Managing Trustee in Berlin for discussions

C-NES Managing Trustee Sanjoy Hazarika visited Berlin, Germany, at the invitation of the Heinrich Boell Foundation with which C-NES has a partnership. It has concluded a major research study on the Impact of Conflict on Women in Assam and Nagaland and also finished filming a documentary on the same issue. The latter is produced and scripted by Mr. Hazarika while Direction and Cinematography are by Maulee Senapati. At the Boll Foundation, Mr. Hazarika met with officers of the Foundation and made a presentation of issues before the North East as well as the work of C-NES in health, education and other sectors of governance. A private screening of the film was also held.

Future possible partnerships were discussed.

In addition, Mr. Hazarika met with senior officers handling South Asia at the German Foreign Office where he was hosted for lunch in the historic pre-World War II building and held discussions on the social and political issues before South Asia, including India, Bangladesh and Nepal. They showed a great deal of interest both in conditions of the NER as well as C-NES’ unique and prioneering work, especially as Mr. Hazarika has been made a member of the National Steering Group of Health.

During his visit, Mr. Hazarika called on Mr. Josef Winkler, Member of the Bundestag (German Parliament) from the Green Party and a signficiant leader of the same. Discussions with the MP and his Parliamentary staff concentrated on issues of rights, legal structures and health and governance issues, including the Boat Clinics iniitiative. Mr. Hazarika has met with Mr. Wjinkler on earlier visits of the latter and his Parliamentary colleagues to Guwahati and in March 2011 to New Delhi.

‘A clearer profile of C-NES and its unique innovative work was established and developed at various levels, the discussions were substantial and detailed and there is great interest in the issues before the North-east at various levels of Germany, especialy on issues of governance, rights and current peace prospoects as well as relationships with neigbhours such as Bangladesh and Myanmar,’ Mr. Hayarika says after the meetings.

Mr. Hazarika visited sections of Berlin where broken portions of the infamous Berlin Wall (1961-1989) still stand as a memory to the dictatorship that once controlled a large part of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, including East Berlin and East Germany. ‘It was a deeply moving and sobering experience because we so often take our freedom and rights for granted,’ he said. The Wall was brought down in 1989 by a spontaneous public uprising in which soldiers from both sides also joined to celebrate the beginning of the end of the Soviet ’empire’ and the Cold War.