Time Inc. / time.com

The Netly News
originally published at http://pathfinder.com/Netly/daily/961216.html
December 16, 1996

Our Man in Burma
By Declan McCullagh (declan@well.com)

>        I lied my way into Burma. I posed as a tourist instead of a
>   journalist, which is not a particularly difficult thing to do. After
>   all, what's the difference, except that one pays for the privilege of
>   snooping around, and the other gets paid? To the government of Burma,
>   of course, there's a big difference: Reporters are barred from this
>   repressive country, except when attending official SLORC (The State
>   Law and Order Restoration Council, Burma's ruling military junta)
>   briefings. The military doesn't approve of what the state-run media
>   decries as "political infiltrators" and "colonialist lackeys." Not
>   surprisingly, a Japanese journalist was badly beaten when covering a
>   demonstration earlier this month. Norwegian, British, Dutch and French
>   reporters have been deported within the last week. I was careful, even
>   paranoid, about anyone seeing my Netly News credentials. Burmese
>   prisons rank high on the list of places in the world that no one would
>   ever want to see.
>   
>       But Burma itself was a place I desperately wanted to see,
>   precisely because it's a part of the world that does not want to be
>   seen. The army is omnipresent here. Military convoys sweep the streets
>   of Rangoon, ready to silence any students who dare to demand
>   democracy. Troops have cordoned off much of the city, particularly the
>   universities, with barbed-wire barricades. Tanks rumbled to a halt and
>   parked in front of City Hall last Friday. Their turrets are aimed
>   across the Sule Pagoda square at the embassy of the United States,
>   which has criticized Burma's harsh treatment of protesters. The muggy
>   tropical air is thick with tension and diesel fumes.
>   
>        The junta, SLORC, has once again sealed the lakeside home of Aung
>   San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning democracy advocate. SLORC
>   is trying desperately to block the student protesters from meeting
>   with Suu Kyi, who lives near Rangoon University. "I do not think
>   general discontent is going to die down. The military's answer is to
>   crush, crush, crush dissent. That's no answer," Suu Kyi told me on
>   Saturday. "They believe in a show of force."
>   
>        Force is something the generals understand well. SLORC seized
>   control of the country in 1988 and two years later voided an election
>   that Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party won in a landslide.
>   Today, Burma continues to rank among the world's most politically
>   repressive -- and thus one of the poorest -- countries. A place where
>   monthly wages may be just $30 and only military officers and
>   foreigners can afford Western imports, villas outside the capital city
>   and the menacing black German sedans beloved by the junta. The army
>   maintains a stranglehold on communications technology too. In
>   September it banned the unapproved "importing, keeping in possession,
>   or utilizing" of fax machines, modems and computers with network
>   connections. Satellite dishes and direct-dial international phone
>   service are illegal without special permission. Violators face prison
>   terms and unspecified fines.
>   
>        The concept of such complete control of telecommunications
>   technology is what drew me to this remote Asian country at the
>   foothills of the Himalayas, where an American is almost as rare as
>   clean tap water and a Net connection is still a distant dream. What
>   follows is a briefing from a descent into a present-day hell,
>   populated with the most gentle and generous people I've ever met --
>   and ruled by one of the most oppressive governments on the planet.
>   
>        The day I arrived, students were protesting in front of the
>   American embassy. "We marched in front of the embassy," one Rangoon
>   University student told me. Then they turned north toward the
>   Shwedagon Pagoda. "Seven police trucks came and took students away.
>   They hit us with rubber batons," the student says. The week before,
>   students protesting at Rangoon University were drenched with water
>   cannons. This was admirable restraint -- by SLORC standards. In 1988,
>   soldiers slaughtered thousands of civilians who marched for greater
>   political freedom.
>   
>        During that turbulent time, Aung San Suu Kyi returned to Burma,
>   also called Myanmar, after 28 years abroad. She quickly became a
>   prominent advocate of democratic government. The generals responded by
>   placing her under house arrest in 1989, though they briefly allowed
>   her greater freedom until the barbed-wire blockades around her Inya
>   Lake compound went back up this month. "They say I can ask permission
>   to leave," she says. "I choose not to. It is my right to move about as
>   I please."
>   
>        Suu Kyi remains optimistic. "In five years, we should have
>   democracy in place," she says. "How?" I ask. "By striving for it.
>   Things are moving all the time," she replies.
>   
>        We were unable to meet in person because of the blockades. The
>   Lady, as she is called here, cautioned me that she "takes it for
>   granted" that her phone is tapped. Here, then, is a splendid example
>   of how SLORC wields its laws criminalizing unapproved use of
>   communications technology to further its political ends: Suu Kyi is
>   not permitted to have a satellite dish, a fax machine or a telephone
>   that can call overseas directly. "You have to apply for a license from
>   the government. I did a year ago. It is not forthcoming," she says.
>   "It's standard for Burma."