Saturday, May 24, 2014

Democratic Voice of Burma

Democratic Voice of Burma

Censorship in the days of shackles and fetters

Posted: 24 May 2014 12:55 AM PDT

In 2010, when the US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell visited Burma with Chargé d'Affaires Larry Dinger, all publications in the country were heavily censored and journalists were subject to arrest for any infraction. Censorship from the Press Scrutiny and Registration Division was so heavy that using Aung San Suu Kyi's name in print or showing her photograph publicly was forbidden. Doing so gratuitously was an act that could get a journalist a prison sentence of several years. The responsible publication would have been forced to close.

In May 2010, international onlookers saw a photograph of Suu Kyi with Campbell and Dinger that accompanied stories of the visit. In 2010 a new spotlight on The Lady was refreshing for the world to see and indeed the photograph displayed a feeling of hopefulness. Meanwhile, inside Burma's oppressed labyrinthine world of censorship and misinformation, The New Light of Myanmar published the same photo but without Suu Kyi. It showed Campbell and Dinger standing five feet apart looking inward while holding umbrellas over at a vacant space where Suu Kyi should have been.

At that time I was teaching a group of student journalists at the American Center in Rangoon. When the Burmese government version of the photo appeared, with Suu Kyi edited out, all of my students laughed at the calamity. However my journalism students also acted, deciding to publish the original photo of Suu Kyi, Campbell and Dinger in the inaugural issue of the American Centre student publication, Open Window Journal, in defiance of the censorship board.

The decision to print the photo wasn't one made casually. Several months earlier, aggressive undercover police threatened students at the corner teashop near the American Center. They were told not to get involved with journalism. Those students quickly left the American Center never to return, except for one who continued working with Open Window Journal. A new batch of students knew of this and yet unanimously voted to move forward.

Though new to journalism, the students were not new to politics. They fully understood the risks involved. One of the students on the journal had appeared in the movie Burma VJ as a protestor rushing the attacking line of police on the day of the 2007 Saffron Revolution in Rangoon. He later escaped Rangoon and spent a year up-country in a village home of a relative. Two others had a brother and a father who were political prisoners. Another had a brother who was marked for death after the Saffron Revolution, who had absconded to a refugee camp in Thailand and then asylum in a Western country.

We met several times a day over a month and discussed the consequences of each story. As the journal is published in English, we discussed how the stories translated into Burmese and would be read by censors. The student journalists made the calls on everything. I would take the blame if anything came up and if I got deported, so be it. If that were all that would have happened it would have been ok. I was actually afraid for my students since if arrested, there would be no one to help them.

Much of the entire first issue was considered controversial. There were stories of topics not usually printed or even discussed openly in public. One story was of a woman who contracted HIV; one on the persistent daily electricity shortages; one on the long-term drought's effects on the elderly and villagers, and the government inaction to alleviate their suffering; another on water donations made to them by students and activists; a subversive poem; and a second photograph of Aung San Suu Kyi.

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No one feared for their own safety as much as for the safety of their family members. The former military government was famous for punishing entire families for the political actions of one family member. It was a very effective way to keep youth out of political activism. Yet, the students made the decision to distribute. Later in the day the censorship board called the US Embassy.

The censorship office declared the Open Window Journal must limit distribution to 150 copies. They could only be distributed to American Center students and library patrons; however the students were told they would not be held accountable for the journal being found outside of the American Center.

Nevertheless, the backlash from the censorship office was unnerving to the students and they kept a low profile, stayed home or visited relatives. While in the following weeks there was some minor harassment by undercover police, Special Branch police and Military Intelligence operatives, we were most agitated by some of the American Center students rumored to be working for the police as informants. The American Center in 2010 was a hot zone for spies who were paid money to report information on people and activities there. The local Burmese administrative workers tipped us off to them, but there were certainly others who were more discrete and unknown. Yet, the student journalist and other activists refused to live with fear.

When in June 2013 Burma decreed an end to press censorship, its leading proponent Tint Swe said, "There will be no going back to the past." Yet there is no unhindered freedom of the press as was promised. The press freedom allowed today is merely half-measures designed to placate international opinion of the so-called reforms underway in Burma. The jailing of Zaw Pe, a journalist for the DVB, and the imprisonment of several journalists from Unity journal is a typical example of government doubletalk on press freedom and political reforms. This is the real nature of the still military controlled "civilian" government. It fears transparency.

Burma today is as far from being a democracy as it was in 2010. Its leaders are backsliding, imprisoning journalists again, imprisoning land rights activists, instigating land seizures, still waging wars in ethnic regions, and letting ethnic division in Arakan State slip dangerously close to a preventable genocide of Rohingya people. Many of Burma's government cronies and politicians say they want to enforce "disciplined democracy."

Adding to the problems facing Burma today is the unwillingness of Burma's military elite to allow Suu Kyi to campaign outside of her own district in support of her fellow National League for Democracy candidates in the upcoming 2015 elections. They have also begun a campaign to resist the very public campaign being waged by Suu Kyi to repeal an article in Burma's Constitution that prohibits her from running for president. The military leaders and parliamentarians opposing Suu Kyi claim that crowds of NLD supporters gathering in the last election reminded them of the 1988 uprising. They claimed that the people who rallied by the hundreds of thousands to see Aung San Suu Kyi were "too free".

There are far too many people in Burma who have nothing to lose; who eat small bowls of rice; who can't afford the low cost of sending their children to public schools; who can't pay a doctor with cash when they're sick. Freedom from shackles and fetters is not the only freedom tens of thousands of Burma's ex-political prisoners were seeking when released from prison. Time is no longer on the side of the military government. Burmese people are tired of the past, tired of the abuse, of the lack of electricity, of the neglected infrastructure and they are tired of discipline.

