UPDATED

Thousands protest in Myanmar to denounce coup, demand Suu Kyi's release



Issued on: 06/02/2021 - 

Protesters hold up the three finger salute during a demonstration against the military coup in Yangon on February 6, 2021. AFP - STR

Text by: NEWS WIRES


Thousands of people took to the streets of Yangon on Saturday to denounce this week's coup and demand the release of elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, in the first such demonstration since the generals seized power.


"Military dictator, fail, fail; Democracy, win, win," protesters chanted, calling for the military to free Nobel Peace laureate Suu Kyi and other leaders of her National League for Democracy (NLD) who have been detained since the coup on Monday.

"Against military dictatorship" read the banner at the front of the march. Many protesters dressed in the NLD's red colour and some carried red flags.

Myanmar's junta has tried to silence dissent by temporarily blocking Facebook and extended the social media crackdown to Twitter and Instagram on Saturday in the face of the growing protest movement.

Authorities ordered internet providers to deny access to Twitter and Instagram "until further notice", said Norwegian mobile phone company Telenor Asa.

Demand for VPNs has soared in Myanmar, allowing some people to evade the ban, but users reported more general disruption to mobile data services, which most people in the country of 53 million rely on for news and communications.

"We lost freedom, justice and urgently need democracy," wrote one Twitter user. "Please hear the voice of Myanmar."

Army chief Min Aung Hlaing seized power alleging fraud in a Nov. 8 election that the NLD won in a landslide. The electoral commission dismissed the army's accusations.

The junta announced a one-year state of emergency and has promised to hand over power after new elections, without giving a timeframe.

The takeover drew international condemnation with a United Nations Security Council call for the release of all detainees and targeted sanctions under consideration by Washington.

Suu Kyi, 75, has not been seen in public since the coup. She spent some 15 years under house arrest during a struggle against previous juntas before the troubled democratic transition began in 2011.

The lawyer for Suu Kyi and ousted President Win Myint said they were being held in their homes and that he was unable to meet them because they were still being questioned. Suu Kyi faces charges of importing six walkie-talkies illegally while Win Myint is accused of flouting coronavirus restrictions.

"Of course, we want unconditional release as they have not broken the law," said Khin Maung Zaw, the veteran lawyer who is representing both of them.

Sean Turnell, an Australian economic adviser to Suu Kyi, said in message to Reuters on Saturday he was being detained.

"I guess you will soon hear of it, but I am being detained," he said. "Being charged with something, but not sure what. I am fine and strong, and not guilty of anything," he said, with a smile emoji.

It was not subsequently possible to contact him.

Saturday's protest is the first sign of street unrest in a country with a history of bloody crackdowns on protesters. There were also anti-coup protests in Melbourne, Australia, and the Taiwanese capital Taipei on Saturday.

A civil disobedience movement has been building in Myanmar all week, with doctors and teachers among those refusing to work, and every night people bang pots and pans in a show of anger.

In addition to about 150 arrests in the wake of the coup reported by human rights groups, local media said around 30 people have been detained over the noise protests.

International pressure

The United States is considering targeted sanctions on individuals and on entities controlled by Myanmar's military.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken pressed top Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi in a phone call on Friday to condemn the coup, the State Department said.

China, which has close links to Myanmar's military, joined the consensus on the Security Council statement but has not condemned the army takeover and has said countries should act in the interests of the stability of its neighbour Myanmar.

U.N. Myanmar envoy Christine Schraner Burgener strongly condemned the coup in a call with Myanmar's deputy military chief Soe Win, and called for the immediate release of all those detained, a U.N. spokesman said.

The generals have few overseas interests that would be vulnerable to international sanctions, but the military's extensive business investments could suffer if foreign partners leave - as Japanese drinks company Kirin Holdings said it would on Friday.

Telenor, another company attracted to invest by Myanmar's decade of opening, said it was legally obliged to follow the order to block some social media, but "highlighted the directive’s contradiction with international human rights law."

U.S. based pressure group Human Rights Watch called for the lifting of the internet restrictions, the release of detainees and an end to threats against journalists.

"A news and information blackout by the coup leaders can’t hide their politically motivated arrests and other abuses," said Asia director Brad Adams.

(REUTERS)

Myanmar broadens social media crackdown as anti-coup protests grow

Issued on: 06/02/2021 -

Anger has grown in Myanmar since the coup that overthrew 

the country's civilian leaders this week YE AUNG THU AFP

Yangon (AFP)

Myanmar's military rulers have broadened a crackdown on social media in a bid to stifle growing signs of popular dissent, as a UN envoy made direct contact with the new regime to pressure it into reversing this week's coup.

Twitter confirmed on Saturday it had become the latest platform blocked by the junta, following a surge of new users seeking to circumvent blocks on Facebook and other internet domains.

The move "undermines the public conversation and the rights of people to make their voices heard," a Twitter spokesperson told AFP.

The dawn arrests of de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other senior leaders this week brought a sudden halt to Myanmar's brief 10-year experiment with democracy, and catalysed an outpouring of fury that has migrated from social media to the streets.

Online calls to protest the army takeover have prompted increasingly bold displays of defiance against the new regime including the nightly deafening clamour of people around the country banging pots and pans -- a practice traditionally associated with driving out evil.

Friday saw one of the largest concentrated shows of public dissent within the country so far from around 200 teachers and university students.

The group sang a popular revolutionary song and displayed the three-finger salute borrowed from Thailand's democracy movements, mirroring similar rallies elsewhere in the country.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said a special envoy to the country had made "first contact" with Myanmar's deputy military commander to urge the junta to relinquish power to the civilian government it toppled.

"We will do everything we can to make the international community united in making sure that conditions are created for this coup to be reversed," he told reporters on Friday.

State media in Myanmar reported Saturday that junta figures had spoken with diplomats the previous day to respond to an international outcry and asked them to work with the new leaders.

"The Government understand the concerns of the international community on the continuation of Myanmar's democratic transition process," International Cooperation Minister Ko Ko Hlaing said in the meeting, according to the report.

- 'Freedom from fear' -

As protests gathered steam this week, the junta ordered telecom networks to freeze users out of access to Facebook, an extremely popular service in the country and arguably its main mode of communication.

The platform had hosted a rapidly growing "Civil Disobedience Movement" forum that had inspired civil servants, healthcare professionals, and teachers to show their dissent by boycotting their jobs in civil service and hospitals.

The military widened its efforts to stifle dissent on Friday when it demanded new blocks on other social media services.

Norway-based Telenor said its local phone company had been instructed to cut access to the platform late on Friday, adding it had "challenged the necessity" of the directive.

An apparent ministry document ordering the blockade -- seen by AFP but not verified -- said Twitter and Instagram were being used to "cause misunderstanding among the public".

