Anna Cottrell had been hosting young leaders from Myanmar in New Zealand for 10 years before the military coup in February. Here she recalls the hopes of those young people, in a nation now verging on a failed state.
We’re on our way to Wellington airport. Two young women from Myanmar are heading home after six months living with us. Sporting kiwi floral face masks they’re belting out ‘Take Me Home Country Road’. I film them on my phone.
With the windows wide, the Kaikouras white with recent snow, we’re optimistic they’re returning to a brighter future in Myanmar, a country inching towards a kind of democracy. Elections are imminent and the National League for Democracy is surging in the polls. We sing along with them.
The two young women *Shagawng Bungshi and *T-T and have completed the Myanmar Young Leaders Programme, organised by UnionAID and funded by Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. With 10 others they come to Victoria University for six months to learn about democratic processes, human rights, economics, research, proposal writing, social enterprises, Te Ao Māori, and English.
They were heading home. That was a year ago.
For 10 years we have been host parents to about 20 young people from many different ethnic groups in Myanmar. They become part of our families. When they go home they send photos of weddings, children, their activities. They also manage small funded projects to help their communities: establishing social enterprises, environmental initiatives, running training courses and drug prevention schemes. With UnionAID backing they’re making a difference.
Covid-19
The 2020 group were still feeling their way with host families: strange food, funny fads, understanding cricket, the way we make beds, coping with duvets and Wellington wind when Covid-19 plunged us into lockdown. Seeing a chance for a documentary I asked our two, Shagawng Bungshi and T-T if I could film them. They hated on line learning. They got sore eyes and longed for face to face contact. And they were lonely. But they cooked delicious food, maintained a strenuous exercise programme and offered counselling to other locked down young leaders who were homesick.
Having a camera on them at times was a novelty, a distraction from being stuck at home with us. So I filmed them.
Back home Shagawng Bungshi worked as a coordinator for a Peace Monitoring Programme in the Kachin state, a province rich in jade and precious metals, bordering India and China. The Kachin Independence Army has been resisting the Myanmar military, the Tatmadaw since 1961. An uneasy truce lasted for almost 20 years but since 2011 it collapsed, and the renewed fighting left thousands dead or displaced. Shagawng Bungshi knows there will not be a prosperous future until the civil war ends.
T-T is younger and her story is different. She’s from the Mon ethnic group and when she was 12 her parents said she had to leave school. Her father, a farmer, was recovering from an accident and she was needed on the land. They couldn’t afford to pay for high school.
A determined child, T-T pleaded with her parents to let her join three siblings in a refugee camp on the Myanmar/Thai border. Her brother was involved in protests against the military when he was a monk and like thousands of others had to flee for his life. Reluctantly her mother agreed and helped the tiny child cross the border illegally at night when the guards were distracted and preoccupied with drink and drugs.
Leafing through her photos we see a small girl with her mother and siblings. She’s desperate to leave her home, her village and her friends… for education.
For two years in the refugee camp T-T studied four languages: Karen, the main language in the MaeLa camp, Thai, Burmese and English. When she was 18 she won a scholarship to a Bangkok university.
Another photo: The graduate. Her parents board a plane for the first time and fly to Bangkok. T-T is the first in her family to go to university, the first graduate.
At the end of 2019 she returns to Yangon, hears about the Myanmar Young Leaders programme in Aotearoa. It’s known as a popular overseas study course. She’s keen. She applies and is selected.
She stays with us. I film her.
Back at Wellington airport 12 months ago T-T and Bungshi wheel their bulging bags. The excitement among the 12 young people is contagious. Some bags are overweight. Cases spill open. Books are heavy. What to leave behind?
We remember this tired nervous group arriving in February 2020. Some come from coastal regions, others from mountainous hill country or from the cities. They met each other briefly before they flew out of Yangon. Now they’re friends, new alliances formed across ethnic boundaries. After six months of study they’ve enjoyed a week of fun: sky-diving, jetboating, bungy jumping, and wallowing in the Taupo hot pools. Now they’re going home.
They know Covid is spreading so after some kind of isolation many hope to travel back to their families before returning to work for non-governmental agencies and ethnic organisations in Yangon or in their regions. They’re returning to take part in democratic elections. We wave them goodbye. They’ve found a special place in our hearts.
As they hoped and expected the National League for Democracy, headed by the Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi, won the election in a landslide in November. Back home and out of quarantine they were jubilant. But Covid is spreading.
They were aware that under the Myanmar constitution the Tatmadaw would retain a third of the seats in Parliament keeping control of internal and external security, the police and the military, but momentum was building for major changes.
Excitement was short lived, their hopes dashed.
On February 1, 2021, the Tatmadaw staged a coup, unleashing brutality and violence on their own people. Our young leaders quickly took to the streets as part of the Civil Disobedience Movement. The military charged on, shooting, maiming, torturing, murdering, mowing down any opposition. Homes are still being raided at night. Entire families shot. Thousands are locked up, displaced or killed. Criminals are released to make room for the peaceful protesters.
Hsai Wan, one of our young friends who studied here last year, was arrested for wearing a T-shirt with the words, Down with the Dictatorship. We fear for his safety.
With UnionAID we collect signatures urging our government to support the National Unity Government in exile. More than half a million people signed the petition.
It’s one year since the 12 Myanmar Young Leaders returned home, brimming with hope and bright ideas for their communities. The coup has crushed their plans, but not their spirits. For them it’s do or die.
T-T has crossed the border to Thailand illegally and is working for a Political Prisoners group. She’s recovering from Covid. A young artist and community organiser who stayed with us a couple of years ago has slipped across the border and is working for her people. Journalists and others are forced into hiding to avoid the brutal military and the police. And while this may have slipped from our news bulletins the young people tell us the reign of terror continues unabated. And not to forget them.
Covid is raging unchecked. The Tatmadaw grab any oxygen available. Myanmar should be a wealthy country but it is rapidly sliding into poverty. It is a failed state.
As host parents in Aotearoa, it breaks our hearts.
*The two young women’s names are changed.
