"CRY FREEDOM" ON THE AIR
29.11.98/BANGKOK POST/PERSPECTIVE WIN HTEIN BURMA:
FROM BOMB SITES TO WEBSITES, THE STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRACY IN BURMA DISCOVERS MODERN COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY
As the witching hour approaches, the cries of the cicadas are not the only sounds that shatter the silence of the forest on the northern Thai-Burmese border. There is also the- crackling of shortwave radio traffic as Burmese dissidents tune in to foreign broadcasts.
In a hatched hut a group of young Burmese refugees is busy trying to nail a clear frequency of a foreign station broadcasting news about political developments in the country.
"On an important day like this, the airwaves are never clear", says one with disappointment.
This is a family camp of the All Burma Students' Democratic Front (ABSDF). They are trying to tune into the Democratic Voice of Burma, their own radio station, based in Oslo and financed by Norway. Most of the programmes are recorded in their jungle studio shack and powered by a generator.
There are four foreign-based radio stations supporting the Burmese democracy movement and supported by government agencies. Recent additions are DVB, which began in 1992, and Radio Free Asia (RFA) in 1997.
The others are the British Broadcasting Corporation arid Voice of America.
While the BBC and VOA are considered veterans in informing the people of developments in the country, especially after the 1988 popular uprising, the newcomers in the war of the airwaves are said to be most popular with listeners in Burma.
The BBC and its American counterpart broadcasts news on both Burmese and international affairs, while RFA concentrates on the Asian region. DVB, meanwhile, focuses on Burma alone, and has became a favourite.
"There is a fierce war of words raging on the air between the opposition and the Burmese military," says a field reporter for DVB. Deprived of other forms of communication such as television, e-mail, phone or fax, people living in the districts and border areas have only the short-wave radio to rely on for news from the outside world apart from the propaganda from the Burmese military regime on Myanmah A-than (The Voice-of Myanmar).
After a decade of armed warfare, the ABSDF has switched tactics to launching a full-fledged media blitz against the central government via the internet, print and broadcast media.
However, there still exists a formidable number engaged in armed warfare fighting alongside the troops of the Karen National Union.
Students who have traded in their weapons in return for mounting a peaceful political offensive are now disseminating information via the BurmaNet, DVB, RFA and the New Era Journal, a monthly tabloid which publishes in Burmese and English.
One of them is Ko Aung Kyaw, a 32-year-old history maior. Broadcast journalism has always been his dream ever since having listened to Christopher Gunnes, the BBC correspondent, who reported intensively on Burma before, during and after 1988.
However, the life of a broadcast journalist, like those in other forms of media coverage by dissidents, including former government officials, is a tough one because of their illegal existence in Thailand.
There have been frequent arrests of these political activists by the authorities. At times they have to take risks travelling to border areas to gather information, where modern electronic communication does not exist.
Though information in the form of news bulletins, newspapers and magazines, is smuggled into the country from time to time, the risks are enormous and the penalties heavy for both the courier and the recipients.
The usual penalty is seven years in Jail.
This being the case, short-wave radios are now among the most sought after commodities in Burma. According to an advertisement in the Burmese business magazine Sipwaye (Wealth): "A Chinese-made pocket size short-wave radio is a top-seller in Rangoon markets priced at 2,400 kyat (300 baht)."
The military government is said to keep tabs on households tuning into foreign broadcasts, beside jamming these stations when the opportunity rises. Soldiers also have been ordered not to listen to them. However, unlike the print media, it is much more difficult to catch them red-handed.
Not to be outdone by the relentless assault of the young students of 1988 on the regime, the Rangoon government are now also exploiting modern communication technologies to counter the offensive.
Slorc/SPDC now have their own website, and have opened a University of Computer Studies for Upper Myanmar (Burma). And coming to their aid is the government of Singapore and Burma's largest trading partner, not to mention the Japanese, who recently held a meeting called the Myanmar-Japan Bilateral Conference on Information Technology.
Unlike the spontaneous uprising of 1988, the August demonstrations by students in Burma this year to commemorate the event's anniversary are the result of the media campaign by the democracy movement overseas.
This has created a new scenario in the fight for restoration of freedom in Burma-from the sword to the pen. A war of words has begun and it has the regime shaking in its boots. It only understands the language of brute force and intimidation in running a country of 45 million people.
The author is a former field reporter of the Democratic Voice of Burma and one of the students who fled to Thailand after the 1988 uprising.
