[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index ][Thread Index ]

Myanmar Rebels armed with Net



Myanmar rebels armed with Net 
By Reuters

March 11, 1998, 1:35 p.m. PT 
BANGKOK, Thailand--Freedom fighters in Myanmar--formerly Burma--used to 
get their message across with guns and jungle warfare. 

But things have changed with the coming of the global village. Nowadays, 
the most successful dissidents arm themselves with modems and have 
shifted their field of operation from the jungle to the Internet. 

Taking a cue from the successful use of the Net by pressure groups 
worldwide, Myanmar's army of "cyberactivists" has been growing strongly 
in the past few years, urging the world to help undermine the military 
junta that seized power in 1988. Activists claim it has had great 
success, evidenced by mounting international pressure on the regime 
since the mid-1990s. 

The Free Burma Coalition, which spearheads a movement to stop foreign 
investment in Myanmar and undermine the junta, has become one of the 
world's largest Internet-based political groups. Cofounded three years 
ago by Zarni, a Burmese who went to study in the United States, it has 
members in 28 countries and a large presence on university campuses 
worldwide. 

Its growing influence has coincided with some key measures taken against 
the Myanmar government in recent years, including economic sanctions by 
the United States and Canada. Selective purchasing laws, which prevent 
authorities from buying from companies that do business with Myanmar, 
have been approved by 17 U.S. cities, one county, and the state of 
Massachusetts. 

"All of these laws have been enacted in the past three years," said 
Simon Billenness, a leading activist based in Massachusetts. "The 
selective purchasing laws on Burma have been enacted at a much faster 
rate than similar laws for any other specific country." 

"I remember we began to use the Internet in 1994 and it was a dramatic 
improvement in communications for us," said Aung Naing Oo, foreign 
secretary of the All Burma Students Democratic Front, founded by 
students fleeing the military's brutal suppression of pro-democracy 
demonstrations in 1988. 

"In the jungle, we started out in 1988 with typewriters. Then computers 
were introduced to us a year later, which was a huge leap forward for 
us," Aung Naing Oo said. "It has been through the use of the Internet 
that we have achieved so much in such a short time, something we never 
could have imagined." 

Larry Dohrs, a trade specialist and activist for the Free Burma movement 
based in Washington state, agreed. "Though we are highly dispersed...we 
now can communicate and act as a real community," he told Reuters in an 
email interview--the way in which all information for this article was 
gathered. 

"Thus our dispersion is changed from a disadvantage to an advantage 
overnight, since we have local actors almost everywhere and a network of 
international supporters," he said. 

In addition to allowing activists to communicate with each other, the 
Internet has become an easy and cheap way to spread information through 
subscriber lists. 

News on the country is relatively sparse, as Myanmar has strict laws 
prohibiting foreign journalists from living in the country and the local 
media are tightly controlled. So the activists created BurmaNet News, 
funded by a branch of the Soros Foundation called the Open Society 
Institute. 

The BurmaNet News editor compiles news published about Myanmar and adds 
other information gathered by activists and organizations inside and 
outside the country and sends it all out to subscribers. 

"BurmaNet has expanded from roughly 450 subscribers in mid-1995 to over 
1,000 subscribers now," said a former BurmaNet editor. "Many more people 
read it in newsgroups, printed out on paper, or on the Web. Almost 
everyone who works actively on Burma, including the military junta, is 
reading BurmaNet." 

One addition to BurmaNet in the past year is the active participation of 
the Myanmar government, which also has created its own subscriber list 
and sends out daily propaganda sheets and summaries of its newspapers. 

Most activists welcome the contribution--which is somewhat ironic given 
the fact that using the Internet is technically illegal in Myanmar. 

"I think it is great. One subscriber recently asked us to stop posting 
messages from the military junta, but I explained to him that it is 
important to listen to what they have to say," said the BurmaNet editor. 


"And I think that a dialogue of sorts is emerging on the Net. What is so 
exciting about BurmaNet is that such a variety of people are reading 
it--diplomats, the military junta, activists, academics, journalists, 
and students." 

Story from Reuters