Media Standards Trust

The world has watched as the Burmese protests first escalated and were then brutally suppressed – via blogs, mobile phone pictures, and video uploaded to the web. But since Friday, after the government blocked the flow of information, the demonstrations have been stifled and news from Burma silenced. Will it make any difference to the future of Burma that the world was witness to its protests?

3 Comments

 

What happened?

Protests began on the 19th August, after the government raised fuel prices, increasing the already high levels of economic hardship. These protests intensified in September when Burmese Buddhist monks joined in. Thanks to photographs, blogs and reports from the ground, the swelling unrest in Burma quickly became the focus of world’s media. Until, on Friday 27th September, the government cut off what communications linked remained, imprisoned the monks, and shot an undisclosed number of protesters (officially 10, but said to be upwards of 200).

 

How different is 2007 to 1988?

There were similar popular protests in 1988, in which ‘Burmese security forces killed some 3,000 anti-government protesters’ (from The Guardian). But unlike 2007 this ‘prompted barely a peep from the outside world’ since it was difficult for Burmese citizens to communicate with the outside world and easy for the government to block whatever external communication existed.

Today we have been able to watch the protests unfolding thanks to bloggers like niknayman, Ko Htike, Sein Khaloke, Mya, Mg Khar, Soe Soe, Kyi Kyi and others (from Voices from Cyberspace); internet news services like Irawaddy, Zin Media, Mizzima news, and the Democratic Voice of Burma (based in Norway); opposition groups hosted on Facebook; mobile phone photographs and video uploaded to the net via Youtube and other video services.

‘Although less than 1% of the population has access to the internet,’ David Pallister writes in The Guardian, ‘and only 25,000 people have email addresses, witnesses have been finding loopholes.’ Some, for example, hidden in e-greetings cards (according to Alastair Scrutton in The Independent).

Not only has this illuminated political demonstrations which might otherwise have remained invisible, it has provided personal, moving accounts of the escalating demonstrations and ensuing violence. Such as this one from Ko Htike:

‘Soldiers in police uniforms are using tear gas bombs,’ Ko Htike writes, ‘officers are shouting orders to fire just above peoples' heads. Guns are firing continuously. Students from Main University Road are now marching towards 80th Street.’ (from The Independent, 26-9-07).

 

Even the internet silenced

But after Friday 27th September an ‘"Access Denied" notice appeared’ if you tried to log onto banned websites or blogs as the government cut off contact with the outside world (from BBC Monitoring).

Information going out of the country was being strictly monitored, a blog written on GlobalVoicesOnline said, and the junta was "hunting down the sources".

 

International community appalled

‘Their cries of pain and rage [in Burma] found an echo chamber at the United Nations in New York, where world leaders had gathered for the annual general assembly’ (Sunday Times). Western governments were unsparing in their condemnation of the violence; President George Bush called it ‘barbaric’ and said “the American people stand in solidarity with these brave individuals". Gordon Brown said there would be no impunity for dictators, and David Miliband said ‘Burma could not be immune to international pressure’.

The UN sent its special envoy Ibrahim Gambari, to speak to General Than Shwe, and to the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

 

Muted reaction from China

But the most influential international player remained relatively silent. China, which exports $1.3bn in goods to Burma each year, neither approved or condemned the action. Although, according to unconfirmed reports from Reuters, the Chinese government has been secretly ‘mediating actively behind the scenes’ and ‘has also started to prepare for the occurrence of regime change in Burma’.

 

Will it make any real difference?

‘After early optimism,’ reported The Observer, ‘a sense of hopelessness now exists in Rangoon.’ The protests have been suppressed. The government has imposed a curfew, and there are up to 20,000 troops patrolling Rangoon’s streets.

Meanwhile online, writes Emily Miller in The Mirror, ‘the government website ran like clockwork, branding monks "saboteurs" and promoting Burma's "beautiful tourist destinations".’

"Normalcy has now returned to Myanmar" the Burmese foreign minister told the UN. The Sunday Times reported the regime believes it can last another 20 years.

‘If [the protest movement] is to get rid of the generals,’ Mick Hume writes in The Times, ‘their movement may need to deploy political weapons other than prayers, blogs and digicams’. Recalling Tiananmen Square Hume argues that though ‘Publicity is important… it would be naive to imagine that internet petitions or UN representatives in Rangoon could somehow confront armed power’.

 

Questions

Will the damage to the public image of Burma's government done by the pictures, blogs and emails spread by the internet have any real impact?

The Scotsman suggests that ‘the spread of democracy and human rights is now wedded to the ability of ordinary people to have access to mobile phone and internet technology’ and as such we should have ‘a framework of international law [that] covers the right of individuals to have access to the internet'. Do you agree?

