The Cyber Dissident
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During the uprising, a handful of journalists working for international news agencies, such as The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse produced professional work. Citizen reporters, however, follow their own rules; often the reports were accurate, other times wildly exaggerated and based on word of mouth.
But, thanks to citizen reporters, we now have more information, more voices, more interviews, more images and more sources on the ground.
More significantly, the young people of the blogger generation are entirely different from those in 1988. They are computer literate and are connected with the outside world. Many have been to neighboring countries such as Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia, if not to the West.
Digital technology brought in from these countries has enabled activists, young journalists and computer geeks to bypass the Burmese authorities’ strict censorship.
However, despite the generation gap in technology, the old Burmese generals refused to sit idly by. They fought back.
The Internet Blackout—A Counterattack
Before the monk-led demonstrations in September, the Burmese generals underestimated the potential of the Internet and soon realized they were being defeated in the media.
The regime moved to cut the flow of information. Nonetheless, a reporter with a news agency in Japan was shocked to learn how little knowledge police officers in the Burmese special branch had of the Internet.
During his interrogation in Rangoon, officers repeatedly asked how live video footage had been smuggled out of Burma so quickly and appeared on international broadcasts by BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera.
“They didn’t realize that the Internet was doing all the miracle work,” he said.
Finally realizing that these lines of communication were essential for journalists and the democracy movement, the Burmese authorities belatedly cut off mobile phone services and Internet lines, preventing citizens and journalists from reporting instantly from the field. Internet cafés were shut down.
People with cameras were singled out and chased down by soldiers. Under shoot-to-kill orders, Japanese cameraman Kenji Nagai lost his life.
Burma observers speculated that the junta’s intelligence apparatus had lost technological sophistication since the downfall of Gen Khin Nyunt, the feared head of the secret police, in October 2004.
To activists and bloggers, the internal wrangling among the top leaders and the dismantling of Khin Nyunt’s powerful spy agency was a blessing.
If Khin Nyunt were still in power, most young Burmese bloggers estimate that the spy chief would have ordered Burma’s sole Internet provider, Bagan Cyber Tech, to shut down its connections at the first sign of unrest.
Indeed, Khin Nyunt would most certainly have pulled the plug before ordering troops to shoot demonstrators. However, the current regime unwittingly allowed the Internet to operate during the early days of the uprising.
A journalist in Burma told The Irrawaddy in 2001: “Intelligence officers are standing behind Bagan Cyber Tech, keeping a close eye on everything we upload.”
Perhaps not close enough in light of the citizen reporters’ successes in 2007. Nonetheless, the authorities have now moved to reduce Internet speed and bandwidth, making it more difficult to send and receive high resolution images or bulky files.
Bloggers in Burma are increasingly paranoid about Internet surveillance. Rumors circulate of Russian experts hired to monitor messages and analyze e-mail accounts. A girl in her early 20s said, “They are checking my e-mails; I’m too scared to send anything.”
Owners of Internet cafés have been forced to record the personal details of all users and to program automatic screen “captures” every five minutes on each computer. A blogger Nay Phone Latt was arrested in January.
The regime has also recruited its own propaganda specialists to counter cyber dissidents.
Since early last year, apologists for the regime have been setting up blogs to counter the pro-democracy bloggers. Aside from personal attacks, the junta’s bloggers leak false news and propaganda, such as support for the seven-point “road map to democracy” and the regime’s “Three National Causes.”
The junta is now keeping a close eye on bloggers like the mysterious “OA6,” who suggested that 2007 be declared the “Year of the Blogger.”
“In political terminology, we are like a democracy—you can write freely and criticize freely,” OA6 wrote.
The Burmese junta’s cyber police will undoubtedly be working to prove OA6 wrong.
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