Dunkley Lands on Regime's Wrong Side

Ross Dunkley, the Australian editor and publisher of The Myanmar Times, has been arrested by Burmese authorities and locked up in the infamous Insein Prison.

Although he was officially detained for immigration violations, his arrest reportedly stemmed from a business conflict with his Burmese partner, Dr Tin Htun Oo, relating to the newspaper's ownership interests and operating strategy.

Aung Zaw is founder and editor of the Irrawaddy magazine. He can be reached at [email protected].

Controversy around The Myanmar Times is nothing new and can be traced along with its junta bloodline back to the top generals in Burma's intelligence service, including former spy chief Gen Khin Nyunt, who were purged by junta chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe in 2004.

Dunkley founded the English language newspaper in 2000 with the backing of Bill Clough, an Australian mining and oil and gas entrepreneur. In Burma, however, foreigners are only allowed to own a minority stake in media organizations, so Dunkley needed to find a local partner with enough connections to land the appropriate publishing licenses and permissions.

That person appeared in the form of Sonny Swe, the son of Brig-Gen Thein Swe, a former military attaché to the Burmese embassy in Bangkok who in 2000 was a high-ranking official in the intelligence department and one of Khin Nyunt's right hand men. A deal was struck, and with Dunkley and his group owning 49 percent of the shares and Sonny Swe holding 51 percent, The Myanmar Times was launched and touted as Burma’s first truly independent news source.

However, the newspaper was seen by many as part of a public relations exercise by Khin Nyunt to polish the image of the military government. At the time of its inception, it even had its own censorship board consisting of Tin Win, Burma’s labor minister, and none other than Thein Swe. Although the two high-ranking junta officials carefully screened the contents of the newspaper, their involvement meant that The Myanmar Times did not need to pass through Burma's draconian press censorship board.

In addition, the newspaper was granted special dispensation to cover sensitive domestic issues such as the status of Aung San Suu Kyi and visits to the country by UN special investigators—it was even given an exclusive interview with Khin Nyunt. Such privileges, which were never offered to the local press, gave Dunkley's newspaper a leg up on all other independent publications in Rangoon. But in return, The Myanmar Times had to toe the official line and paint a positive picture of military-ruled Burma.

For example, after the attack on opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s convoy in Depayin, Dunkley’s paper presented the junta position that the clash was between pro-Suu Kyi and anti-Suu Kyi groups. News organizations outside Burma, however, widely reported that the attack was orchestrated by junta officials and perpetrated by hired thugs.

In 2004, the publishing landscape changed dramatically for The Myanmar Times when Than Shwe purged Khin Nyunt's entire intelligence service and placed the spy chief under house arrest, where he remains today.

Thein Swe was also arrested and received a sentence of more than 100 years in prison. And Sonny Swe, then the majority shareholder and the deputy chief executive officer of The Myanmar Times, was arrested on the charge of committing “economic crimes,” given a 14-year sentence and sent to prison in Lashio, Shan State.

The regime then hand-picked Tin Htun Oo—who was closely associated with junta leaders such as former Information Minister Kyaw Hsan—as Dunkley's new business partner and handed him Sonny Swe's 51 percent interest in The Myanmar Times.

Tin Htun Oo was seen as an apologist for the regime and did not have the reputation of being an independent minded journalist, and reports soon emerged that Dunkley and Tin Htun Oo did not get along well.