TELLING BURMA’S
STORY FOR TWENTY YEARS
(www.dvb.no)
In July 19, 2012, the DVB turned twenty. There have been many ups and downs
over those two decades, but we are proud to say that we have not only survived
but also managed to become Burma’s
most popular privately-run satellite TV station. We think that is worth a book
to let people know how it all began, and how we grew. And we hope that people
in other parts of the world would also be able to learn from our success as
well as our mistakes.
But producing this book cannot be done without your participation. The DVB
has always been the voice of the people of Burma, and we would also like to
engage your help in celebrating our twentieth anniversary. We intend to post
chapters of the book on this website, gradually to give you time to read them
and contemplate what we have written. Then we would like to invite you to
submit your own input. Is there anything that you think is weak, misleading or
outright wrong in our account of the DVB’s history? Any events which need to be
included, any important individual that we have overlooked but who should be
mentioned?
We are also looking for photographs of the DVB’s various activities that you
may have in your possession and would want to share with us. We cannot offer
you any payment for this, but, if you wish, we will certainly include your name
in the list of contributors to our book. You can also remain anonymous, if that
is what you want.
Please send us your contributions, criticisms and other comments — and
whatever pictures you may have — using the form below.
Bertil Lintner compiled and edited this book.
1. HOW IT ALL BEGAN
It was not the first time a group of Burmese set up a radio station to
provide an alternative to the official, state-run broadcasting service. But it
was clear that the potential was different when the Democratic Voice of Burma
(DVB) first went on air on July 19,1992. Previously, various rebel groups had
run their own clandestine radio stations. The Communist Party of Burma
inaugurated its People’s Voice of Burma in March 1971, first transmitting from
across the border in China
and later via a new facility in the Wa Hills in northeastern Shan State.
In the 1970s, non-communist anti-government forces allied with former prime
minister U Nu maintained a radio station in the jungle somewhere along the Thai
border in the east, but its broadcasts were irregular and the reception
extremely poor. Karen rebels also had a transmitter for a short while in the
early 1980s, but it fell silent when government forces began attacking their
bases on the Thai border in 1983.
Young activists at the DVB's first studio on the
Thai-Burma border, 1993
From the very beginning, the DVB was headquartered in safety in far-away Norway, and it
was under the direct control of no particular armed resistance group. During
the first years of its existence, however, the DVB was not free from
interference from ethnic rebel armies based on the Thai border, especially the
Karen National Union (KNU) whose headquarters housed the DVB’s first studio
inside Burma.
When it first started, the DVB also represented the National Coalition
Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB), which was made up of MPs who had been
elected in the May 1990 general election, but who were then prevented from
forming a new government and forced into exile.
But all that changed as the DVB gained experience and became more
professional. In 2002, DVB broadcasts ceased mention of the station’s
affiliation with the NCGUB, and, in 2006, officially declared its independence.
The DVB became a properly registered Norwegian foundation, based in Oslo and subject to
Norwegian laws. The DVB thus gained full editorial and administrative
independence and its board members served in an individual capacity, not as
representatives of any political group or faction.
By then, the DVB had also set up its own satellite TV station. It had gone
into operation in 2005, and become an instant success wherever it could be
received inside Burma.
2. HOW IT GREW
The DVB may be unique in many ways, but the Burmese broadcasters in Oslo did not,
historically speaking, start from scratch when they launched it in 1992. Burma has
actually a long and proud tradition of a free media. The country’s first
newspaper, the English-language
Maulmain Chronicle, appeared in 1836
in the city of Moulmein
in then British-held Tenasserim. It was followed in 1853 by the
Rangoon
Chronicle. The first Burmese-language newspaper,
Yadana-bon
Nay-pyi-daw (with the heading “Mandalay Gazette” in English on the front
page) was established in Mandalay in independent
Burma
in 1874 as the official organ of the kingdom.
The year before the launch of the paper, King Mindon enacted a law
consisting of 17 articles to guarantee freedom of the press stating that the
media is for “the benefit of the citizens to hear general news from Europe, India, China,
and Siam
for enriching the thoughts and improving their trade and communication.” This
act is believed to be Southeast Asia’s first
indigenous press freedom law.
At an official meeting at the palace in Mandalay, the king also bestowed immunity on
the local press corps: “If I do wrong, write about me. If the queens do wrong,
write about them. If my sons and daughters do wrong, write about them. If the
judges and mayors do wrong, write about them. No one shall take action against
the journalists for writing the truth. They shall go in and out of the palace
freely.”
During the British colonial period, which lasted until independence in 1948,
Burma
had dozens of newspapers in Burmese, English, Chinese, and several Indian
languages. Periodicals were also printed in Burma’s minority languages. Among
the most outspoken newspapers—which lent support to the Burmese nationalist
movement—were the Burmese language
Thuriya (the Sun) and
Myanma
Alin (the New Light of Burma). The latter was founded in 1914 and for
years it was managed by U Tin, who became a minister in independent Burma’s first
government, led by U Nu, in 1948.
