Whether the court finds him guilty or not, they shouldn't deny a citizen his rights," she said.

Khum Jaa Lee was arrested on Oct. 14 and charged with defamation under Article 66(d) of the Telecommunications Law, a controversial provision carrying a penalty of up to three years in prison. He has been accused of sharing a photograph on Facebook picturing a man wearing a traditional Kachin garment and stomping on an image of Burma Army chief Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing. Khum Jaa Lee and May Sabe Phyu are both ethnic Kachin.

After his arrest, Khum Jaa Lee was taken to prison and later allowed to see his wife, who told The Irrawaddy at the time that he denied sharing the offending post and was forced to sign a confession.

His arrest was the second in a rash of recent lock-ups related to materials shared on social media. Just days before Khum Jaa Lee was apprehended, Chaw Sandi Tun, a young supporter of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), was arrested and charged with defamation after sharing a digitally altered image likening military uniforms to women's clothing.

She has also been detained since her arrest and could face up to five years in prison under the equally contentious Electronic Transactions Law.

Late last month, the Telecommunications Law was wielded once again, this time against an official from the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP). Than Tun, a senior party member in Irrawaddy Division, was accused of sharing an image of NLD chairwoman Aung San Suu Kyi's face transposed onto the body of a naked woman. He was released on bail early this month.

In a lewd and ludicrous development, a young poet with ties to student activists spent weeks on the run after learning he faced a charge under the Telecommunications Law for sharing a verse on Facebook suggesting that he had a tattoo of the president on his penis. Police tracked down the elusive Maung Saungkha on Thursday, and he remains in custody.

The string of arrests garnered near universal condemnation from rights defenders, foreign governments and even election observers. The US-based Carter Center, which is monitoring the lead-up, conduct and aftermath of a general election to be held on Nov. 8, said in its latest report that the arrest of two civil society actors—a reference to Khum Jaa Lee and Chaw Sandi Tun— "contribute to concerns about the openness of political space," recommending their release.

Amnesty International has also campaigned to free the accused, painting Burma's authorities as "dangerously thin-skinned and vindictive" in the face of criticism. Laura Haigh, Amnesty's senior Burma researcher, told The Irrawaddy on Friday that the group remains concerned about Patrick Khum Jaa Lee and a growing number of other citizens viewed as political prisoners.

"The fact remains that he should never have been arrested and detained in the first place," Haigh said. "Unfortunately he is not the only peaceful activist behind bars—he is among 19 new prisoners of conscience jailed in the last month. All should be released immediately and without conditions."

The post Aid Worker Jailed for Facebook Post Suffers From Ailing Health appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

China-Taiwan Summit Two Years in Making, As Leaders Eye Legacies

Posted: 05 Nov 2015 10:11 PM PST

Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou (L) in Taipei on June 1, 2012, and Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) in Beijing, China, on October 29, 2015. (Photo: Reuters)

BEIJING/TAIPEI — This weekend's historic summit in Singapore between the presidents of China and Taiwan may have surprised many, but the sides first broached the subject about two years ago and the leaders had their legacies very much in mind.

For Chinese President Xi Jinping, the summit may not change the outcome of Taiwan's presidential election in January which the island's main opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is widely expected to win, two sources with ties to the Chinese leadership said. Anti-China sentiment is rising in Taiwan.

But longer term, Xi hopes to cement his place in China's pantheon of great leaders if he is able eventually to lure the self-ruled democratic island, which Beijing claims as its own, back to the fold, the sources said.

"Xi is not thinking about just the present. It's long term," one source told Reuters, requesting anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.

"If Xi could eventually create a framework for reunification, he would be as great as, if not greater than, Deng Xiaoping," added the source, referring to China's late paramount leader who negotiated Hong Kong's 1997 return to Chinese rule.

Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou, who must step down next May due to term limits, has made improving economic links with China a key policy since he took office in 2008.

He has signed landmark business and tourism deals, although there has been no progress in resolving political differences.

However, Ma's popularity rating is abysmal, according to media surveys.

Instead, he could be remembered by posterity for brokering the first meeting between the rivals in decades that eventually paved the way for an end to more than 60 years of hostility, analysts said.

"We want to consolidate the hard-won cross-Strait achievements, including peace, prosperity, and security status quo," said Andrew Hsia, minister of Taiwan's top China policymaker, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC).

"[It] is an important step in promoting the overall institutionalization of the cross-Strait relationship."

Troubled Past

Beijing and Taipei have been diplomatic and military rivals since 1949, when Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists, also known as the Kuomintang (KMT), fled to Taiwan after losing the Chinese civil war to Mao Zedong's Communists on the mainland.

Beijing has since sought to push Taipei into diplomatic isolation, ousting Chiang's Republic of China, Taiwan's formal name, from the United Nations in 1971.

The Communists and the KMT agree there is "one China," but disagree on the interpretation.