Some internet-savvy users have managed to circumvent the social media block by using VPN services.

By Saturday morning, trending hashtags like #WeNeedDemocracy, #HeartheVoiceofMyanmar and "Freedom from fear" -- the latter a famed Suu Kyi quote -- had millions of mentions.

An immensely popular figure despite a tarnished reputation in the West, Suu Kyi has not been seen in public since the coup, but a party spokesman said Friday she was under house arrest and "in good health".

Japanese beer giant Kirin -- long under scrutiny over its ties to Myanmar's army-owned breweries -- said Friday it was terminating a joint venture with a military-owned conglomerate.

Protests break out in Myanmar in defiance of military coup

Pro-democracy protests broke out in Myanmar's largest city on Saturday, with thousands of people taking to the streets of Yangon in the first major organized demonstration since the military seized power in a coup earlier this week   

.

© STR/AFP/Getty Images

Protesters hold up the three finger salute during a demonstration in Yangon on February 6.

The crowd, many of whom could be seen waiving flags and holding banners, called for the military to release recently deposed civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and other democratically-elected lawmakers, who were detained in pre-dawn raids Monday.

Chants of "We demand democracy" could be heard coming from the crowd as they marched close to downtown Yangon, prompting the government to impose an internet blackout.

Dozens of police, some in riot gear, had initially attempted to block the protest route, forcing the crowd to change direction.

During the earlier large-scale march, passers-by could be seen giving the three-finger salute of opposition to army rule, in apparent solidarity with those demonstrating. Others were seen applauding and handing out water to both protesters and police in what one witness described as a way of defusing tension.

© Lynn Bo Bp/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock Protesters in Yangon Myanmar, on February 6.

Witnesses described the crowd as expanding in size, before appearing to disperse after several hours. But a number of smaller, scattered protests remained ongoing including one at Yangon University, where several hundred mostly young people gathered and continued to chant.

© Lynn Bo Bp/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock 

Protesters flash the three-finger salute during a demonstration

 against the military coup in Yangon, Myanmar, February 6.

Resistance to the coup had initially proved limited, due in part to widespread communications difficulties, as well as fears of a further crackdown.

Internet monitoring service NetBlocks said Saturday that the country was in the midst of a second "national-scale" internet blackout as the military attempted to secure its grip on power.

According to NetBlocks, real-time network data showed connectivity had fallen to 54% of ordinary levels and users had reported difficultly getting online.

The Myanmar Ministry of Transport and Communications (MoTC) ordered the nationwide shutdown of the data network on Saturday, according to Norwegian telecommunications company Telenor Group, which runs Telenor Myanmar.

The group, writing on Twitter, said the ministry cited "Myanmar's Telecommunication Law, and references circulation of fake news, stability of the nation and interest of the public as basis for the order."

While voice calls and SMS remain operational, Telenor Group said it was deeply concerned by the internet shutdown, but said Telenor Myanmar is a local company and is therefore "bound by local law and needs to handle this irregular and difficult situation."

"We deeply regret the impact the shutdown has on the people in Myanmar," Telenor said.

Witnesses told CNN that internet connection has been intermittent on Saturday, though some people were still able to stream video from the march in Yangon on social media platforms.

The fall in connectivity follows moves to block access to social media platforms Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, as well as a number of prominent local news outlets.

Sudden seizure of power

For more than 50 years, Myanmar -- also known as Burma -- was run by successive isolationist military regimes that plunged the country into poverty and brutally stifled any dissent. Thousands of critics, activists, journalists, academics and artists were routinely jailed and tortured during that time.

Recently deposed civilian leader Suu Kyi shot to international prominence during her decades-long struggle against military rule. When her party, the NLD, won a landslide in elections in 2015 and formed the first civilian government, many pro-democracy supporters hoped it would mark a break from the military rule of the past and offer hope that Myanmar would continue to reform.

The NLD was widely reported to have won another decisive victory in a November 2020 general election, giving it another five years in power and dashing hopes for some military figures that an opposition party they had backed might take power democratically.

The sudden seizure of power came as the new parliament was due to open and after months of increasing friction between the civilian government and the powerful military, known as the Tatmadaw, over alleged election irregularities. The country's election commission has repeatedly denied mass voter fraud took place.

Hundreds of NLD lawmakers were detained in the capital Naypyitaw Monday, where they had traveled to take up their seats. The junta has since removed 24 ministers and deputies from government and named 11 of its own allies as replacements who will assume their roles in a new administration.

Analysts have suggested the coup was more likely to do with the military attempting to reassert its power and the personal ambition of army chief Min Aung Hlaing, who was set to step down this year, rather than serious claims of voter fraud.

"Facing mandatory retirement in a few months, with no route to a civilian leadership role, and amid global calls for him to face criminal charges in The Hague, he was cornered," Jared Genser, an international human rights lawyer who previously served as pro bono counsel to Suu Kyi, wrote for CNN this week.

Monday's coup has been widely condemned internationally, with the United States calling on Myanmar's military leaders to "immediately relinquish the power they have seized, release the activists and officials they have detained, lift all telecommunications restrictions, and refrain from violence against civilians."

UN wants to 'make sure' Myanmar coup fails: Guterres

Issued on: 04/02/2021 - 

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, shown here in February 2020, said events in Myanmar were 'absolutely unacceptable'   MICHAEL TEWELDE AFP/File

United Nations (United States) (AFP)

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Wednesday he would do everything in his power to pressure Myanmar and "make sure that this coup fails."

Myanmar plunged back into direct military rule on Monday when soldiers detained de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other civilian leaders in a series of dawn raids, ending the country's brief experiment with democracy.

"We will do everything we can to mobilize all the key actors and international community to put enough pressure on Myanmar to make sure that this coup fails," Guterres said in a conversation with The Washington Post.

"After elections that I believe took place normally and after a large period of transition, it's absolutely unacceptable to reverse the results of the elections and the will of the people."

When asked about the indictment of Suu Kyi, 75, Guterres said that "if we can accuse her of something, (it) is that she was too close to the military, is that she protected too much the military.

"I hope that democracy will be able to make progress again in Myanmar but for that all the prisoners must be released, the constitutional order must be reestablished," he added.

The UN chief also lamented that the Security Council has been unable to agree on a common statement about Myanmar's coup, after an emergency meeting initiated by Britain.

According to a draft text proposed at the beginning of the week for negotiation and obtained by AFP, the Security Council would express its deep concern over and condemn the coup, and would demand the military "immediately release those unlawfully detained."

The Council would also demand that the one-year state of emergency be repealed.

As of Wednesday evening, according to diplomats, negotiations were continuing between the 15 Council members, particularly with China and Russia, which on Tuesday blocked the statement's adoption.

