Personal History, Journalism and Democracy

By KYAW ZWA MOE

My thoughts went back to the role of history—history entwined with my life—when I was recently invited to talk about ethical dilemmas of journalism at a conference of Burmese journalists, writers, bloggers and other media people.

I began to see a sort of slide show in my mind that started over two decades ago in Rangoon, the former capital of Burma, which was then ruled by the authoritarian, socialist government of the late dictator Ne Win.

On March 13, 1988, Phone Maw, a university student at the Rangoon Institute of Technology, died after he was shot by riot police during a brawl between two groups of students near the university.

The government announced Phone Maw was killed by a group of students. But students knew the true story. The news traveled very fast from one door to another across the large city of Rangoon.

Days later, students took to the streets with one main demand for the socialist regime: To disclose the truth behind the death of Phone Maw. The government kept spreading lies. Students kept demanding the truth.

As a high school student, I was one of many students who confronted the government’s armed troops. What we were doing was very risky. Why were we doing it?

Just for the truth. Yes, that was all the demonstrating students and I wanted. The truth.
Weeks later, the demonstrating students’ demand shifted to the political: democracy. A relatively straight-forward demonstration, a death, and the search for the truth had evolved into a nationwide pro-democracy uprising, known as Four 8s (or 8.8.88) that eventually toppled the socialist regime and two more puppet governments of the dictator Ne Win.

Years later, when I asked myself why I was willing to stand up to bayonets and the barrels of guns during the uprising, the fundamental answer remained: The truth.

At that time, I wasn’t fully aware that truth is the first and foremost obligation of journalism, to which I have been devoted now for nearly a decade.

Of course, we failed to get the truth from our demonstrations—lest to say the restoration of democracy in Burma. But my mission went on as a teenage student activist, and I became deeply committed to keeping the flame of the movement burning even though the military regime killed about 3,000 innocent people across the country in September 1988.

With fellow students, we clandestinely formed a student union to carry out political activities against the military regime. My fellow activists were arrested one after another.
I was lucky to evade arrest until December 1991 when detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was honored by the Nobel Peace Prize.

Hundreds of students gathered in Rangoon University and demanded the release of the Nobel laureate, all political prisoners and the handover of power to her party, the National League for Democracy, which had won by landslide in the historic 1990 election.

Several hundred demonstrating students were arrested, and I found myself being interrogated and tortured in the most notorious military intelligence units, MI-6 and MI-7. My interrogation lasted 10 days, but it seemed like decades.

I was thrown into a cell in Insein Prison in Rangoon. I was later given 10 years imprisonment for my political activities, including publishing a political journal, called O-Way.

I had a lot of time to recall what I did, and why I did it, during the eight years I served in small cells in prison. Questions about my own activism since 1988 came to me again and again: Why did I do what I did? Did I have political ambitions? Why did I take such a risk and pay such a price? What was the fundamental cause?

Again, the answer wasn’t new: It was a search for the truth. This time, however, it was more meaningful to me, and the idea of truth had expanded to include the ingredients of democracy, such as justice, freedom of expression and equality under the rule of law.
But fundamentally it was still about the truth.

One year after I was released from prison in September 1999, I left my country and immediately joined The Irrawaddy magazine as a reporter. It was a new profession for me. I learned that the first obligation as a journalist was exactly what I had been demonstrating for on the streets, and I had dreamed of when I was a political prisoner: the truth.

This bedrock principle is what nourish me as a journalist, along with journalism’s other obligations: the right of citizens to have information about their government; the discipline of verification and accuracy; the practice of independence from those with power and influence; the watchdog role of an independent media, and so on.

After the 1988 uprising, more and more Burmese media groups and journalists have mushroomed in exile as the junta has imposed censorship on the media, building a professional media structure outside of Burma. But I sometimes wonder about some of my fellow journalists and their commitment to the profession. Are they adhering to the practice of the basic elements of journalism? How much do they believe in the profession? Are they truly professionals?

I raised these questions at the Burma Media Association conference in late February which was attended by more than 100 journalists and other media people. I believe that those questions encouraged the attendees to review and upgrade their profession’s guiding principles.

In my presentation, I also talked about Lasantha Wickramatunga, the editor of a Sri Lanka newspaper, the Sunday Leader, who was killed in early January. Lansantha knew that he was likely to be murdered. But he didn’t hide in fear. Instead, he wrote an essay with instructions to be published only after his death. I believe such courage came out of the combination of belief, values and dedication that Lasantha had put into his mission as a journalist.

I told my audience at the conference that we Burmese journalists face two big challenges: the military regime, which is the enemy of the press freedom, and the adherence to professional elements of journalism.

The second challenge is equally serious. Journalists who abuse the public’s trust can easily threaten our profession through their failure to develop and practice professional journalism.

Twenty Burmese media organizations function in exile including broadcasting organizations. Many journalists now working in Burma lack professional standards and came out of political groups. That’s why a certain level of self-censorship is practiced when it comes to criticizing opposition parties and activist groups, though they never give a second thought to criticize the junta.

Some journalists have forgotten one of the basic elements of journalism: independence from those they cover. In addition, they don’t seem to understand the fundamental principles of journalism.

In fact, we journalists have the same goal as political activists: democracy. To elaborate, our commitment should be to create a new Burma based on the rule of law, equality and transparency—a democratic society in which people can enjoy happiness and prosperity.

Of course, the cost for such commitment can be high. Activists go to prison for demonstrating, and organizing events and campaigns against the regime.

Journalists go to the same prisons for printing stories that shed light on the plight of the Burmese people, informing the public with important, accurate information and enlightening people with different perspectives and ideas on politics and society.

Journalists must know that they are also agents of change within their country, helping to shape Burma’s future. But in order to do that, they must constantly expose themselves to new ideas, perspectives and skills. Everyone, me included, must continue to educate themselves and grow professionally in order to accomplish their goals.

Our goal at The Irrawaddy is to someday go back to Burma to carry out our mission. I want to see a day when all my colleagues, past and present, relocate in Burma with strong professional skills, experience and knowledge, so that we can carry on our mission within Burma even though the job will be difficult and dangerous obstacles will no doubt lie in our path.