Burma's junta can't escape from the net

[Peikko 1,575]

Burma's military rulers won't be inviting foreign observers to monitor November's general election – a poll already dismissed as a sham by Western governments – but the country's network of bloggers and "citizen journalists" is planning to do the job for them.

Despite internet censorship and harsh punishments for those caught criticising the junta online, Burma has a lively cyber community of bloggers and Facebookers who believe the internet is the strongest force for change in a country which has been locked under military dictatorship for half a century. The 7 November election won't be free or fair – senior general Than Shwe has already seen to that by bankrolling a huge proxy party stuffed with ex-military candidates, while intimidating and financially squeezing the small opposition parties which have dared to stand.

But gathered in an internet café in central Rangoon, a group of young cyber-activists say they are taking the vote seriously, even if the result is a foregone conclusion.

"The regime is going to keep power after the election – we all know that – but boycotting the election will not help. We need to grab any opportunity to bring change," said Aung, a 27-year-old female blogger and author of the popular Burmese-language blog "Me and My Stuff".

Optimistic and sometimes painfully idealistic, the bloggers are strongly opposed to the government but are fed up with what is written about Burma from outside the country: media reports, blogs written by political exiles and human rights websites are all damning of the junta but offer nothing positive, they say.

"They are just attacking the regime and nothing else," said Eugene, a 30-year-old blogger. "They don't show us a way out. They talk about the problems but not the solution – many people are searching for more, and we want to give them that."

Like everyone under the age of 38 in Burma, none of the bloggers has voted before. The last national election in 1990 was won overwhelmingly by Nobel Peace Prize-winner Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, but the generals overturned the result.

Despite their inexperience of democracy, the bloggers see their role as educating and informing.

"We want to explain how the election will work," said "Timpler" the cyber name of a 30-year-old IT consultant and father of two. "I already post information about political parties, the election commission and other things about politics. Some people can be quite outspoken, making fun of the government politicians, or saying that they are lying."

On election day itself, the bloggers plan to spread out across Rangoon and other cities and towns to create an network of election monitors.

"Our role as bloggers, or CJs (citizen journalists) will be to individually monitor the election," said Aung. "We plan to organise ourselves to phone in from the polling stations and use SMS and Twitter to get information out and to say whether the voting is free. This as our responsibility."

The bloggers are well aware of the risks. Fellow blogger Nay Phone Latt was arrested in early 2008 and sentenced to 12 years in prison for breaking the Electronics Act. The 30-year-old was a prominent blogger during the September 2007 "Saffron Revolution" and documented the uprising led by Buddhist monks and its violent aftermath, in which dozens of peaceful protesters were shot dead.

Nay Phone Latt, named this year as one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people, is serving his sentence in the remote Hpa'an prison in eastern Burma. His family is able to visit him occasionally, but the only communication he now has with his online community is by hand-written letter.

The bloggers plan to be careful. Their individual blogs can be easily traced to them, so they may use a group blog such as Burmese Bloggers without Borders, the site they set up in 2007 to record the uprising. The regime has tried to block blog sites inside Burma and they cannot always be viewed. But the bloggers say the government's haphazard approach to controlling the internet and their own superior technical knowledge keep them a step ahead.

"We can get around their controls and blocks, it's easy for us. We use anonymity software and proxy servers outside the country. That's just natural for us," said Aung, an English language graduate and IT trainer. The bloggers' hope for the election is that a civilian-fronted government will bring some new freedoms, small cracks in the system that can be wedged open by their drive and activism.

"There will be no revolution, but even a little change will be good for us," said Aung. "We don't want to be politicians, we see ourselves as social activists. We believe in the power of new media to make a difference in our country."

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