The DPP traditionally has favored independence for Taiwan and believes Taiwan's future is for the island's people to decide. Beijing takes that to mean independence.

Trade, investment, and tourism have blossomed, particularly since Ma of the ruling, China-friendly Nationalists took power in 2008. But for China, the civil war is not over as the two sides never signed a ceasefire or peace agreement.

China menaced Taiwan with war games and missile tests in the run-up to the island's first direct presidential elections in 1996.

The summit in Singapore on Saturday came to fruition after two years of negotiations.

It all began in November, 2012 when Ma sent a cable to congratulate Xi after the latter took over as Communist Party and military chief, describing bilateral relations as the "most peaceful and stable in six decades".

Xi wrote back, calling for both sides to "seize [this] historic opportunity and deepen mutual trust," the Chinese sources said.

Then, in July 2013, Xi cabled Ma to congratulate him on his election as chairman of the KMT, or Nationalist Party. Xi called for the sides to "conform to the trend of global development … and ascend a height to look far," the sources said.

In October that year, Xi told Taiwan's envoy to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders' summit in Bali that "long-term political differences between the two sides must be gradually resolved. After all, it cannot be passed on from generation to generation,"

Xi also called for furthering "political" mutual trust. Previous talks focused on "economic" issues.

A breakthrough came in February 2014, when China's ministerial-level Taiwan Affairs Office and its Taiwan counterpart, the MAC, held unprecedented talks in Nanjing, China's capital when the KMT ruled all of China.

"It was a huge concession on our part," a second source with Chinese leadership ties said, referring to talks between the two governments which do not recognize each other.

Where to Meet?

In the past, bilateral talks were party-to-party or between China's semi-official Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits and the island's Straits Exchange Foundation.

The Taiwan Affairs Office and MAC toyed with the idea of a summit between Xi and Ma, but could not agree on the venue and in what capacity the two leaders would meet.

Initially Ma had hoped to attend the APEC summit in Beijing in November 2014, the Chinese sources and MAC's Hsia said. But Beijing rejected this.

"The mainland had reservations about meeting in an international setting," Hsia said.

Singapore came up as a possible venue during the most recent round of talks between the Taiwan Affairs Office and MAC in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou in October, Hsia and the Chinese sources said.

After consultations with their respective bosses, Singapore was chosen as the venue and timed to coincide with Xi's visit to the city-state.

Questions over Timing

The DPP's standard-bearer, Tsai Ing-wen, was skeptical of the timing of the summit, but Hsia said the presidential election was not considered as a factor.

A senior KMT official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Xi had pushed for a breakthrough in ties with Taiwan since coming to power, but with Ma stepping down and the opposition likely to win the election, he had to move now.

"That made Xi even more anxious to meet Ma Ying-jeou now," the KMT source said. "Don't forget the DPP still has Taiwan independence stated clearly in its party program."

Ma's office sought to placate detractors, pledging that no agreements would be signed with Xi and no joint statement would be issued.

In an interview with Reuters in October, Ma said the island was not ready to discuss unification with China.

It was unclear if the summit will help or hurt the KMT's narrow chances of clinging on to the presidency.

Asked if Xi would meet Tsai if she won, the first source with ties to the Chinese leadership said: "Anything is possible. It hinges on what she says and does."

The post China-Taiwan Summit Two Years in Making, As Leaders Eye Legacies appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Thai Junta Launches Crackdown on Organized Crime Figures

Posted: 05 Nov 2015 09:36 PM PST

Confiscated weapons are displayed on a table during a news conference at police headquarters in Bangkok on Oct. 28. (Photo: Jorge Silva / Reuters)

BANGKOK — Thailand’s junta launched on Thursday a crackdown on organized crime, its latest effort to clean up the country and improve the image of the military government as it struggles to get a sluggish economy on track.

Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, ushered in a “clean up Thailand” campaign shortly after he, as army chief, took power from an elected government in a 2014 coup, promising to root out vice and corruption in government and society in general.

This time, he said, the junta was targeting mafia-style crime bosses known as “influential figures”.

“We want people to be able to live their lives normally away from violence and its instigators, including those who use weapons,” said defense ministry spokesman Colonel Kongcheep Tantrawanit.

“We will use laws that target influential figures and ask people to cooperate to help give the state information,” he said, without giving details.

Prayuth has said he wants mafias eradicated in six months. His government has flagged the need to suppress crime, ban weapons and investigate some of Thailand’s infamous nightlife venues.

The military sees itself as the champion of clean government, distinct from venal civilian politicians and their business cronies, although the military itself has long had extensive interests in various sectors of the economy.

Numerous governments, both civilian and military, have vowed to tackle crime and social ills though over the years, invariably with limited success.

The military’s main rival over a decade of turbulent politics, former populist premier Thaksin Shinawatra, launched a tough war on drugs when he was prime minister in the early 2000s, in which several thousand people were killed.