Myanmar coup stokes fear among Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh

The military coup in Myanmar has drawn condemnation from Rohingya refugees living in camps in Bangladesh. Many of them are now more fearful to return to their homeland, but some remain hopeful.


A Rohingya man at the Nayapara refugee camp in Cox's Bazar

In the world's largest refugee camp in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar district, Aung San Suu Kyi has always been a hot topic. The most famous Myanmar leader, who was recently arrested by the nation's military after it ousted the civilian government in a coup, has never addressed the community as her people.

In fact, about 750,000 Rohingya Muslims had to flee to neighboring Bangladesh in 2017 when Myanmar's military launched a counterinsurgency operation, involving mass rape, murders and the torching of villages. Suu Kyi, who served as state counselor from 2016 until her ouster this week, failed to condemn the military operation, which was described by the United Nations as a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing."

In 2019, when The Gambia lodged a lawsuit against Myanmar before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) seeking to prevent a genocide of the Rohingya minority, Suu Kyi personally appeared at The Hague-based court and rejected the genocide claims, warning the UN judges that allowing the case to go ahead risked reigniting the crisis and could "undermine reconciliation."

AUNG SAN SUU KYI: FROM FREEDOM FIGHTER TO PARIAH
Darling of democracy
Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of Myanmar's assassinated founding father Aung San, returned to her home country in the late 1980s after studying and starting a family in England. She became a key figure in the 1988 uprisings against the country's military dictatorship. Her National League for Democracy (NLD) was victorious in 1990 elections, but the government refused to honor the vote.  PHOTOS 123456789

A blow to repatriation efforts?

Now that the military is in complete control of Myanmar after the coup, Rohingya refugees said they are even more afraid. Abdul Jabbar, a Rohingya living in the overcrowded camp, told DW that the coup and Suu Kyi's arrest could make it more challenging for people like him to return home.

"Suu Kyi's recent remarks concerning us sounded softer than in the past. But, as she has been arrested now, I think our return home will be delayed even further," the 80-year-old refugee told DW, adding: "Myanmar's military doesn't want to take us back."

Mostofa Kamal, a Rohingya leader at the camp, voiced a similar opinion. He sees a connection between the coup and the recent Rohingya repatriation deal between Myanmar and Bangladesh.

Officials from both countries met last month to discuss ways to start the repatriations, with Bangladesh's Foreign Ministry seeming more hopeful of success, and officials saying they expect to begin sometime in June.

"The military coup has taken place at a time when both Bangladesh and Myanmar agreed to start the repatriation. I think the military has taken it into consideration and made the country politically unstable to stop it," he told DW. "As Myanmar's situation is volatile now, no one will talk about sending us back there," he stressed.

Watch video02:19 Myanmar military takes control, world mulls response

Densely populated camps

Although the largest Rohingya exodus from Myanmar took place in 2017, Bangladesh has been hosting refugees from the community ever since the 1970s.

Most of the 1 million or so Rohingya in Bangladesh now live in five camps that cover an area equivalent to a third of Manhattan. Over 700,000 live in the world's largest and most densely populated refugee camp, Kutupalong, an area of just 13 square kilometers.

About half of the refugees are children, and there are more women in the camps than men. Most of them live in shelters made of bamboo and plastic sheets, and they are not allowed to work and cannot leave the camps without the permission of the government.

In the past, some refugees managed to return to Myanmar. But recent attempts at repatriation under a joint agreement proved unsuccessful as the Rohingya refused to go, fearing violence in a country that doesn't recognize them as citizens and denies fundamental rights.


INSIDE BANGLADESH'S ISOLATED 'ROHINGYA ISLAND'
Far from the mainland
Bhasan Char, which means "floating island" in Bengali language, emerged less than 20 years ago in the Bay of Bengal. The island is located 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) away from mainland Bangladesh. The government of the Muslim-majority country plans to relocate some 100,000 Rohingya refugees to this island from overcrowded Cox's Bazar refugee camps.
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'Maximum pressure is necessary'

Imtiaz Ahmed, a professor of international relations at the University of Dhaka, believes that the coup in Myanmar won't hamper the repatriation. "The repatriation agreement was made between two countries, not between two individuals. So, despite any change in the government, a country is bound by the terms of such an agreement," he told DW.

Ahmed pointed out that two major Rohingya repatriations took place in the 1970s and 1990s under a military government.

"It's the military government that has initiated the repatriations in the past, not when Aung San Suu Kyi was in power," Ahmed said, adding: "Same thing could happen now if the military wants to ease some international pressure by taking back the refugees."

Nay San Lwin, co-founder of the Free Rohingya Coalition, also shares a similar view, arguing that renewed international pressure could make a difference.

"Maximum pressure from the international community is necessary to not delay repatriation. Our rights to return to the original villages we came from, full citizenship of Myanmar and the protection must be ensured in the process," he told DW.


ROHINGYA IN BANGLADESH RESIST REPATRIATION ATTEMPT
One million people live in Bangladesh refugee camps
More than a million Rohingya Muslims live in refugee camps in the Cox's Bazar district of Bangladesh. The poor South Asian country has struggled to deal with the humanitarian crisis, and living conditions in the refugee camps are dire. UN agencies say they have received only a fraction of the billions of dollars of aid money needed to run their operations in the area.
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Fear of more repression

But in the camp, some refugees are afraid to return to a country that is under a military regime.

"The military killed us, raped our sisters and mothers, torched our villages. How is it possible for us to stay safe under their control?" asked Khin Maung, head of the Rohingya Youth Association in Cox's Bazar. "Any peaceful repatriation will hugely be impacted. It will take a long time because the political situation in Myanmar is worse now," he told The Associated Press.

Meanwhile, the United Nations fears the coup will worsen the situation for hundreds of thousands of Rohingya living in Myanmar's Rakhine state.

"There are about 600,000 Rohingya those that remain in Rakhine State, including 120,000 people who are effectively confined to camps, they cannot move freely and have extremely limited access to basic health and education services," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters.

"So our fear is that the events may make the situation worse for them," he said.


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Aung San Suu Kyi, the rise and fall of an icon turned pariah on the world stage


Issued on: 02/02/2021 

An image of Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi.

 © AFP/File

Text by: Romain BRUNET

The Myanmar army’s detention of de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Monday marks the fall of an icon whose story has been marked by the country's highs and lows, both at home and abroad. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate rose to lead Myanmar in 2015 after spending the better part of two decades under house arrest. But Suu Kyi's standing abroad was gravely damaged by her handling of the Rohingya crisis.

Suu Kyi – who has been compared to Nelson Mandela, Gandhi and Martin Luther King – took up her country's struggle for democracy in 1988 during a popular uprising against decades of military rule. She soon earned international renown, winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 while under house arrest, where she would remain for a total of 15 years before finally rising to power in Myanmar in 2016.

