Foreign News
From behind bars, Aung San Suu Kyi casts a long shadow over Myanmar
As of Wednesday the Burmese democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi will have spent a total of 20 years in detention in Myanmar, five of them since her government was overthrown by a military coup in February 2021.
Almost nothing is known about her state of health, or the conditions she is living in, although she is presumed to be held in a military prison in the capital Nay Pyi Taw. “For all I know she could be dead,” her son Kim Aris said last month, although a spokesman for the ruling military junta insisted she is in good health.
She has not seen her lawyers for at least two years, nor is she known to have seen anyone else except prison personnel. After the coup she was given jail sentences totaling 27 years on what are widely viewed as fabricated charges.
Yet despite her disappearance from public view, she still casts a long shadow over Myanmar.
There are repeated calls for her release, along with appeals to the generals to end their ruinous campaign against the armed opposition and negotiate an end to the civil war that has now dragged on for five years.
The military has tried to remove her once ubiquitous image, but you still see faded posters of “The Lady”, or “Amay Su”, Mother Su, as she is affectionately known, in tucked away corners. Could she still play a role in settling the conflict between the soldiers and the people of Myanmar?
After all, it has happened before. Back in 2010 the military had been in power for nearly 50 years, brutally crushed all opposition and run the economy into the ground. Just as it is doing now, it organised a general election which excluded Aung San Suu Kyi’s popular National League for Democracy, and which it ensured its own proxy party, the USDP, would win.
As with this election, which is still underway in phases, the one in 2010 was dismissed by most countries as a sham. Yet at the end of that year Aung San Suu Kyi was released, and within 18 months she had been elected an MP. By 2015 her party had won the first free election since 1960, and she was de facto leader of the country.
To the outside world it seemed an almost miraculous democratic transition, evidence perhaps that among the stony-faced generals there might be genuine reformers.
So could we see a re-run of that scenario once the junta has completed its three-stage election at the end of this month?
A lot has changed between then and now.
Back then there had been many years of engagement between the generals and an assortment of UN envoys, exploring ways to end their pariah status and re-engage with the rest of the world. It was a more optimistic era; the generals could see their South East Asian neighbours prospering through trade with the Western world, and they wanted an end to crippling economic sanctions.
They also sought better relations with the US as a counterbalance to their dependence on China, at a time when the Obama administration was making its celebrated “pivot” to Asia.
The top generals were still hard-line and suspicious, but there was a group of less senior officers keen to explore a political compromise.
It is not clear what finally persuaded the military leadership to open the country up, but they clearly believed their 2008 constitution, which guaranteed the armed forces one-quarter of the seats in a future parliament, would be enough, with their well-funded party, to limit Aung San Suu Kyi’s influence once she was released.
They badly underestimated her massive star power, and they underestimated how much their decades of misrule had alienated most of the population.
In the 2015 election the USDP won just over 6% of the seats in both houses of parliament. In the next election in 2020 it expected to perform much better, after five years of an NLD administration which had started with impossibly high hopes, and had inevitably disappointed many of them. But the USDP fared even worse, winning just 5% of seats in the two houses.
Even many of those who were dissatisfied with Aung San Suu Kyi’s performance in government still chose hers over the military’s party. This raised the possibility that she might eventually win enough support to change the constitution, and end the military’s privileged position.
It also ruled out the armed forces commander Min Aung Hlaing’s hopes of becoming president after his retirement. He launched his coup on 1 February 2021, the day Aung San Suu Kyi was due to inaugurate her new government.
This time there are no reformers in the ranks, and no hopes of the kind of compromise which restored democracy back in 2010. The shocking violence used to put down protests against the coup has driven many young Burmese to take up arms against the junta. Tens of thousands have been killed, tens of thousands of homes have been destroyed. Attitudes on both sides have hardened.
The 15 years Aung San Suu Kyi was detained after 1989, under conditions of house arrest in her lakeside family home in Yangon, were very different from the conditions she is being held in today. Her dignified, non-violent resistance won her admirers across Myanmar and around the world, and during the occasional spells of freedom the military gave her she was able to give rousing speeches from her front gate, or interviews to journalists.
Today she is invisible. Her long-held belief in non-violent struggle has been rejected by those who have joined the armed resistance, who argue that they must fight to end the military’s role in Myanmar’s political life. There is a lot more criticism of how Aung San Suu Kyi governed when she was in power than before.
Her decision to lead Myanmar’s defence against charges of genocide at the International Court of Justice over the military’s atrocities against Muslim Rohingyas in 2017 badly tarnished her saint-like international image. It had much less resonance inside Myanmar, but many younger opposition activists are now willing to condemn how she handled the Rohingya crisis.
At the age of 80, with uncertain health, it is not clear how much influence she would have, were she to be released, even if she still wants to play a central role.
And yet her long struggle against military rule made her synonymous with all the hopes of a freer, more democratic future.
There is simply no-one else of her stature in Myanmar, and for that reason alone, many would argue, she is probably still needed if the country is to chart a path out of its current deadlock.
[BBC]
At least 33 miners have died in a suspected carbon-monoxide leak at a lead and zinc mine in central Nigeria’s Plateau state, witnesses have told the BBC.
The tragedy is believed to have happened just before sunrise at a site outside the town of Wase run by the mining company Solid Unity Nigeria Ltd.