Early days in the Oslo
studio
Burma’s
rapid media development in the 19
th and 20
th centuries
can best be explained against the background of its rich intellectual
traditions. The country has always had a high literacy rate and education has
been a source of national pride since pre-colonial days. At the age of seven or
eight, every Burmese boy was sent to the local monastery to learn to read, and
write, and to memorise Buddhist chants and Pali formulas used in pagoda
worship. Education was less universal for girls but, even so, the census for Burma in 1872 stated that “female education was
a fact in Burma before Oxford was founded.” This
long and strong tradition of widespread literacy was further enhanced with the
introduction of British-style education during the colonial era.
3. THE DVB GOES TELEVISUAL
In early 2005, DVB decided to take a bold step, which no non-governmental
media organisation in Burma,
and perhaps in the world, had ever done before: to launch its own satellite
television station. Many were sceptical and thought the idea was too ambitious
and some even said it was unrealistic. Short-wave radio was one thing, but television?
But Burmese journalists in exile in Norway
and Thailand
were determined to make it work. A young couple, Tin Ko Ko and Sandar Lin, who
had some experience of working for Myawady Television, a military-run
television network based in Rangoon whose entertainment programmes were quite
popular, took part and shared their experiences with some of the Burmese who
previously had worked only with DVB radio. DVB TV would probably never have
been as successful as it has become without the hard work that Tin Ko Ko and
Sandar Lin put in during its first year of operation. Additional training was
provided by professional cameramen and news anchors from AsiaWorks Television,
a leading independent media company based in Bangkok.
In May 2005, the trainees were ready—and the DVB began telecasting from London via satellite. The
timing was perfect. DVB TV was launched when Burmese were beginning to have the
possibility of having satellite dishes to receive international TV stations. At
first, people could buy satellite dishes but they had to be registered through
a cumbersome process. But despite the rigidity of the laws surrounding the
possession of satellite dishes, sales exploded in the early 2000s. Officially,
200,000 people registered their equipment during the first years of satellite
TV access in the country, while many more dishes were acquired on the black
market. The number of people watching international stations was even higher as
many tea- and coffee shop owners had satellite TV services installed in their
establishments to attract customers. It became an instant success, which
ushered in a new era in the Burmese media landscape.
DVB TV was popular from the very beginning, but the main breakthrough came
when the monks’ movement swept across Burma in September 2007. The DVB’s
clandestine network of reporters and stringers covered the events from the very
beginning, deploying both old and new media to inform the people in Burma about the
uprising. DVB reporters shot footage on hidden digital cameras and sent it over
the border to the DVB office in Thailand,
or over the Internet to headquarters in Norway. Photographs and video
footage shot by DVB reporters and even ordinary citizens on mobile phones were
also uploaded onto the Web and sent to Oslo
headquarters, which, in turn, edited the material into radio and television
reports to be broadcast back into Burma.
While DVB’s shortwave radio and satellite TV broadcasts reached a
significant portion of the population in Burma, it was the first time the
Internet—and blogs—played a crucial role in broad and timely reporting of a
major event inside the country. Bloggers, who were in touch with the DVB, found
innovative ways to circumvent government restrictions and to send out updates
throughout the protests. Meanwhile, the DVB made its coverage available on the
Web, where it was picked up by the BBC, CNN, Deutsche Welle, Al Jazeera and
other international news networks. Even when Burma’s only two Internet service
providers were disabled between September 29 and October 4, 2007 at the height
of the protests, DVB reporters on the ground were able to send their coverage
to Oslo via their own satellite hook-up.
All along, the DVB cooperated closely with international news agencies and
television networks as none could match its network on the ground in Burma.
Reporters Without Borders stated in a November 2010 report: “Representatives of
the three leading international news agencies, the Associated Press, Reuters
and Agence France-Presse, representatives of three international TV stations,
the BBC, France 24 and Al Jazeera, and a dozen journalists and international
production companies confirmed to Reporters Without Borders that they had used
the DVB’s help in covering the situation in Burma. The forms of assistance have
ranged from access to its archives, use of its video for international
distribution, preparation and production of a report, putting the international
media in contact with members of its network in Burma
or Thailand,
or just providing information.”
4. NOT ONLY HARD NEWS AND HOT SCOOPS
Like all other radio (and TV) stations in the world, the DVB has all along
also offered its listeners and viewers not only news, scoops, political debates
and analyses but also songs, music and other kinds of entertainment. And like
everything else with the DVB, its entertainment programmes started on a very
modest scale and, like its other broadcasts in the beginning, the tune was very
political. Students in rebel camps along the eastern border recorded their
songs on tapes which were mailed to Norway
from post offices in Thailand.
Other songs were recorded inside Burma or in exile, such as Ma Ma
Aye’s very popular number about a man who had left his home village for his
beliefs in justice. Listeners could draw parallels with the students who had
gone to the border to take up arms against Burma’s then military government.
