Fredrik Laurin and Clara Zid, December 2023
– My father was a political activist and a senior member of the National League for Democracy, the Aung San Suu Kyi party. In the middle of the square of our little town, five hours drive from the capital Yangon (then Rangoon), a large stage was set up. Students, politicians, activists delivered speeches from the stage to the protesters and my father was one of them.
Nway Oo Tha Pyay was five years old when the Burmese rose against the military dictatorship and his father was one of the leaders of the uprising.
“I remember the sound of the people chanting and clapping with excitement. I was sitting on the side of the stage where he was speaking and the crowd in front of him was cheering. I was very proud of him.“
Today, 35 years later, his father is gone but the struggle remains. As a senior member of the National League for Democracy he was arrested many times and two coups and uprisings have passed. Nway Oo Tha Pyay is now in exile in Thailand as one of the few remaining independent journalists in Myanmar. From there he continues a struggle that has been more or less the same since the British colonial rule ended in what was then Burma.
Nway has worked as a reporter since he was 20. Most of his career was at one of Myanmar’s most influential private media outlets. But in 2021, after a few years of a thawing political climate, where even Aung San Suu Kyi was released from many years of house arrest, another coup struck in February 2021.
“The media industry totally collapsed inside the country”
“I was at home sleeping when the phone call woke me up at three AM. It was one of my reporters who said that the instability had turned into a coup and that many people were being arrested. There were tensions between the two sides in the pre-election period and we knew that the military were preparing themselves, so I was not surprised, but I felt lost and angry”, says Nway.
A month after the coup and some warning letters from the military rulers, some media licenses were revoked.
There was a lot of repression of journalists and their family members, some media houses were raided and, as Nway says, “the media industry totally collapsed inside the country”.
They worked under-cover inside the country and Nway, married with one kid of two years old.
“One of our colleagues was arrested quite early after the coup, another was arrested when he was just making a recording at one of the train stations in Yangon”.
In October 2021 they left Myanmar. The security situation had worsened and with the kid there wasn’t much choice.
“There are a lot of restrictions and barriers to our work. We always try to remind them to keep safety first but even just getting the news out is difficult”, Nway says.
The journalists communicate with the editors using safety protocols over more or less secure channels constantly updating on whereabouts and plans. “It is really hard sometimes to communicate with them”, says Nway, “But its imperative that we can stay in touch, both to get the stories out and for their safety.”
Journalists and editors from the media outlet attended a six months training program from Qurium on digital security and they now have a safety manual set up for all team members. Step number one is to use Signal. But there’s more to the safety plan: “Before we send a message we need to ensure that the mobile phone with the Signal account is still in the hand of the reporter or editor”. To ensure this they employ an authentication method with code-words: “All teams and editors have specific words to that they send back and forth before starting a conversation”.
“People cannot take their mobile phone outside for the risk of being stopped for no reason”
Journalists’ situation in Myanmar are so risky that smartphones can´t be used on the street.
“Not only journalists, but even ordinary people cannot take their mobile phone outside for the risk of being stopped by the military for no reason and have the phone forced open and checked”.
Using the smartphone at home can also be risky:
“All mobile operators share their data with the military and there is no secure mobile network. SIM-cards are changed every so often but to get new ones requires registration of the user.”
During the years up until the coup in 2021, dealing with the censorship was a major obstacle. All journalists had to submit every single story, pictures, everything to the military censors and only weeklies were allowed.
“We had to design the whole layout of the journal in a draft, print it out and submit it a week ahead of publishing “. Like when you submit a test to your teacher they take out the red pen and cross out what they don’t like or think is “wrong”, Nway says.
“They crossed out words, whole sentences or even full stories. They wanted us to rewrite or choose another picture.”
“They didn’t have any written policy, like “you cannot print this”. It was a matter of constant discussion. We always tried to publish as much as possible, but the news had to be positive”.
These discussions were a constant hassle for Nway Oo Tha who dealt directly with the director of the censorship bureau. A former general that often let him wait in the ante-room for hours before he was allowed in to begin discussions on what stories the paper could run.
“There was a lot of negotiation. They wanted to cut a whole feature story or we wanted to present something in a certain way and had to fight paragraph by paragraph to get the story printed”. Nway remembers the joy of holding a printed paper that still had the article with relevant information that they managed to get approved.
In April 2022, total censorship arrived: the news outlet was blocked in Myanmar.
The people of Myanmar will have to end the dictatorship, Nway Oo Tha Pyay says. “If there is a collective that joins the revolution we will succeed and could then have a collective leadership”.
He takes the example of the region of Karenni, where people are united and manage to govern locally.
“Most people, including me, didn’t really agree with Aung San Suu Kyi”
Aung San Suu Kyi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 1991, has lost a lot of her influence. She was heavily criticized internationally and in Myanmar during the Rohingya crisis.
“She was always talking about reconciliation with the military and tried to get along with them. Sometimes working too closely with the ethnic groups and other political actors”.
“Most people, including me, didn’t really agree with that policy”, Nway says.
At the time of writing, Aung San Suu Kyi was just released from prison to a new house arrest and was pardoned in five of 19 charges brought against her by the military. The pardon will reduce her 33-year jail sentence by six years. Nway is pessimistic about the fate and legacy of San Suu Kyi:
“She is very old now and people afraid that they might not see her back again. Even her popularity and influence was decreasing there are many people still hoping from her a lot”.
Meanwhile, the fight for the victory continues. “Five or six different groups can be fighting for domination of the opposition in just one region and not working together”.
“It’s depressing to see” -Nway says- “but I am still optimistic. We are determined to end the military dictatorship. Sooner or later, we, the people, will win and the military rule will end”.
This anonymous media outlet is hosted by Virtualroad.org since 2021.