Toxic gas is believed to have built up underground in poorly ventilated tunnels, causing the workers to collapse just before the end of their night shift.
They were discovered by those reporting to work in the morning – more than 20 other miners were rescued and rushed to hospital for treatment.
Security personnel have sealed off the mine, which is about 200km (124 miles) south-east of the state capital of Jos, as investigations get under way to find out the cause of the leak.
State officials are yet to visit the area and response efforts have reportedly been slow because of security concerns – armed criminal gangs, known locally as bandits, have been active there in recent years.
Safiyanu Haruna, one of the miners who found the bodies at the start of his shift, told the BBC that some of the miners who were underground survived and were taken to a hospital in Wase for treatment.
According to Haruna, the incident occurred at around 06:30 local time (05:30 GMT) killing 37 miners.
He said the miners had just finished performing their early morning Muslim prayers and had returned underground to finish their shift.
The Plateau state government has issued a statement saying that according to its preliminary investigation 33 miners were killed in a blast at the mine – but workers at the scene say this is not the case.
“It was carbon-monoxide gas that leaked and killed them,” Haruna said.
“There was no rescue for them at the time because those who were coming for the morning shift had yet to arrive,” he said.
“It is sad to lose 37 miners who were struggling to make ends meet. We’re disturbed by the incident.”
The victims, believed to be men aged between 20 and 40, were buried shortly afterwards in accordance with local tradition, another local resident told the BBC.
The news has devastated the mainly Muslim community.
Mining disasters occur relatively frequently in Nigeria.
Less than two years ago, dozens of gold miners died after being trapped underground when a pit collapsed in neighbouring Niger state.
Officials believe that incident was caused by torrential rains which had softened the soil.
The tragedy is likely to renew concerns over safety standards in Nigeria’s mining sector.
[BBC]
More than a year after a 33-year-old woman froze to death on Austria’s highest mountain, her boyfriend goes on trial on Thursday accused of gross negligent manslaughter.
Kerstin G died of hypothermia on a mountain climbing trip to the Grossglockner that went horribly wrong. Her boyfriend is accused of leaving her unprotected and exhausted close to the summit in stormy conditions in the early hours of 19 January 2025, while he went to get help.
The trial has sparked interest and debate, not just in Austria but in mountain climbing communities far beyond its borders.
Prosecutors say that, as the more experienced climber, the man on trial was “the responsible guide for the tour” and failed to turn back or call for support in time to help his girlfriend.
Identified by Austrian media as Thomas P, he denies the charges and his lawyer, Karl Jelinek, has described the woman’s death as “a tragic accident.”
The tragedy unfolded after the couple began their climb of the 3,798m (12,460ft) Grossglockner.
Prosecutors accuse Thomas P of making mistakes from the outset and have published a list of 9 errors.
At stake is the question of when personal judgement and risk-taking become a matter of criminal liability. If the climber is found guilty it could mean “a paradigm shift for mountain sports”, says Austria’s Der Standard newspaper.
Key to the case is the charge by state prosecutors in Innsbruck that he was to be considered the “responsible guide for the tour”, as “unlike his girlfriend, he was already very experienced in high-altitude Alpine tours and had planned the tour”.
[BBC]
Six Russian and four Belarusian athletes will compete under their nations’ flags at the upcoming Winter Paralympics.
In September, the International Paralympic Committee lifted its ban on athletes from the two countries competing at the Games.
Both countries were suspended from Paralympic competition after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with Belarus a close ally of Russia. A partial ban – allowing athletes to compete as neutrals – was introduced in 2023.
However, the four individual governing bodies in charge of the six sports contested at the Paralympics decided to keep their bans in place.
In December, Russia and Belarus won an appeal against FIS – the governing body for skiing and snowboarding – at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas), permitting them to compete and accumulate ranking points.
The IPC confirmed to BBC Sport that the 10 athletes have been awarded bipartite commission invitations to compete in Para-alpine skiing, Para-cross country skiing and Para-snowboarding at the Milan-Cortina Games.
“The IPC can confirm that NPC Russia has been awarded a total of six slots: two in Para-alpine skiing (one male, one female), two in Para-cross country skiing (one male, one female), and two in Para-snowboard (both male),” it said in a statement.
“NPC Belarus has been awarded four slots in total, all in cross-country skiing (one male and three female).”
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said it was “completely the wrong decision”.
“Allowing athletes from Russia and Belarus to compete under their own flags while the brutal invasion of Ukraine continues sends a terrible message,” Nandy wrote on X.
“The International Paralympic Committee should reconsider this decision urgently.”
Bipartite commission invites are granted to individual athletes, rather than their international federation, and allow the participation of top athletes “who may not have had the opportunity to qualify through other methods due to extraordinary circumstances”, among other factors.
Ukraine has also been awarded bipartite slots in three sports.
It will mark the first time a Russian flag has been flown at a Paralympic Games since the Sochi 2014 Games, firstly due to the country’s state-sponsored doping programme, before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Russian news agency TASS reports that among the athletes set to compete are Aleksey Bugaev, a three-time Paralympic champion in alpine skiing, and cross-country skiers Ivan Golubkov and Anastasiia Bagiian – both are World Championship medallists.
All three returned to competition in January, and both Bugaev and Bagiian have since won World Cup titles.
The Milan-Cortina Winter Paralympics will take place from 6-15 March.
[BBC]
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