Other popular songs were old patriotic jingles from World War II and the
independence movement, while the famous Kachin singer Dennis Mun Awng’s songs
about more contemporary subjects were also well-liked, especially among the
young. Born in Kachin
State in 1960, Mun Awng
first became popular in the 1980s. He joined the August 1988 uprising and was
among those thousands of dissidents who fled to the Thai-Burmese border after
the crackdown on September 18 and the formation of the State Law and Order
Restoration Council, SLORC. Five years later, in 1993, he arrived in Norway to begin
working for the DVB.
With singers like Mun Awng on the air, the popularity of the DVB’s
entertainment programmes increased and listeners also began sending in their
requests for songs they wanted to hear. Another singer and also actress, May
Sweet, was also popular but her melodies were considerably less political. She
left Burma for the United States in the late 1990s, married a
Burmese-American from New York and settled in Delaware. But she
continues to perform for Burmese expatriate audiences around the world. The
DVB’s entertainment editor, Thida Thin Myat Thu, acted as Master of Ceremonies
when May Sweet gave a concert in London
ten years ago.
Programmes playing requested songs, however, served another purpose than
broadcasting popular songs just for the sake of entertainment. Following the
1988 uprising and subsequent upheavals, many families were separated and people
who had been friends in the cities and towns lost touch with each other.
Parents requested songs for their children, and children who had made it to
third countries as refugees requested songs for their mothers and fathers to
let them know where they were. Boyfriends requested songs for lost girlfriends
and vice versa. Many people were reconnected in this way, and the DVB also
helped them re-establish contact with each other.
While Burmese singers, whether political or not, made it possible for
the
DVB to reach a wider audience, the broadcasting station in Oslo also
helped some in their careers. One
of them is Lashio Thein Aung, who lives in Texas and was very popular in
the 1970s. The
DVB can claim credit for re-discovering him and bringing him back to the
Burmese music scene. In 2005, the DVB contacted him and he was happy to
be able
to sing for his own home audience again. Lashio Thein Aung can claim to
be Burma’s only genuine Texas cowboy and country and western singer
- and the response from listeners was overwhelming when the DVB began
broadcasting his songs. Today, his various performances are also
available on
YouTube, among them his tribute to Aung San Suu Kyi on her 65
th
birthday:
He sang
Ahmay Ta Khu Thar Ta Khu (A Dedicated Song to Mom) and
Mone
Mone Mae Mae (Are You Leaving Me Alone?), songs from the 1970s, on stage
in the United States against
a backdrop of National League for Democracy (NLD) and US national
flags, a Buddhist banner - and a portrait of Aung San Suu Kyi. Lashio Thein
Aung himself, sporting an embroidered black shirt and a cowboy hat, drew
thunderous applause from his enthusiastic audience.
For a younger audience, the DVB became a platform for more modern singing
styles such as rap and hip-hop. Young Burmese were quick to embrace rap and
hip-hop - perhaps because the style was quite akin to traditional Burmese
thangyat.
Also sung in a staccato manner and often with a satirical message,
thangyat
has been performed for centuries during
thingyan, or Buddhist New
Year, which falls in mid-April.
After the 1988 uprising especially,
thangyat
became a way in which many Burmese could express their frustrations with
political hardships as well as economic difficulties, often in a humorous
manner. Perhaps not surprisingly, the authorities banned
thangyat when
thingyan was celebrated, although in April 2012 it was permitted once
again. Among the
thangyat performers in Mandalay in 2012 were the popular Moustache
Brothers, a trio of local comedians - Pa Pa Lay, U Lu Zaw, and Lu Maw –
distinguished by their impressive whiskers.
The DVB’s news service on the web reported on April 12, 2012:
“Thangyat performances, a traditional music that accompanies New Year’s
Thingyan Water Festival, is now legal in Burma.
The historic art is a cornerstone in the country’s New Year celebrations,
where singers dance and engage in “call and response” anthems, while joking
about the events of the past year. However,
Thangyat performances had
been officially suppressed for three decades by several laws that were aimed at
preventing citizens from assembling and chanting slogans. Mandalay-based writer
Sue Hngat says
Thingyan and
Thangyat are inseparable: “It’s
been over 30 years –
Thingyan and
Thangyat are the two things
that cannot be separated because
Thingyan is for the people and it
should be free for all and should not be monopolised by any individual or a
group. This also applies to
Thangyat to an extent,” To celebrate its
return, Mandalay-based comedian Pa Pa Lay of the Moustache Brothers said the
group will perform
Thangyat songs on a float during the parades in
Mandalay. According to the moustached comedian, the troupe will perform
satirical numbers that address the country’s education, health, economy and
judicial sectors. “The people of Mandalay have been waiting to hear
Thangyat
again so Pa Pa Lay is organising the performance together with his other
comedian friends,” said Lu Maw, Pa Pa Lay’s brother and fellow moustached brother,
Mandalay based writers including Soe Aung, Khin Aung Wint and San Win Shein and
some poets are also organising their own
Thangyat performances during
the festival."