Her dramatic story earned admiration far and wide. French director Luc Besson's feature biopic "The Lady" brought Suu Kyi's epic tale to the silver screen in 2011, a year before she gained her release and began writing a new chapter in her country's history.

But that foreign adulation wouldn't last. Once in power in Myanmar, Suu Kyi's conspicuous refusal to act in defence of the Rohingya community baffled the international community that had once sung her praises. Although Suu Kyi remained popular inside Myanmar, she became persona non grata on the world stage. And now, at 75, she is once again a political prisoner.


03:48

Sensing a putsch in the offing in recent days, Suu Kyi took on the familiar role of the resistance fighter anew, issuing a pre-emptive call the day of her arrest for the people of Myanmar "not to accept a coup" and saying an army takeover would put the country "back under a dictatorship".

"I urge people not to accept this, to respond wholeheartedly to protest against the coup by the military," the statement attributed to Suu Kyi said, posted to the Facebook page of her National League for Democracy party.

A fateful turn

Suu Kyi's detention is the latest twist in a life that began with a tragedy. In 1947, when Suu Kyi was just two years old, her father – the charismatic independence hero General Aung San – was assassinated. Suu Kyi would long live in exile, notably in India and later in the United Kingdom, Myanmar's former colonial ruler, where she attended Oxford University. It was there that she met her husband, the academic and Tibet specialist Michael Aris, with whom she had two children.

Then, in 1988, Suu Kyi's life took a fateful turn. Having returned to her home country to be at her dying mother's side, Suu Kyi took everyone by surprise when she got involved in the Burmese people's uprising against the military junta.

"I could not, as my father's daughter, remain indifferent to all that was going on," she said in an August 1988 speech that marked her entrance into political life.

Some 3,000 people died in the repression of that uprising. It would also mark the birth of an icon. Suu Kyi became the woman through whom democracy might one day return to Myanmar and in whom a people, under the jackboot of military dictatorship since 1962, could invest their hopes.

Suu Kyi was granted authorisation to form the National League for Democracy (NLD) party. But it was not long before she was placed under house arrest. From there, she would witness her party's victory in 1990 elections, a result the junta refused to accept.

Consigned to her residence, a lakeside villa in Yangon, Suu Kyi was allowed visits from the rare emissary as well as, now and again, her two sons, who had remained in Britain living with their father. Suu Kyi lost her husband to cancer in 1999; she was not able to visit him before he died.

International acclaim

In 1990, Suu Kyi won the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, Europe's highest tribute to human rights work, a year before the Nobel Committee bestowed its prestigious Peace Prize. The catalogue of distinctions Suu Kyi received spanned the globe: The US Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2000, honorary citizenship of the City of Paris in 2004, the Olof Palme Prize for human rights in 2005, honorary Canadian citizenship in 2007, the Catalonia International prize in 2008, the French Legion of Honour in 2012 and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum's Elie Wiesel Award that same year.

"Aung San Suu Kyi was put on a pedestal during her 15 years of house arrest and elevated to stardom. She was a woman, she was beautiful, she was fighting against a military junta; you couldn't imagine a better representative for democracy," David Camroux, a historian specialised in Southeast Asia and lecturer at France's Sciences Po, told FRANCE 24.

To fully grasp the adulation Suu Kyi enjoyed, one need only recall November 13, 2010, the day she was finally liberated from detention. The news was celebrated immediately across the West. In Paris, a gathering was hastily organised on the City Hall forecourt by Suu Kyi's French support committee. Then-mayor Bertrand Delanoë attended, alongside actress-musician Jane Birkin, the group's spokesperson, and Oscar-winning film star Marion Cotillard.

In 2012, Suu Kyi contested by-elections that saw her party win 43 of the 44 parliamentary seats in which it fielded candidates. She took her place as a lawmaker in Myanmar's parliament that May. But the real breakthrough came in 2015, when the NLD won the general election by a landslide.

Myanmar's journey back to military rule

01:52

Although the Constitution forbade Suu Kyi from seeking the presidency due to her marriage to a foreigner – a provision the military had inserted to bar her from the office – one of her close associates in the party, Htin Kyaw, was elected to the role in 2016. The position of state counsellor, meanwhile, was created for Suu Kyi, who assumed defacto leadership of the country.

During her years at Myanmar's helm, Suu Kyi was tested by the rigours of power, obliged to cope with the all-powerful military officials who remained atop key government ministries.

Inaction over the Rohingya tragedy

Suu Kyi enjoyed success domestically as the economy grew and Myanmar drew foreign investment, from China and Japan in particular. But her image was forever damaged internationally by the tragedy of the Rohingya Muslims.

In 2017, some 750,000 members of the Rohingya minority were forced to flee violent abuses at the hands of the army and Buddhist militias, taking refuge in makeshift camps over the border in Bangladesh. The tragedy saw Myanmar accused of "genocide" before the International Court of Justice, the principal judicial organ of the United Nations.

In 2019, Suu Kyi personally led the country's defence at the court in The Hague, rejecting the allegations of genocide as "incomplete and misleading", although she admitted war crimes may have been committed. Her apparent lack of compassion for the Rohingya outraged the international community. But "Mother Suu", as the Burmese call her, retained the confidence of her people at home.
Rohingya refugees fear returning to Myanmar after coup

01:43

"The disappointment was considerable because the expectations were unrealistic," Camroux told FRANCE 24. "Aung San Suu Kyi considers the ethnic majority she hails from, the Bamar, superior and that it is they who are the real Burmese, which is where her lack of consideration for the Rohingya comes from. There was also a political calculation on her part since she had to appear conciliatory with the military officials and put her patriotism on display."

Beyond the Rohingya situation, international observers have reproached Suu Kyi for what they see as her autocratic approach to power.

"She is a pretty authoritarian woman who doesn't delegate," said Camroux. "That's actually a real problem within her party since we are not seeing a new generation emerge. Many of the people who control the party are around 80 years of age. It's difficult to see who might succeed her."

Nevertheless, Suu Kyi remains very well-liked in Myanmar. Considered a model of modesty and austerity, she incarnates for many Burmese what a real Buddhist should be. Indeed, legislative elections in November confirmed her popularity, with Suu Kyi's NLD scoring an overwhelming victory.

This article has been translated from the original in French.

PORTRAIT

Min Aung Hlaing: the heir to Myanmar’s military junta

Issued on: 01/02/2021

Myanmar's General Min Aung Hlaing at the Martyrs' Mausoleum

in Yangon on July 19, 2016.

 © Soe Zeya Tun, REUTERS

Text by: Sébastian SEIBT

Min Aung Hlaing, Myanmar’s armed forces commander-in-chief, has emerged as the country's new strongman following Monday’s coup. He has promised to hold elections after a one-year state of emergency but many remain wary since the country’s military chief has proven reluctant to call it quits.