In spite of all of the talk about Burma having turned a corner towards openness, it's highly probable that national elections scheduled for 2015 will get postponed to a later date to ensure further rule by the military if pressure for real reforms becomes threatening to the military rulers. Too many people assume things in Burma are going well, when in fact all past indicators point to political and social upheaval leading toward a relapse into disciplinarianism.

Which way will Burma turn? The current parliamentarians and military leaders who last year were scared by memories of 500,000 "too free" people in the streets supporting Aung San Suu Kyi as seen in 1988 could be in for a shock if they don't stop their double-talk and capitulating on political progress and fundamental reforms. They may see two million "too free" people in the streets next year.

One way or another, in 2015 there will be change in Burma. By imprisoning journalists the current government has plainly demonstrated they have limits to how much freedom they're willing to tolerate.

However there will be no going back to the days of shackles and fetters for tens of thousands of democracy activists.

 

Daniel Opacki is an educator, consultant and writer. He was an English Language Fellow grantee in Burma from 2010 – 12. For over five years in Burma, he has taught journalism, mentored democracy activists and ex-political prisoners, and worked on human rights issues and educational initiatives. He is currently completing a collection of true stories about his time in Burma titled Five Years in Burma: Stories from the Eye of the Storm.

The comments and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s and do not reflect DVB editorial policy.

 

Burmese border situation undisturbed by Thai coup

Posted: 24 May 2014 12:22 AM PDT

Burma's border crossings to Thailand remain open; meanwhile aid workers do not envisage any disruption to the delivery of supplies to refugees along the Thai-Burmese border.

The Friendship Bridge, the main trading post between Thailand's Mae Sot and Burma's Myawaddy, was closed temporarily after the announcement of a military coup d'état in Bangkok on Thursday, but reopened on Friday.

Thailand's military chief Prayuth Chan-ocha originally declared martial law on May 20 after a seemingly endless spat of anti-government campaigning in the Thai capital and no end in sight to the political impasse.

Thai border guards confirmed the road bridge was open, but that boat crossings on the Moei River separating the two countries had been suspended.

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Further north near the Golden Triangle, the border crossing between Thailand's Mae Sai and Tachileik in eastern Shan State stayed open although local sources noted a marked decrease in the number of people and traders crossing the bridge.

Sally Thompson, executive director of The Border Consortium (TBC), which coordinates aid and supplies to some 120,000 refugees from Burma, mostly ethnic Karens, at 10 camps along the border, said that TBC does not anticipate any disruptions to the delivery of supplies to the refugees.

"We continue to coordinate with Thai authorities," she told DVB on Friday. "Meanwhile, we do not anticipate any disruption to the delivery of supplies to the camps."

TBC said that about half the camps had already received advanced rations of supplies such as rice, chilies and cooking oil in anticipation of the rainy season which begins soon.

NCCT, govt agree ‘second draft’ at peace talks

Posted: 23 May 2014 10:20 PM PDT

The latest round of negotiations between the Nationwide Ceasefire Coordination Team (NCCT) ethnic alliance and the Burmese government's Union Peace-making Work Committee (UPWC) was characterized as "open and friendly" in a joint statement released as the summit concluded on Friday in Rangoon.

Three days of talks at the Myanmar Peace Centre between an alliance of 17 ethnic armed groups, headed on this occasion by Pado Saw Kwe Htoo Win of the Karen National Union, and a government delegation led by chief negotiator Minister Aung Min saw further discussion on the specific points of a single-text agreement established at the previous meeting held in April. According to the joint-statement on Friday, that text has been solidified into a second draft.

"We would like to announce that representatives from both sides are continuing to work with the aim of signing a nationwide ceasefire agreement as soon as possible, and to work towards political dialogue," the statement reads.

The groups have agreed to meet again in June.

As the eight-member ethnic delegation sat down with the nine-member government team on Wednesday, a joint statement by 79 Burmese civil society organisations called on both parties to replicate their peace-parlance in their actions.

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Groups including the Kachin Peace Network, Karen Human Rights Group and the Women's League of Burma criticised the Burmese army in the statement, accusing them of using the peace talks as a "decoy" to divert attention from recent aggression in Kachin and northern Shan states.

Khon Ja, liaison officer of the Kachin Peace Network, said ceasefire talks without the halting of clashes on the ground will always be fruitless.

"We are seeing persistent clashes on the ground while at the same time ceasefire talks are facilitated, she said.

"We are also witnessing attacks on civilians and IDPs, and also arbitrary detention and blackmailing – as long as these continue, the talks will never bear fruit.

"We are not calling for signing of the ceasefire agreement, but the actual end of gunfire on the ground," Khon Ja asserted.

The presence of government combat units in the immediate vicinity of camps for internally displaced persons remains a key sticking point for ethnic civil society organisations (CSOs), as does a perceived lack of transparency and accountability in the actions of government troops operating in ethnic areas.

Recent clashes have seen persistent human rights violations by government troops while the Kachin rebels have been accused of abducting and forcibly recruiting villagers.

In Wednesday's statement, the CSOs called on the government to permit civil society actors to access the conflict "black zones" in order to provide assistance to displaced and affected people.

Four thousand people have been displaced due to fighting in Kachin State and northern Shan State as a result of fighting since April, according to a statement issued in conjunction with a separate Kachin peace-working conference held 20-22 May.
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