Among the younger hip-hop singers and rappers, MFG, or the Myanmar Future
Generation, was more overtly political. They sang about what it’s like to be in
prison, why the people should stay united and how younger people can learn from
older activists. Some hip-hop artists like Anegga Tweezy and Zayar Thaw, were
already popular when the DVB began broadcasting their performances, but the DVB
nevertheless helped promote them and gave them an outlet at a time when the
government-controlled media refused to play their songs.
5. LESSONS LEARNED AND VISION OF THE FUTURE
This is the chapter where we need your input the most. Only you can tell us
what you think has been learned from our twenty years of operation, and what
you believe our future should be. We have made a list of mistakes and successes
which we think have characterised the development of the DVB since its
inception in 1992. We hope this will be a good start, and encourage you to send
us your thoughts and comments. We would appreciate it if you could elaborate on
the points below.
Mistakes
1. DVB started with a loose structure and poor equipment, and the first
broadcasters lacked journalistic skills.
2. Also in the beginning, we did not get much feedback from listeners, and,
on our part, we did not conduct proper listener surveys and do other research
that was needed to improve the quality of our broadcasts.
3. We lacked training in professional journalism.
4. In the early years, we failed to recruit professional media persons to
work with us.
5. In the beginning, there were also too many stakeholders and political
factions that tried to influence, and even control, our broadcasts.
6. Thus, it was several years before we could become independent. There was
also too much secrecy surrounding our work, and almost no transparency in our
operations.
7. The signal was very weak.
8. It has been difficult to work effectively because we have had operations
in Burma as well as in Thailand and Norway. It has not always been easy
to coordinate the efforts of our various operational sites.
9. The funding was very uncertain in the beginning, and we are still almost
totally dependent on international donors.
10. We have had no proper plan for generating income and becoming
financially independent.
Successes
1. There has always been a strong commitment on the part of our employees
and volunteers. Everyone has been ready to work under circumstances which often
have been extremely difficult.
2. We have always been flexible and willing to adopt changes.
3. Our bureaucracy has been minimal compared to other, commercially-run
media organisations.
4. Our operations have always been very cost effective.
5. A major asset has been the fact that we have different outlets: radio, TV
and the web.
6. We have also been quick to acquire and use modern technology.
7. We have had tremendous support from loyal listeners and viewers inside
the country. This has made it easy for our extensive network of reporters
inside the country to gather news and other information.
8. In fact, listeners have felt that they “own” the DVB; it’s “their”
broadcasting station and “their” TV.
9. Unlike other broadcasting stations, the DVB has always been run
exclusively by people of various nationalities from Burma. That has also given us a
multi-ethnic profile that most other broadcasting stations lack.
10. As soon as we became independent of political factions, we were able to
work together with international media organisations - for our mutual benefit.
A RADIO AND A BOOK
If asked, when leaving this world, what I would like to take with me, I
would answer without hesitation: a radio and a book to read. That is the
present day situation. In the past, apart from school textbooks, I didn't know
what radio was, let alone read novels from the book shelves.
Only on 19 July 1947, did I first hear the word “radio”
While rice was being prepared for breakfast, Ko Ko Gyi in a highly agitated
state and told my father that General Aung San and U Razak were dead. They had
been shot. When mother asked where he had heard this news, Ko Ko Gyi answered
“I heard it from the radio in U Nyein Maung’s house and people are gathering
there.”
Although I knew that radio was something important, I could not imagine what
it looked like. There was only one radio in the village.
I have listened to radio
Two years later, we ended up in Bago as war refugees. I heard the sound of a
radio a house away. Although I tried to hear it from the window, it wasn’t very
clear. “That is the Voice of Burma,” Ko Ko Gyi told me.
The house I lived in had been confiscated by an army artillery battalion and
we had to study in a bamboo lean-to constructed at the edge of the school
compound. There were clashes about 15 miles away from Bago. The voice of the
army still existed and the main speaker was a Major Ba Ko, I was told by adult
radio listeners.
I have seen radio
When I was in eighth grade at school, my friend Ba Myint, the son of a
wealthy man made rich by the army, took me to his house, where there was a
radio. It was reporting on a divisional football match and I heard noisy shouts
and laughter. Many people who came to listen also laughed. When Sagaing
goalkeeper Boe Thar
Bay caught shots by Shan State’s
Vah Doom the listeners clapped and I applauded with them.
Then Ba Myint said that it is good only when listening to songs and I did
not agree. In my eye, I only saw beautiful radio and in my ear, I only heard
Vaha Doo and Boe Thar Bay.
So my first experience of listening to the radio was happy and amusing.