What, if any, impact should we expect ‘citizen journalism’ to have on other countries with autocratic governments such as China, Cuba, Iran, Libya, Nepal, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkmenistan or Vietnam?

Is Mick Hume right when he says ‘before you can televise a democratic revolution, you need to start one’?

 

Recommended

'Junta tries to shut down internet and phone links', David Pallister, The Guardian, 27-9-2007

'Junta crushes Buddha's army', Sunday Times, 30-9-07

There's very little doubt in my mind that citizen media had a major impact on the events in Burma over the last few weeks. Because the media environment in that country is so closed, a large number of the images and video clips we were able to see were those from citizen's media. The specific method used was pretty fascinating as well - most Burmese didn't post directly to the web, but sent their images to intermediaries, usually diaspora Burmese, who were able to post online. Talking to Burmese activist friends, it sounds like many of these images and videos weren't actually transmitted online, but carried by "pigeons" who took them out of the country through Thailand, then put them online. In other words, the key to getting information out of Burma wasn't the Internet, but was the ability to record digital media.

You're asking a more complicated question, though - will this digital media authorship affect the overall political situation in Burma? It's quite certain that equation "closed society plus open media equals democracy" is not true, and probably has never been true. Open media is one of the neccesary preconditions for a democratic government, but it's not the sole one, and Burma lacks most of those preconditions. In the short run, it's likely that citizen media will lead an onerous crackdown on freedom of expression. In the long run, my hope is that the ability to see what's really going on in Burma will help mobilize global public sentiment against the junta and those who continue to do business with it.

Ever since they have been in power, the Burmese military junta have done everything they can to silence those who dare to question them. Calling itself the State Peace and Development Council, the army hounds Aung San Suu Kyi's supporters and enforces censorship so strict that it exposes itself to ridicule. In 2005, the censors even began going through the death notices to be published in the newspapers to eliminate any undesirable references, such as mention of the United Nations, seen as wanting to overthrow the regime. More seriously, they also censor reports about the AIDS epidemic or the drug trafficking that is endemic in this former pearl of the British Empire.

For fear of ever losing their grip on the country, the military control the two daily newspapers, the three TV stations and all the radio stations. A journalist can be sentenced to seven years in prison just for possessing an unauthorised fax machine, video camera or modem, or for having a copy of a banned publication. The dozens of privately-owned magazines try in vain to offer the public different news, as all publications, without exception, must submit to an implacable military censorship. This is virtually unique in the world. With scissors poised, censors cut out anything they do not like. Everything is checked, articles, poems, cartoons and even ads.

Many Burmese journalists feel humiliated by this censorship and try to resist. We saw this during the demonstrations, when most of the privately-owned magazines refused to appear, defying the orders of the military, which wanted them to publish the official lies. They could pay dearly for this act of courage. The authorities have already announced that some publications are to be closed down for good.

There remains the Internet, which saw a flowering of blogs and websites fed by demonstrators, some of whom were transformed into journalists for the occasions. The military saw the danger and cut off the Internet on 28 September. The flow of photos and video footage dried up and the blogs disappeared, to be replaced by nothing but rumour.

Defending press freedom in Burma is not just about demanding the release of imprisoned journalists. It is also, and above all, about ensuring that the blackout imposed by the military does not allow them to continue their repression out of sight and therefore with complete impunity. In 1988, it took weeks to discover the extent of the repression - more than 3,000 dead and thousands thrown into prison. The French ambassador is now talking of thousands of arrests and dozens killed. But without pictures, who cares?

Must we resign ourselves to letting this tragedy play out behind closed doors? Burma has virtually disappeared from the TV screen. And yet, Burmese and foreign journalists on the ground continue to gather eye-witness accounts of nighttime raids on monasteries and Rangoon apartment blocks. At least six journalists, all Burmese, were arrested while trying to cover the repression, camera in hand. And the exile media such as Democratic Voice of Burma, using methods worthy of the wartime resistance in France, continue to keep us informed.

Do you remember the Buddhist monks defying the threats and drawing tens of thousands of civilians on to the streets? It was 10 days ago. But since then, nothing. No more video footage. Not a single photo of one of the monks being held in a disused Rangoon stadium. The saffron revolution moved us to tears. Let us take care to ensure that the news blackout does not allow our outrage to fade away.

Mobile phones, mobile phones cameras, video footage and blogs make big
impact on recent demonstrations in Burma. Small and portable video
equipments such as phone camera and video cameras make it difficult for
security forces to notice. As a result, images that sent out from
Burma, first peaceful demonstrations and second, brutal crackdown by the
regime shocked the whole world. There is no doubt that there would be
less reaction from international community if there were no images
coming out from Burma recent weeks. It is in a way sad that we live in
the time that no image, no news.