Myanmar’s military chief, General Min Aung Hlaing, should have been quietly preparing to retire in July when he turns 65, the official retirement age for the commander-in-chief of the country’s armed forces.

But instead of preparing to leave office and focusing on preparing a successor, the general consolidated power in a military coup.

Citing electoral fraud in the November 2020 general elections – in which Nobel laureate and de facto ruler Aung San Suu Kyi’s party won a landslide 83 percent of the vote – the junta imposed a one-year state of emergency that will be followed by “free and fair multiparty general elections”, according to a statement released by the office of Myanmar’s Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services.

But it is impossible to know if Min Aung Hlaing will keep his word. "The aim of the army has always been to run the country," said Nehginpao Kipgen, executive director at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the Jindal School of International Affairs in India, in an interview with FRANCE 24.



Rising up the ranks

Min Aung Hlaing has long intended to exercise power alone without the burden of a civilian head of government, according to a 2017 New York Times investigation. "His plan is to become president by 2020," U Win Htein, an adviser to Suu Kyi, told the US daily.

The results of the November 8 parliamentary elections, however, dented his ambitions. Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), swept the polls, confirming its position as the country's leading political power. The military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) got just a fraction of the vote, in contrast.

It was an electoral setback that Min Aung Hlaing could not accept. Political tensions had been rising since the election results were announced, sparking fears of a military coup that escalated over the weekend. The military "first disputed the results alleging massive fraud, then, after the validation of the vote by the electoral commission, they said they had no choice but to take power by force", said Kipgen.

The coup puts Min Aung Hlaing, the embodiment of Myanmar’s military system, at the helm of a country that has been under military rule for nearly half a century. Born in the southern city of Tavoy, now known as Dawei, Min Aung Hlaing studied in Rangoon, the country’s former capital, now Yangon. At 18, he entered the country’s military academy after a two-year stint in law school.

It’s difficult to get a clear idea of the young recruit’s personality or confirm various stories about his youth. Some childhood friends described him as taciturn and reserved to Reuters, while others described him as a "bully who tended to humiliate his classmates", according to testimonies collected by the New York Times. Hla Oo, a Burmese writer exiled in Australia who knew him as a child, recalled a hard-working, studious young man who "hardened himself in battle in the army ranks".

But he was not an obvious candidate for a future commander-in-chief. "He climbed up the ranks slowly but surely," a former military academy officer told Reuters. Noted Kipgen: "He was not someone who stood out in the Burmese army."

His luck began to turn when he joined the army’s 88th Light Infantry Division, which was commanded at that time by a certain Colonel Than Shwe.

Min Aung Hlaing made Than Shwe his mentor and continued his career in the shadow of the man who, in 1992, rose to become head of the country’s military junta.

Cultivating an image on social media

In 2011, Than Shwe made Min Aung Hlaing his successor and the first armed forces commander-in-chief in Myanmar’s post-military junta era. His selection over other more experienced generals was likely due to "the fact that Than Shwe thought he would be in the best position to perpetuate his vision for the army and the country", explained Kipgen.

As Than Shwe’s heir and faithful to the vision of an all-powerful military, Min Aung Hlaing negotiated with Suu Kyi, charting the course of Myanmar’s democratic transition. But as military chief, he played both sides. On the one hand, he "was very careful in his dealings with the head of government, avoiding open confrontation as much as possible", Kipgen said.

But he also did everything possible to show that the army remains the real master of the political game. He went on several official trips, particularly to China and Japan, and received foreign dignitaries, such as Pope Francis in 2017. The trips and meetings were carefully recorded and shared on social media. "He is very good at cultivating an image of statesmanship, paying attention to the smallest detail," said Min Zin, director of the Institute for Strategy and Policy – Myanmar, a think tank in Yangon, in an interview with the New York Times.

But his public relations efforts failed to work outside Myanmar. For the international community, Min Aung Hlaing is regarded, above all, as the man behind the persecution of the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority starting in 2016.

"Even if he is not directly and personally involved, militarily – as head of the army – he approved this campaign," noted Kipgen.

While several countries have adopted the term “genocide” to describe the military’s violations against the Rohingyas, Min Aung Hlaing openly defended the army’s actions on Facebook and Twitter. The military chief only uses the term "Bengali" to refer to the Rohingya, suggesting that they are foreigners who have no business being on Burmese soil. He also justified the army's actions by repeatedly stating that "our regions must be controlled by the national races".

He was banned from travel to the United States and also banned from Twitter and Facebook in 2019.

With Min Aung Hlaing’s rise to power, the hardline faction within the military has put an end – for now – to Myanmar’s fragile democratic process. And for those who may have been looking forward to the military chief's retirement, they will have to wait a little longer.

This article has been translated from the original in French.

Union says workers at JD Norman Industries 'blindsided' by news facility is closing

© Jacob Barker/CBC Unifor Local 195 President Emile Nabbout says JD Norman

 needs to come to the table with the union.

The union representing workers at JD Norman Industries in Windsor says staff showed up for their shift Friday morning and were met by security guards who told them they had been let go.

Employees at the manufacturing facility are represented by Unifor Local 195.

President Emile Nabbout told CBC they were caught totally off guard.

"We were blindsided," he said. "We have no news from the employer whatsoever."

Roughly 65 people work at the facility which manufactures parts for General Motors, he said.

"The workers were devastated. Their families didn't know what to do," Nabbout explained.

© Jacob Barker/CBC Union flags wave outside the JD Norman

 facility on Hawthorne Drive. About 65 people work at the plant.

JD Norman did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment on the situation.

Online profiles for the company show it's based in Illinois.

Nabbout said it's his understanding management at the location in Windsor weren't notified about the closure either.

"We need this employer to come to the table, meet with the union and try to figure [it] out," said the union president. "If the company is not able to operate the business we have to negotiate a decent closure agreement."

Tweets from Unifor Local 444 showed workers demonstrating outside the facility on Hawthorne Drive.

"JD Norman Industries has suddenly locked out workers represented by Unifor Local 195 without warning!" read one post on social media. "Nothing in nothing out!

India's farmers, government in uneasy standoff after tumultuous Delhi protest

© Sajjad Hussain/AFP via Getty Images Farmers protest against the Indian central government's recent agricultural reforms at the Red Fort in New Delhi on Jan. 26. Clashes with police that day left at least one person dead and hundreds injured.

CBC

In the wake of clashes between demonstrators and police in Delhi on Jan. 26, India's Republic Day, the government has been pushing back against the tens of thousands of farmers protesting the nation's new agricultural laws.

The government shut down the internet in parts of Delhi and surrounding areas this week in a move to hamper the protests and their organizers.

"People are not able to communicate with each other, they can't call home, they don't know what is happening on a political level with regards to the movement," said Nidhi Suresh, a Delhi-based journalist who has been covering the protests for the past two-and-a-half months.