University and radio
In 1953, I was admitted to Rangoon
University with the
support of the Muslim Central Fund Trust and stayed in Thaton hostel. I
regularly listened to the radio at Thahaya and in reading rooms and heard
programmes from the Burma Broadcasting Service, BBS (or
myanma athan,
the Voice of Burma in Burmese). When the radio was switched off at 8 pm I went
with friends to listen in at a tea shop. Foreign broadcasts could be heard
frequently at Ta-Ka-Tha building, Although now a keen radio listener, I never
once dreamed that I would one day be a broadcaster.
Acceptance at the Burma
Broadcasting Service, BBS
0n 17 October 1959, I got a position at BBS as an assistant technician for
recording and broadcasting. I wasn’t on the programming staff, so I didn’t work
at the studio but at a transmission station using an emergency studio.
You could call it a personal programme of General Ne Win's interim
government’s psychological warfare department, using the equipment of the Voice
of Burma. Although the BBS’s engineering department appointed us, I was not
very pleased with the fact that our salary was paid by the psychological
department.
FROM ACTIVIST TO JOURNALIST - 20 Years On (1992-2012)
The DVB was founded by four student activists (three men and a woman) in
their early twenties who had never worked in a radio station before. Their
studio was a tiny room in a Norwegian NGO office. On a shoestring budget, they
had to start broadcasting with only two cassette recorders and a microphone.
The DVB has a unique history and, in the beginning, each day was a struggle.
There was no time for apprenticeship until I joined them in 1996 at the invitation
of the then director Daw Khin Pyone. There were teething problems and tantrums.
Some of the staffers who had no interest in the radio business found themselves
in a situation that they had not intended. During this crucial period, the
present DVB director was able to attend a journalism course in the Welsh city
of Cardiff.
Since then it, has become almost customary for the DVB to send its newsroom
staff to the Cardiff School of Journalism. This broke new ground and set the
DVB apart from the programs offered by the major international broadcasting
stations, where scripting was done by English speaking central staff who were
typically less familiar with the local conditions in the countries to which
they were broadcasting. By early 1997, the DVB was able to set up its own
five-room office with a soundproofed studio in the basement of The Triangle
Hotel in Oslo.
We worked from dawn to dusk, earning only a paltry sum. Since it was like a
big family, we also had a fair share of family quarrels. But we all were happy.
I found myself doing a job that I really enjoyed while my dependable wife took
care of our home in London.
She was my rock. Had it not been for her my sojourn in Oslo would have been out of the question. I
was in Oslo for two years and worked from London as a consultant
for a further four years.
One of the most important aspects of the DVB’s development from an amateur
to professional level was the transformation of the routine news bulletin.
While starting subscribing to Reuters and AFP news agencies, the DVB was able
to develop its own house style during this phase. Most of the DVB
journalists had started as “stringers"”who faxed the Oslo newsroom their reports on the events in
the area they covered. Their material was written up for the news readers to
deliver but their voices were never heard on the air. In fact, the DVB's daily
25 minute broadcast was constructed around news output, with about a half of
its daily transmission time taken up with news, news analysis, and
commentaries.
Although the DVB has always recognized the importance of the
regular announcers in providing a 'spine' to the daily program, some of the DVB
broadcasters have become all-rounders because of a shortage of skilled
manpower. Thus, a DVB broadcaster could be an editor, a producer, a
newsreader, a presenter and a reporter all rolled into one.
Soon, the station began broadcasting in some ethnic languages. The DVB also
functioned as a surrogate free radio, giving dissident organizations outlets
for their views which unavailable in any other forum. In the early days,
the DVB programs were occasionally jammed by the SLORC military regime.
Later the military regime seemed to have put more emphasis upon its own
broadcasting business than upon jamming the broadcasts of others, having
realized that jamming was expensive, rarely effective and merely made people
want to listen to what was so important as to merit being censored in this way.
During this period a network of freelancers, stringers and reporters was
established, along with the DVB regional bureaus in India
and Thailand.
It was found that the DVB had brought new challenges and new opportunities to
many young activists. They now knew how to place greater emphasis on the
professional journalistic values of factual and impartial reporting and on
separating news from commentary and advocacy. The DVB website was also created
during this period and one young woman was sent to London on a DVB scholarship to study computer
science for a year.
SCOOP!!
One of the DVB’s most controversial - and celebrated - documentaries was “Burma’s Nuclear
Ambition”. It created a sensation when it was aired in June 2010 by television
news network al-Jazeera. A US
congressman, Jim Webb, had to postpone his planned visit to Burma, questions were raised in Washington, and wires
services all over the world did reports based on the DVB’s investigations. In
the end, the controversy prompted even the Burmese government to announce that
it has abandoned its nuclear programme, and stopped buying military-related
equipment from North Korea,
as shown in these two reports from 2012. However, the
Reuters dispatch
from Singapore says that
some reports had suggested that Burma
had obtained nuclear technology from North Korea; the DVB never made
that claim in the documentary. The DVB showed how the Burmese military had sent
officers for training in nuclear-related subjects in Russia,
and said that parts of their missile programme and conventional weapons came
from North Korea.