Organized crime bosses often have shadowy political links and the children of some have entered politics.

Critics said the crackdown was another cosmetic, quick-fix campaign at a time when Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy is in the doldrums, with exports and consumption sluggish.

“The junta sees a problem and tries to patch it up quickly,” said a Thai social critic, who declined to be identified out of fear of repercussions.

“This is similar to the trafficking crackdown.”

Police launched a crackdown on human trafficking syndicates in May following the discovery of mass graves along the border with Malaysia believed to contain the bodies of trafficking victims from Burma.

The clampdown triggered a regional migrant crisis because it prompted criminals to abandon boats crammed with thousands of migrants at sea, rather than risk landing on Thai shores.

The post Thai Junta Launches Crackdown on Organized Crime Figures appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Tacloban’s Gays Enjoy Spirit of Acceptance after Typhoon Haiyan

Posted: 05 Nov 2015 09:27 PM PST

Villagers sort their nets in a coastal village in Tacloban city in central Philippines, Nov. 2, 2015, ahead of the second anniversary of Typhoon Haiyan that killed more than 6,000 people in central Philippines. (Photo: Reuters)

TACLOBAN, Philippines — When Filipino hotel manager Jerick Florano used to open Grindr on his smartphone, the same four or five faces always greeted him on the dating app for gay and bisexual men.

There was practically no gay scene in Tacloban, a provincial city of 220,000 people in the Eastern Visayas region of the Philippines, where Florano lives.

"There wasn't much going on, but all that changed when lots of foreigners came to Tacloban to help with the reconstruction after the typhoon," the 27-year-old said, referring to Super Typhoon Haiyan which devastated the city two years ago.

"Suddenly, my Grindr became the United Nations," Florano said in an interview at the trendy city center hotel he has been managing since 2012, when he moved to Tacloban from the capital Manila.

Haiyan was the strongest typhoon ever to make landfall, killing more than 6,300 people, uprooting 4.1 million, and damaging or destroying 90 percent of buildings in Tacloban.

Thousands of aid workers, volunteers, and fellow Filipinos arrived to help with the recovery, and while many have since left, Tacloban's restaurants and bars are still buzzing with foreigners two years after the disaster.

Grindr, which locates other men logged on to the app in the same vicinity, became the tool of choice for those looking for discreet sexual encounters, Florano said.

But it was also used to forge platonic friendships between locals, humanitarian workers, and other visitors, which was probably more significant in changing how gay people expressed themselves, he said.

"Many visitors started to use it just to socialize and hang out with locals, like a sort of relief from dealing with the disaster all the time, and for us it meant all of a sudden there was lots more to do socially."

Florano said that these days he is more likely to find between 20 and 40 men on Grindr, still not a large number but offering him more choice over who to spend his spare time with.

A New Openness

Tacloban's LGBT community has had a public face in Jom Bagulaya, the city's first transgender councilor, but few LGBT people felt accepted before the disaster, said Jonathan Corpus Ong, a lecturer at the University of Leicester in England.

"Spending time with foreign aid workers has helped local gays to become more open and expressive in everyday life," said Corpus Ong, co-author of a study of the relationship between local people and aid workers after Typhoon Haiyan.

LGBT people interviewed for the study did not express a need for specific support after the disaster because of their sexual orientation, but benefited from a new open-mindedness brought on by the aid workers' presence, he said.

"They could finally be themselves in Tacloban as the city shed some of its small-town mentality thanks to the presence of a group of people generally perceived to be more tolerant of sexual minorities," Corpus Ong said.

The benefits appear to have been larger for middle-class professionals than for poor gays struggling to make a living in a region that even before the typhoon was among the poorest in the Philippines, Corpus Ong said.

Unlike those who have felt more accepted and liberated after Haiyan, some working-class gays and transgender people have had to make less welcome changes to their lives, the study found.

"We met low-income femme gay men in hairdressing work who switched jobs to more lucrative macho construction work after Haiyan," Corpus Ong said.

Community Spirit

Florano said the fact that many gays pitched in to help their neighbors after the typhoon may also have contributed to their growing acceptance.

When Typhoon Haiyan struck in the early hours of Nov.8, 2013, Florano was trapped in total darkness in his apartment building, which had been inundated by a massive storm surge brought on by the typhoon.

With water rising above his belly, he managed to escape via a staircase literally at the last minute, an experience he described as the "start of his second life."

"So many people were pushed to their limits because of the typhoon. In situations like that you just think about survival and not whether it's OK or not that the person next to you is gay. You just fight for survival and help other people."

The lasting impact on Tacloban's LGBT community has yet to be measured, said Corpus Ong.

Also, as many international aid agencies wind down their recovery operations next year, it remains to be seen whether the spirit of openness will survive.

The post Tacloban's Gays Enjoy Spirit of Acceptance after Typhoon Haiyan appeared first on The Irrawaddy.