With mobiles and internet, protesters battle to keep world's eyes on Burma
David Jimenez in Rangoon
Saturday September 29, 2007
The Guardian
The last time Burmese soldiers fired on their own people there were few witnesses, and those who were there had no way of telling the story.
Two decades and a technological revolution later, the protesters challenging the government are ready to risk their lives so the world can hear their story. Armed with mobile phone cameras, they have become the eyes of the "saffron revolution".
No foreign TV crews have been able to enter the country and networks such as the BBC and CNN have been forced to report from neighbouring Thailand. From the point of view of television, the situation is the same as it was in 1988, when the massacre of nearly 3,000 people went unreported by most TV news programmes.
Today, the regime has calculated that it can again win the propaganda battle if it controls the traditional media. It is wrong. The military had forgotten about the internet and the mobile phone, two weapons with which the protesters have managed to grab the world's attention.
Kyaw, 23, a medical student, says he has sent various videos to the BBC and dissident groups based in Thailand, using the camera in his mobile phone and a very slow internet connection.
"It is risk," he says. "The soldiers arrest anyone who takes photos, destroy their phones and beat them up. But we have to show the world what is happening."
Meanwhile, more than 100,000 people have joined a group supporting the uprising on the popular social networking website Facebook. The group, which was started less than a week ago by the US Campaign for Burma, has already helped to organise a series of public demonstrations, vigils and hunger strikes around the world.
Yesterday, the junta finally reacted, closing down the country's principal internet server - one of the many businesses it controls. One official claimed the shutdown was the result of damage suffered by a major supply cable connecting to the internet.
Internet cafes in Rangoon have been closed and their owners threatened with reprisals.
A London-based Burmese blogger, Ko Htike, said the move meant he would not be able to feed in pictures of "the brutality by the brutal Burmese military junta", but vowed to continue pushing information back into the country.
The regime has tried to counter the impact of information smuggled out of the country with monotonous news broadcasts that nobody follows, and surreal official versions that describe the soldiers as victims.
One of the keys to the protesters' success at getting their message out has been the support of well-organised Burmese activists in exile. Videos and photographs received by the dissident groups have been automatically distributed to news agencies and television networks. Dozens of blogs written by students in Rangoon and Mandalay have given daily updates on the democracy movements with eyewitness testimonies.
But all that could be much more complicated now that the government has realised the damage the internet is causing. Without online access, protesters are forced to communicate with outsiders using telephones and text messages, although some telephone lines are also believed to have been cut off.
"I'm scared that if we stop sending photos and video the world will forget about us," says Lynn, who writes and sends low-resolution photos to dissident groups abroad.
The Burmese people know they need to keep international attention on them if they want to succeed. For days they have risked their lives to stand in for the hundreds of journalists banned from Burma by a government that has much to hide.
The world will continue to watch the army's repression, even if has to use methods from the last century. The question is whether this will influence the behaviour of the dictators who for decades have shown no interest in their image.
· David Jimenez is a correspondent for El Mundo