Myanmar
abandons nuclear research: defense minister
SINGAPORE
(Reuters) 2.06.12 - Myanmar
has abandoned research on a nuclear program that never progressed very far, and
has stepped back from close military and political ties with North Korea, the Southeast Asian country's
defense minister said on Saturday.News reports two years ago indicated Myanmar obtained technology for enriching
uranium from North Korea
along with parts for a nuclear weapons program. The reports were based on
interviews with an army major who was involved in the program and defected with
files he said documented the project. "We have already said very clearly
it was not for defense, it was not for weapons, it was just research in the
past," the defense minister, Lieutenant General Hla Min, said at the Shangri-La
Dialogue, an annual security forum in Singapore attended by senior regional
civilian and military leaders.
South Korea:
Myanmar
Pledges To Stop Buying North’s Weapons
By CHOE SANG-HUN.
AP. 15.06.12 - South Korea
has received assurances from Myanmar
that it will no longer buy weapons from North Korea,
an aide to President Lee Myung-bak said Tuesday. President Thein Sein of
Myanmar acknowledged that his country had bought conventional weapons from the
North over the past 20 years but vowed in a meeting with Mr. Lee in the Burmese
capital on Monday to end the practice, said the aide, Kim Tae-hyo. Mr. Thein
Sein also indicated Tuesday that Myanmar had not pursued the development of
nuclear arms and vowed to honor a United
Nations Security Council resolution that bans countries
from activities that could assist North Korea’s missile programs, Mr. Kim said.
DVB HEROES
THE DVB’S HALL OF FAME: HONOURING THOSE WHOSE DEDICATION TO TELLING
THE WORLD THE TRUTH ABOUT BURMA
SHOULD BE REMEMBERED
Over the years, many DVB journalists have been arrested by the authorities
simply for reporting news to the Burmese public and the outside world. We
cannot disclose all of them because several were working undercover for the
DVB, but we would like to honour five of our journalists whose cases were taken
up by international human rights and press freedom advocacy groups and,
therefore, their association with the DVB became known.
Hla Hla Win, alias
Doe Doe
Gender: Female
Date of birth: August 29, 1984
Ethnicity: Burmese
Religion: Buddhist
Education: University, 2
nd year Economics Occupation: DVB video
journalist teacher
Arrested: September 11, 2009
Sentenced: December 21, 2009; 27 years. Was kept in Kathar prison, northeastern
Sagaing Region
Released: January 13, 2012
Hla Hla Win was first arrested in September 2009, close to the anniversary
of the 2007 monk-led uprising, and sentenced to seven years imprisonment. She
had been detained under the Import/Export Act for using an unregistered
motorbike. The arrest took place as she was returning from a DVB reporting
assignment in Pakokku township, Magwe division, where she had conducted
interviews with Buddhist monks in a local monastery.
Her assistant, Myint
Naing, was also arrested, and eventually given a 26-year sentence. During the
first weeks of her seven year sentence, she was interrogated and eventually
admitted to being a DVB reporter. On December 20, 2009 her jail term was
extended by 20 years for violating the Electronics Act, which prohibits
downloading or uploading data from the internet that is considered damaging to
the security of the military regime. This is a tactic often used by the regime
to imprison video reporters. She was handed a further 20 years and offered no
legal representative. Hla Hla Win first joined the DVB as an undercover
reporter in December 2008. She played an active role in covering issues
considered sensitive to the government, including the local reaction to the
controversial trial in 2009 of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
In 2010, Hla Hla Win
received the Kenji Nagai Memorial Award, along with fellow DVB reporter Win
Maw, an honour bestowed on Burmese journalists in memory of the Japanese
photojournalist shot and killed by government troops while covering the
September 2007 monk-led uprising. She was also a volunteer teacher working in
monastic education centres, and a leading organiser of community movements
along with her colleagues. She was also an active member of the NLD (Youth)
from Thanhyin township in Rangoon.
Win Maw alias Mawgyi, Japan Gyi, Ko Shwe
Gender: Male
Date of birth: September 5, 1962
Ethnicity: Burmese
Religion: Buddhist
Education: University, 2nd year
Occupation: DVB, video journalist, musician and composer
Arrested: November 27, 2007
Sentenced: November 11, 2008/March 5, 2009; 17 years. Was kept in Kyaukphyu
prison, Arakan State.
Released: January 13, 2012
In March 2009, award-winning journalist Win Maw was sentenced to 10 years in
jail. He was already 18 months into a seven-year sentence on charges of
breaching the Immigration Act when the additional decade was added. During a
raid on his house in early 2009 whilst he was detained, police had found disk
full of data destined for DVB. They then begun an investigation into his
activities as a VJ. His family said that he was beaten and tortured during the
early stages of his detention, with interrogators reportedly “waterboarding”
him and breaking his nose. The authorities accused him of being the
“mastermind” behind the DVB’s in-country news coverage of the September 2007
monk-led uprising. His jail term was subsequently extended under the
Electronics Act, which allows for harsh prison sentences for using electronic
media to send information outside the country without government approval. A
prominent singer and songwriter, Win Maw began working for the DVB in 2003, one
year after he was released from his first spell in prison for composing
pro-democracy songs. He has also composed music for the DVB, as well as passing
on photos and videos from opposition groups such as the NLD and 88 Generation
Students. He took part in many of their campaigns and activities as an
organizer on top of his role as a DVB reporter.
