Burmese Media Revolution: Shouts for freedom from exile ; Than Win Htut

Articles from - http://www.sampsoniaway.org/bi-monthly/2010/07/27/burmese-media-revolution-shouts-for-freedom-from-exile/

by Silvia Duarte

Than Win Htut and Democratic Voice of Burma

The government began to persecute Than Win Htut in 1991, when he and some of his colleagues published a book without the “blessing” of the censorship committee. That year the police arrested two of his friends involved and weeks after came to the house where Than Win Htut was hidden. He hid on the roof, trembling as he watched the security forces handcuff his friends.

At the end of 2002 Than Win Htut travelled to Cambodia to attend a journalism training program organized by the New York Times. “As a result of the training I realized that I could still write in exile and I wouldn’t have to be afraid of the censorship. So I decided not to go back to Burma,” he said from Norway via Skype.

After the training, he went to Thailand and wrote for English and Burmese newspapers. In 2004 the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) offered him a job as a senior radio reporter. DVB is a non-profit media organization that began in Norway in 1991 after the Burmese government barred Aung San Suu Kyi from traveling there to accept the Nobel Peace Prize. Now DVB is the best example of what the Burmese foreign–based broadcast media can do.

In “Strategies of an Exile Media Organization,” DVB deputy director Khin Maung Win explains how DVB uses a variety of strategies to get their signal into Burma. The first strategy is to broadcast via shortwave radio, which can reach everywhere in the country and is highly effective because the regime cannot block the signal. Among the other well-known radio stations broadcasting from outside of the country are the Burmese services of the British Broadcasting Cooperation, Voice of America, and Radio Free Asia.

Another strategy of DVB is to use satellite TV. It is estimated that about 10 million Burmese have access to satellite TV. “Millions of Burmese nowadays are tuning into many foreign TV channels via satellite dishes. During the 1990s, people started putting up satellite dishes, and the government allowed it because it gets revenue from each registration fee,” Khin Maung Win wrote.

DVB launched its television news service in May 2005. According to Khin Maung Win, this is the only independent Burmese TV channel that millions of people inside Burma can rely on. However, he added that analysts believe that as many as 95 percent of the dishes in the country are unregistered and technically illegal. These can be removed at any time.

In May 2005 Than Win Htut left his radio position and joined the TV team. Since 2006 he has been producing the evening news program and coordinating two networks of reporters: one of exiled correspondents throughout Thailand, India, and China, and another of undercover reporters inside Burma.

Than Win Htut explained that undercover reporters working for DVB include both citizen journalists, who are volunteers, and paid members of the staff. When the volunteers learn about abuses by the local authorities—if they see police taking a person to jail or they witness forced labor—they want the exiled media to know about it. “Just like the people on whom they report, these citizen journalists are themselves victims of political persecution, poverty, and suffering. They want to change their lives, and they trust in the exiled media to do it. So they have become citizen journalists,” Than Win Htut said.

In rural communities, where only one person has a phone, Than Win Htut explained that people will line up 20 to 30 deep to use it. They are not waiting to talk with their family or their friends; they are waiting to talk with DVB or other media outlets. The news services pay for phone calls, but don’t compensate these people or their time.

In 2009, the 2,300-year-old Danok pagoda mysteriously collapsed during renovation. One of the volunteers reported to DVB: “There are about 60 to 70 soldiers in the pagoda’s premises, and they are telling people to say that no one was killed or hurt when someone asks. About fifty people are still trapped underneath the debris.”

Unlike the volunteers who report news as it is happening, the staff reporters are paid to do investigative reporting on assignment. Than Win Htut explained that these reporters don’t use an office as a way to avoid persecution. And their fear has a solid basis: police in Burma seem to be omnipresent.

Many times when Than Win Htut is in the middle of a very serious conversation with a volunteer, the phone call gets cut. “Other times we can hear interference, noises, and most of the cases that means that someone from the Intelligence Department of the government is listening to us to send his report. Some reporters have already been arrested in that way,” Than Win Htut added.

Because some of the staff and volunteers have small cameras, they are always under police surveillance. “Sometimes the reporters are caught filming and they must pretend to be doing something else. They say ‘I’m just trying out this camera’ or ‘this is my uncle’s and I’m just playing with it.’ But most of the time that doesn’t work and they are arrested,” Than Win Htut said.

Many DVB journalists have been arrested in the past two years, and at least ten have received prison terms of up to 50 years. That illustrates why the protection of sources—both volunteers and reporters—is an obsession for editors and coordinators of Burmese media in exile. Failure to protect sources will result in imprisonments that will lead to loss of trust and inability to keep the in-country network alive.

And when a reporter is arrested, Than Win Htut and the other editors must be very careful. The reporters often deny that they were working with DVB during interrogation, so a wrong word from the editors could mean a longer sentence. “Sometimes organizations like Reporters without Borders call us and ask: ‘Is he or she [a person in jail] your reporter?’ We can’t say yes or no. Anyway, in some cases the family of the prisoner ask us to say his name to gain the attention of the international media,” Than Win Htut said.

Under these difficult circumstances, DVB—and other media outlets that work with undercover volunteers and reporters—also face another big problem: the verification of their information. “Verifying if what people are saying is the truth is difficult. Sometimes other volunteers help us to do it, but we have to be careful because the military regime has infiltrators in all levels of society,” Than Win Htut explained.

Even though this journalist and the rest of DVB staff are aware of the consequences, they often try to verify information with officers, ministers, or other official sources. “The problem is that they refuse to talk with us. If they know we are from DVB, they don’t answer or they drop the phone. When they answer, it’s because they don’t know that the call is from DVB.”

Throughout this interview, Than Win Htut spoke fluent English until he was asked about the situation of his family in Burma. He answered that they are not at risk, but his words were almost unintelligible. To share thoughts about highly charged emotions is difficult for a non-native speaker and his unclear words expressed his fear: no one with relatives who are exiled journalist can be completely safe in Burma.