India's Ministry of Home Affairs said the crackdown was "in the interest of maintaining public safety and averting public emergency." Internet service was reportedly back in some areas Friday afternoon, but whether it will be cut again is unclear.

Security forces have also put up barricades to keep people from easily accessing the protest camps, some of which now span several kilometres.

India's Republic Day unrest marked a change in the tone of the ongoing protest, as huge crowds converged on the nation's capital. A group stormed the barricades at the historic Red Fort, resulting in violent clashes with police. At least one person died, and hundreds of police and protestors were reported injured.

Several journalists have also been charged with sedition over their coverage of the events.

The confrontation has compromised the movement's commitment to peaceful protest. Since then the farmers, many of whom are Sikhs from nearby Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, have condemned the violence and have returned to camps located on major roadways bordering the nation's capital — Singhu, Tikri, and Ghazipur.

"[We] were disappointed by the violence on Republic Day. But we are still united. It's a bigger movement than just the farmers' leaders and the politicians," said a law student and farmer from Haryana, Bhupender Chaudhary.

"It's now a protest for all of the people."

Along with the three large border protests, sympathy demonstrations have also sprung up in recent months. The largest, on Nov. 26, saw some 250 million people participate in a general strike all over the country.

"I have marvelled at how brilliantly people from such humble backgrounds have been negotiating with the government," said Gurpreet Wasi, a volunteer with Khalsa Aid based in Delhi. "Despite having thousands of differences on the ground, they have really projected a unified front."

© Money Sharma/AFP/Getty Images Farmers take part in a tractor rally 

in New Delhi on Jan. 26.

Agricultural reforms

The farmers are protesting new laws brought in by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government in September. They say the bill will wipe out small farmers and give corporations far too much control of India's agricultural industry.

"For marginal, small farmers in places like Haryana, it's hard to sustain a living," said Chaudhary. "Their kids will starve if they get pushed out of the market."

Many farmers fear the government will eliminate the Minimum Support Price (MSP), which regulates the price of their crops. Modi has responded to this, saying the MSP will remain in place:

On Wednesday, Modi reiterated that his government has taken several steps to make India's farmers more "self-reliant" in the past six years.

So far, the Indian government has held several rounds of talks with leaders of the 40 farmers' unions fronting the movement. The leaders are demanding a complete repeal of the laws, but Delhi has only agreed to delay any reforms for 18 months.

Chaudhary, whose village grows chickpeas, wheat and mustard, has seen the challenges his community faces first hand. He was among the first to travel to nearby villages to explain the reforms and mobilize support. It started small.

"Sometimes we had only 10 people with us," he said.

© Narinder Nanu/AFP via Getty Images 

Farmers work in a field on the outskirts of Amritsar on Feb. 1. 

The agricultural sector employs 70 per cent of India's working population.

India's massive agricultural sector, which employs 70 per cent of the working population, has been in crisis for years due to a number of factors including punishing droughts that have left already-indebted farmers with poor crop yields. Many have taken their own lives — the National Crime Records Bureau says that more than 10,000 farmers and farm labourers died by suicide in 2019 alone.

"For the last 10 to 12 years, there's been such a spate of farmer suicides," said Suresh.

The journalist points out that fighting the new laws is only part of their struggle.

"It's now a protest of dignity, it's a protest of who gets heard and who should be getting heard and what the due process is," she said. "Shouldn't affected parties and communities be consulted at all before such a bill is brought in?"

"It's the responsibility of the state to try and come up and hear their own people, and have a conversation that they can trust," added Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asian Director of Human Rights Watch. "But there is a huge trust deficit … which is why the conversations are not not coming to a satisfactory conclusion."

Security barricades

© Anushree Fadnavis/Reuters A security officer walks past metal spikes installed in the ground by the Delhi police as a security measure at Tikri Border, one of the areas near Delhi where farmers are protesting, in this Feb. 4 photo.

Chaudhary and his family have been at the Tikri border since November, where a large police presence surrounds the area. Police have now embedded nails in the ground to puncture the tires of vehicles that try to pass through.

"At first, there was fear and anxiety when we heard the news that the government was bringing in security forces," he said. "But they can't do anything now, there are too many of us."

At Singhu, heavy barricades and road closures make it impossible for anyone to access the camps. The police have dug up crater-like trenches along the route to make travel difficult.

"You have to walk almost two kilometres to get close, and once you're there they won't let you in and ask you to take a detour," Suresh said, adding that many journalists are afraid of getting arrested and detained when they get to the sites.

"It's a strategy to keep people out."

However, the security forces have also been reluctant to resort to violence.

"The one thing that the government appears to have tried very hard to do is ensure that security forces act with restraint," Ganguly said. "But the fact that it needs this sort of barricading of borders seems a little unfortunate, in terms of what the government was trying to achieve."

© Arun Kumar/AFP via Getty Images 

Protesting farmers take a bath along a blocked highway on Jan. 29

 at the Delhi-Haryana state border in Singhu.

Inside the barricades, farmers and their families have set up shelters, community kitchens (a Sikh practice called langar), and even services like laundry, but the nights are cold, and running water and electricity are not always available.

With the road closures, local volunteers are unable to keep bringing in supplies like warm clothes and blankets from Delhi.

Besides the risk associated with COVID-19, people on the ground say sanitary conditions at the crowded camps are getting worse.

"Disease is something they are getting concerned about now," Suresh said, "because there's no proper sanitation and there's stagnation of water."

At least 70 farmers have died at the sites, according to the farmers unions, but there are no official government numbers and Suresh says some believe the toll is likely higher.

"Many of the farmers are old, some of them are struggling in the cold, some of them have had heart attacks," Chaudhary said.

The deaths have weighed on him.

"You naturally start to feel defeated, but we are carrying on."

Some villages, including Chaudhary's, have set up a system — if 10 people need to return home, then 10 people replace them at the border, allowing farmers to take care of their homes and tend to their crops.

Protestors are estimated to have brought in six months worth of rations, and they are mobilizing more support through grand village council meetings (panchayats) happening all around Delhi.

"As an eyewitness being there for the last two and a half months, I can say with full clarity that I don't see any dwindling of crowds," said Suresh.

© Adnan Abidi/Reuters Farmers listen to a speaker at Singhu 

border near New Delhi on Jan. 30.

Online maneuvering

Protest activities and government responses are also playing out online.

Internet blackouts like the one this week have become a pattern in India as a way for the government to address dissent. Statista reported that in 2018, India was by far the country that implemented the most internet shutdowns.

"It has become the go-to strategy when they want to contain any kind of public protest, because they believe a lot of communication and organizing occurs over the internet," Human Rights Watch's Ganguly said.