Win Maw, who was held in Kyaukphyu prison in Burma’s western Arakan state,
received the Imprisoned Artist Prize in 2008, the Kenji Nagai Memorial Award in
2010 along with another arrested DVB reporter Hla Hla Win, and the prestigious
Freedom to Create award for jailed artists in 2011.
Ngwe Soe Lin alias Htun Kyaw, “T”
Gender: Male
Date of birth: May 26, 1981
Ethnicity: Burmese
Religion: Buddhist
Education: High school
Occupation: DVB video journalist
Arrested: June 26, 2009
Sentenced: January 27, 2010; 13 years. Was kept in Insein prison, Rangoon
Released: January 13, 2012
Ngwe Soe Lin was arrested by military intelligence on June 26, 2009 along
with a friend in an internet café in Rangoon.
After spending several weeks at the Aungthabyay interrogation centre, he was
sent to Insein prison. Seven months later, on January 27, 2010, a special
military court attached to Insein prison sentenced him to 13 years in prison on
charges related to the Electronics and Immigration Acts. The following month,
on February 18, he was sent to Lashio prison in northern Shan state. Ngwe Soe
Lin joined the DVB in early 2008 and reported from around the country. He
played a vital role in recording the lives of children left orphaned by cyclone
Nargis in 2008. His video records were turned into a Channel 4 documentary,
“Orphans of Burma’s Cyclone”, for which he received the prestigious Rory Peck
Award 2009, honouring cameramen working in dangerous environments. He was
awarded this whilst in detention.
Sithu Zeya alias Sargalay
Gender: Male
Date of birth: January 16, 1990
Ethnicity: Burmese
Religion: Buddhist
Education: Bachelor degree, university
Occupation: DVB video journalist
Arrested: April 14, 2010
Sentenced: December 21, 2010; 8 years; then 10 more years on November 7, 2011.
Was kept in Insein prison, Rangoon,
and in Henzada prison, Irrawaddy Region - Released: January 13, 2012
In April 2010, a series of grenade blasts rocked Rangoon during
tingyan, the
traditional New Year water festival. Sithu Zeya photographed images of the
aftermath from a location near the banks of Kandawgyi
Lake in Rangoon. The 21-year-old was arrested shortly
after, and interrogated for five days. During this period he was tortured and
denied food for two days, and in December 2010 sentenced to eight years
imprisonment under the Immigration Act and Unlawful Association Act. The
verdict on Sithu Zeya’s case was based on informal confessions resulting from
the torture he suffered during interrogation. His charges stem from the Burmese
government’s press laws, which targeted media workers judged to have passed on
material to exiled news outlets. Sithu Zeya was forced to reveal under torture
that his father, U Zeya, also served as an undercover DVB reporter. U Zeya is
now serving a 13-year sentence. Sithu Zeya was sentenced to an additional ten
years in prison on November 7, 2011, a few days after an amnesty that saw 230
political prisoners released. However, he was released ion January 13, 2012.
Maung Maung Zeya alias U Zeya, Ko Hnyat
Kyee
Gender: Male
Date of birth: November 24, 1953
Ethnicity: Burmese
Religion: Buddhist
Education: University graduate
Occupation: DVB writer, artist
Arrested: April 16, 2010
Sentenced: February 6, 2011; 13 years. Was kept in Hsipaw prison, Shan State
Released: January 13, 2012
U Zeya was arrested at his home in Rangoon on
April 16, 2010, shortly after his son Sithu Zeya had been arrested for taking
photos of the water festival bombings in Rangoon.
Sithu had reportedly confessed to his father being a DVB reporter after days of
torture. The father had led a team of DVB VJs inside Burma. His lawyer said after the
trial that the only witnesses in the closed prison court were police. The trial
ended in February 2011 and he was sentenced to 13 years in prison under the
Immigration Act, Unlawful Associations Act, and Electronics Act. First arrested
in 1976 for participating in a students’ strike, U Zeya has a long history of
political activism. Under the pen name Thargyi Maung Zeya, he has also written
poems and articles in a number of Burmese magazines and journals.
...........................................
http://www.dagsavisen.no/nyemeninger/alle_meninger/cat1002/subcat1023/thread288918/
Last week in Norway for Burma's
radio
Published 2 hours ago - 132 Views Post
Media House Democratic Voice of Burma
has her last week in Oslo.
Since 1992, they sent uncensored news to the country of Norway . Now they travel home .