Meanwhile, a statement from India's Ministry of External Affairs also suggests the government is concerned that interest groups have "tried to mobilise international support against India." The government maintains that the farmer protests are an internal matter, after recent tweets of support for the protests from celebrities including Rihanna and Greta Thunberg.

© Money Sharma/AFP via Getty Images Activists with the United Hindu Front (UHF) hold placards and pictures of Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and Barbadian singer Rihanna during a demonstration in New Delhi on Feb. 4, after the celebrities made comments on social media about ongoing mass farmers' protests in India.

And public support for the farmers' position isn't unanimous.

This week, along with attempts to block hundreds of protest-related accounts on social media that have become the driving force of the movement, there was a concerted pro-government hashtag campaign.

When NDP leader Jagmeet Singh thanked Rihanna for "empowering the voices of the oppressed" on Instagram, for example, a number of Indian officials and celebrities fired back using the hashtags #IndiaTogether and #IndiaAgainstPropaganda.

Cricket star Sachin Tendulkar wrote, "India's sovereignty cannot be compromised. External forces can be spectators but not participants."

Ultimately, online discourse isn't what Ganguly is concerned about.

"That's still in the peaceful conversation space," Ganguly said. "Our concern is almost always what happens if there is violence. And what happens in terms of state response, whether they are punishing dissent in any way."

There are more demonstrations expected in the coming days. The farmers say they refuse to stop protesting until they are properly consulted on agricultural reforms that they fear will have a huge impact on their lives.

"Our elders told us to stand our ground and said, look, we're not turning around and we're not going to be afraid," said Chaudhary. "So we don't plan on moving now. Our tractors and our trolleys are going to stay put."

#WAGETHEFT

Why decisions to keep shareholders on a pedestal might backfire for the Big 3 Telcos this time

It turns out BCE Inc. belonged near the top of the Financial Post’s table of big companies that claimed the federal wage subsidy while continuing to pay dividends. 

© Provided by Financial Post There isn't necessarily anything wrong with a company claiming benefits for which it qualifies, even if it didn't need the money.

Calgary-based Imperial Oil Ltd., which received $120 million from the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) through the third quarter, ended up at the top of Financial Post’s list when we finished sifting through financial information that publicly traded companies are required to file with securities regulators.

Some of those disclosures were transparent, others were translucent. A smattering of companies disclosed that they had received the subsidy, but declined to provide an amount. Some said the benefit was “immaterial,” therefore relieving them of any obligation to share a number with their investors.

Among those companies were the three members of Canada’s telecommunications oligopoly: BCE, Rogers Communications Inc. and Telus Corp., the last of which, after some prodding, provided a ballpark figure, saying it had received “less than” two per cent of the roughly $1.5 billion it paid in dividends through the early part of December.

But The downUp , a digital newsletter about the Canadian communications industry, on Jan. 21 reported that BCE had claimed $122.8 million, putting it up there with Imperial. It found the information in the Alberta government’s lobbyist registry.

Rogers received about $71.3 million and Telus claimed $30.2 million, as of Nov. 30, the downUp reported , citing provincial lobbyist registries. That means the Big Three, whose rates for mobile data are among the highest in the world , received almost $225 million from the federal government during the pandemic, offsetting operational costs, thus relieving any pressure management might have felt to temporarily curb dividend payments.

There is, of course, nothing illegal about any of this. BCE, Rogers, Telus and all the other companies that received CEWS were able to show that they had lost enough revenue to qualify for help. Nor is there necessarily anything wrong with a company claiming benefits for which it qualifies, even if it didn’t need the money, although that will depend on your point of view.

The most common response to our reporting on this issue has been dismay: from some at the suggestion that dividends might be something other than sacrosanct; and from others at the sight of cash-rich corporations exploiting an emergency program instead of drawing on their own resources.

We might be on the verge of a real-time test of whether shareholders’ interests are always best served by being given the biggest possible stake of a company’s revenue.

The telcos have for decades used their market power to mostly get their way, even though they operate in a highly regulated industry. They will soon be counting on a number of decisions to once again tilt in their favour, including rates the resellers must pay to use their networks, conditions related to an upcoming spectrum auction, and the divvying up of the federal government’s $1.75-billion rural broadband fund .

But Parliament might not be so quick to bend the knee this time. Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, a Liberal MP from Toronto, pushed back against a BCE executive’s suggestion that resellers were a burden, saying, “without the resellers, you would gouge Canadians even worse.” Robert Malcolmson, the company’s top lawyer, testily replied that he “wasn’t sure that was even a question.” Erskine-Smith countered that it wasn’t: “It’s a fact,” he said.

The telecom companies’ actions show that they put their shareholders on a pedestal. But they know it’s a bad look to do so during a national crisis. If they weren’t worried about it, they wouldn’t refuse to disclose the same numbers to reporters that they are obligated to disclose in order to lobby various provincial governments.

BCE fired at least a couple of hundred people in its media division this week. At the same time, the company announced it would spend an additional $1 billion on its networks over the next two years, an investment that chief executive Mirko Bibic said would create more than 5,000 “direct and indirect” jobs. Amidst all that, he told analysts on a Feb. 4 conference call that he was “equally pleased” to say that the company’s board had decided to increase the dividend by 5.1 per cent.

The telecom oligopoly is spinning two stories that don’t quite jibe.

It wants the public to see it as central to the recovery, and forget that decades of underinvestment left us vulnerable when hundreds of thousands of people suddenly had to work and learn from home. But its leaders lack the courage to invest to the fullest degree they can.

BCE’s spending plans look impressive, but it’s money the company intended to spend anyway; Bibic advanced his plans in part to take advantage of a federal tax break on capital investment. The company doesn’t plan to continue investing at this pace beyond its two-year horizon. But it remains committed to pumping out dividends. If it stops, its leaders say investors would abandon them.

“The only way you get investment capital is from shareholders that are willing to invest their money with your company in order to fund your network expansion,” Malcolmson, BCE’s chief legal and regulatory officer, told the House industry committee on Jan. 26, when pushed to explain why the company claimed the wage subsidy instead of drawing from its own cash pile. “If we don’t have investment capital and we’re not delivering shareholders returns, Canada will not have the level of investment that it needs.”

It was a statement that only a near-monopolist could make. The thing is, the post-COVID-19 political climate has become hostile to monopolists and oligopolists. BCE and others could come to regret operating like dividend machines instead of ambitious companies committed to growth.

German prosecutors charge Nazi camp secretary

The 95-year-old woman is accused of complicity in the murders of 10,000 people at the former Nazi concentration camp Stutthof. The case is the first in several years to be brought against a female staff member.


A general view of a gas chamber at the former Nazi concentration camp Stutthof


Prosecutors in Itzehoe announced charges against a former Nazi concentration camp secretary on Friday.