Why has Norway and Burma
so closely linked ? Why Norway
was the first country outside Asia as Aung San
Suu Kyi visited after she was released ? The main reason is of course the Nobel
Peace Prize in 1991. A close second is the radio station Democratic Voice of
Burma. The radio station has sent uncensored news to Burma since 1992 , and has long
since become a media of television , radio and internet. For 21 years they
produced broadcasts from Oslo.
They have helped to create a unique interest in Burma
in Norway
. That they have now opened an office in Yangon in Burma
is an indicator that the reforms have allowed for media and independent
organizations in Burma.
It is too early to determine whether reforms in Burma actually ends in a real
democracy and freedom of expression ensures that the media's right to criticize
without fear of reprisal . But the last three years has made the DVB took a
chance . The main office is now in Thailand,
but the media house has an office in Burma, which is growing . The dream
has always been to return home and become a media in Burma for his people . Today this
dream close to fruition.
Before 1991, Norway and Burma
little in common . Norway
was the first Secretary General of the UN. Burma had the third. A historical
curiosity is that the Norwegian-registered vessel Hai Lee brought Aung San from
Rangoon to China 1940. The journey finally
ended in Japan,
which is considered the starting point of the Burmese struggle for independence
from the British colonists . The relationship between Norway and Burma
took a new course when Rafto Prize in 1990 was awarded the liberation hero's
daughter, Aung San Suu Kyi , who after demonstrations in 1988 quickly became
the foremost symbol of democracy and human rights in Burma. Nobel Committee went on to
award her the Nobel Peace Prize the following year, after intense lobbying from
Burma Committee and Rafostiftelsen , with Vaclav Havel as a good ally. In the
course of six years, the Norwegian authorities , in close cooperation with
Burma Committee and Worldview got a Burmese radio station on the legs . The
importance of this work can hardly be overestimated .
The history of radio station Democratic Voice of Burma is worth a few lines .
It is worth a book. The radio station was through an intense collaboration
between Burma Committee Hallvard Kare Kuloy , Worldview International's Arne
Fjørtoft and Ministry of Foreign Affairs Jan Egeland . Broadcast Manager at
NRK, Einar Forde, was asked to spare a few frequencies to the Burmese news
channel to send Burmese news via shortwave from Kvitsøy outside Stavanger. The case had
up at government level for a clarification. Burmese students were in a short
time course in journalism in the border area between Thailand
and Burma.
Four young Burmese were flown to Oslo to
establish the channel, and came in contact with one of the very few Burmese
living in Norway
. The start was partly financed by loans from the owner of Texburger , where
Maung Maung Myint worked part-time , and student loans from the same Burmese
dentistry student. The budget was 21 000. 19th July 1992 DVB went on air for
the first time. Recorded tapes were sent by mail to Kvitsøy outside Stavanger, and arrived
just in time for the first radio broadcast. The entire process , from idea to
broadcast , it took more than half a year, which must be unique in Norwegian
administrative history.
To run a news channel depending on the postal service in Norway is of
course a challenge. The news may at times be read before they happened , and
sometimes went wrong . In 1993, the regime launched a constitution preparatory
meeting , but immediately chose to delay the process indefinitely . DVB had
already recorded the novelty of Oslo
and the program was headed in the postal service . What do you do when the news
turned out to vote ? Reporters jumped on the first flight to Stavanger , overtook postal service , and
managed to correct the pre-recorded element . A local technician hint about how
the Burmese reporters could turn on the phones , and send transmissions via
phone . Creative engineering meant that it is now able to produce broadcasts
after the news happened , not before. There was a small revolution , several
years before verdensvevens age.
There have been many dark years since 1992. To listen to DVB in Burma
was until recently strictly prohibited and punishable by imprisonment .
Journalists in Burma
have risked everything to disseminate news about what actually happened in one
of the world's most brutal dictatorships . Under Safranrevolusjonene in 2007 ,
which was led by Burmese monks were journalists from DVB documenting how the
regime put down on peaceful demonstrators , with lives at stake . There are
only six years ago. No one should believe that the struggle for democracy has
ended. The road to democracy has just begun . The reforms are the result of DVB
and other brave frihetselskeres struggle for democracy. DVB need all the support
they can get to continue to be an alternative to propaganda . It is alive and
well . To create a democratic culture, and real freedom of the press , take
time in a country that is used to let the weapons do the talking . The new
media law limits the scope for cross- publish content on television, radio and
online . Media freedom for newspapers is of course very important, but so is
the radio and television that reaches out to people across the country.
Democratic Voice of Burma has never been more important and never been
vulnerable. Thus continued support has never been more critical.
At the Burmese journalists now heading to Burma gives reason for hope , while
it is a little sad to lose a key vote in Burmese Norwegian public. DVB is a
product of Norwegian support for the Nobel Peace Prize. Meanwhile, much of the
Norwegian Burma involvement resulting from DVB . So thank you for 21 great
years in Norway and good
trip to Burma.
It is now the beginning .
Audun Aagre is CEO of Burma Committee