The case is a rare one for German prosecutors, who in recent years have taken a number of former concentration camp guards and accountants to court. Secretaries and female staff members have not faced charges in years.

What did prosecutors say?

The woman is accused of "having assisted those responsible at the camp in the systematic killing of Jewish prisoners, Polish partisans and Soviet Russian prisoners of war," prosecutors said in a statement.

She served as secretary to the commander of the Stutthof camp from June 1943 to April 1945, according to the statement. The camp was located near what was then known as Danzig, now Gdansk.


An estimated 65,000 people were murdered at the Stutthof concentration camp

She is charged with "aiding and abetting murder in more than 10,000 cases" as well as being complicit in attempted murder at the camp.

German prosecutors have been investigating her case since 2016, carrying out interviews with Holocaust survivors in Israel and the United States.

What do we know about the secretary?

Although prosecutors did not identify the woman, she is reportedly 95-years-old and lives north of the city of Hamburg, according to local newspaper Hamburger Abendblatt.

In her function as a secretary to concentration camp commander Paul Werner Hoppe, prosecutors argue that she served a key role in the functioning of the Stuffhof camp.

She was previously called upon as a witness in other cases, according to an investigative report published last year by local public broadcaster NDR.

In 1954, the former secretary testified that the commander dictated letters to her daily. She also said all of the correspondence with the SS department in charge of running the concentration camps came across her desk.

NUREMBERG TRIALS: NAZIS FACING JUDGMENT

War criminals on trial

Twenty-one defendants were tried in 1945 and 1946 before the International Military Tribunal, a court that had been created specifically for the task of prosecuting war crimes. Among them were Nazi party functionaries, senior military officers, civil servants, diplomats and industrialists — and all had served the Nazi regime. PHOTOS 12345678910

In an interview with an NDR reporter, she claimed to have only found out about the mass killings at Stuffhof after World War II ended. She told the reporter that her office window faced away from the camp.

What happens next?

As the woman was younger than 21-years-old during her time as secretary of the camp, a juvenile court will hear the case.

The court in Itzehoe will decide whether to admit the charges and open a trial against the women.

It is not clear how long the process will take.

Germany has been racing to prosecute surviving former staff of Nazi concentration camps, as the number of witnesses and alleged perpetrators dwindles.

A 2011 case against a a former concentration camp guard set a legal precedent allowing courts to convict camp staff rather than just the officers in charge.

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Danzig was in Nazi-occupied Poland. It was in fact, part of the Free City of D

SOLIDARITE, MUTUAL AID, COOPERATION

Why helping others is good for you

People who volunteer report higher levels of well-being, greater life satisfaction and less depression. But your motivation can impact how happy helping makes you feel.

Andriana (right) volunteers with Indonesian charity Komunitas Taufan every week


Andriana, who goes by one name, volunteers three days a week with the Indonesian charity Komunitas Taufan, a community of volunteers that supports families of children with cancer and other high-risk illnesses.

The charity tries to brighten the days of hospitalized children with laughter, games and music and supports their parents as they watch their kids battle for their lives.

"Sometimes the mother is actually the one who needs the strength and motivation because it's easy to cheer up the kids, but the parents … need someone to talk to," Andriana told DW.

After spending time with the patients and their parents, she leaves with a bigger heart and her own life problems are put into perspective.

"The same feeling happens over and over again, even though you're meant to get used to it. But different kids, different stories, different people — it just leaves you overwhelmed with a lot of feelings," said Andriana. "We thought we were making a difference [in their lives], but actually, they are making a difference to us."

Research has found there is a strong link between volunteering and greater life satisfaction, positive emotions, and reduced depression, according to the 2019 World Happiness Report.

In a review of 37 studies with samples ranging from 15 people to more than 2,000, adult volunteers scored significantly higher on quality of life measures compared to non-volunteers.

People are more likely to get joy from helping others if they are free to choose if and when they want to help, they feel connected to the people they're helping, and they can see how they are making a difference, the report stated.

Watch video26:06 Mental Health Keep up the good work

Researchers at Flinders University in Australia found that people who volunteered reported higher levels of well-being, but the positive effects are short-lived if people do not continue to volunteer.

The study showed that people experienced an immediate increase in subjective well-being after the volunteering activity, but one year after the event their subjective well-being returned to pre-volunteering levels if they had not kept at it.

In Mazabuka, a town in southern Zambia, Diana Limande has been volunteering in her community for 14 years. She helps with Catholic Relief Services' FASTER project, which focuses on viral suppression in children and adolescents living with HIV.

Limande is self-disclosed HIV-positive and works with HIV-positive adolescents to raise awareness and destigmatize HIV.

"Some even hide it from their own parents, they don't even tell their husbands," Limande told DW.

If you or people close to you have been affected by an issue, that personal connection can be a strong motivating factor for volunteering.

"I've lived a positive life for 14 years now, and I know the way it feels to be a positive parent or mother," said Limande, who is also a cervical cancer survivor. Part of her volunteer work involves encouraging HIV-positive women to be screened.

Cervical cancer is the most common cancer among women living with HIV, according to the UN, and the likelihood that a woman living with HIV will develop invasive cervical cancer is up to five times higher than for a woman who does not have HIV.

"I really want to help my fellow positive-living people on how to go about it," Limande said. "Maybe they will come out, stop discriminating [against] themselves."

Motive matters

Our motives can affect how happy we feel after we do something to benefit others, whether that’s helping, sharing, donating, cooperating or volunteering.

A 2017 study found that people who were asked to recall an act of kindness that benefited others reported higher well-being afterward than people who were asked to recall an act of kindness motivated by self-benefit.

In early 2018, Piyush Sardana founded Rise Foundation, a volunteer-run organization that supports homeless people in Berlin by providing them with food, hygiene products, clothing and practical information like how to get medical help or where they can shower.

Twice a month Sardana and about 20 volunteers put together packages and distribute them to people in need.


Piyush Sardana (right) finds face-to-face volunteer work the most satisfying

Sardana, who works as a software developer, said he volunteered for more than 10 years in India before moving to Berlin.

Although he runs Rise Foundation, the satisfaction Sardana gets from volunteering comes from helping people face-to-face.

"Spending five minutes with someone who is probably ignored hundreds of times during the day — how that changes the person's day and how the smallest thing would make their day is definitely satisfying," said Sardana.

Even without doing the act of kindness yourself, a study in 2013 suggested that knowing the direct impact your donation has on people affects the emotional benefit you feel afterward.

People who donated money to UNICEF, a major aid organization, did not experience any emotional benefits. Still, people who donated to Spread the Net, a UNICEF-affiliated charity that buys bed nets to stop the spread of malaria, reported being happier.

It suggests that seeing the impact of your act of kindness, whether volunteering or donating to a cause, leads to higher levels of well-being and happiness.