The Net uncovers Myanmar secrets
p2pnet news | Freedom:- Inset in the bottom left corner of this photo is the, “brain of a young student who was beaten violently to death by soldiers of the junta found in the drain near No. (3) Tarmway high school,” says a post on Ko Htike’s prosaic collection.
He’s talking about the war being waged against the ordinary people of Myanmar by the ruling military regime, determined to maintain power in the face of ongoing demands for democratic reform.
“A military state since 1962, Burma’s ruling junta continues to clash with the National League for Democracy, and has detained the group’s elected leader the world’s only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi for nearly a dozen years now,” says the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), also stating it’s a:
” … land where 3,000 villages have been destroyed, 1,300 political prisoners are in jail, 70,000 child soldiers have been forcibly recruited, and over 500,000 people are internally displaced”.
US ambassador Jackie W. Sanders said Burmese military forces systematically rape women and girls, especially those of the Shan, Karen, Karenni, and other ethnic minorities, says AAAS.
Meanwhile, “To trick Mr.Gambari, UN envoy, the junta announces through their mouth-piece-media that there is a demonstration in Myitkyiinar,” says Ko Htike, going on:
Actually that demonstration is a fake one for the junta wants to prove that their soldiers are not terrorist and not shooting at people and it’s also the junta’s plan to hide the truth of their terrorist evidences. At the same time, in Rangoon, the riot police are hitting with iron bar to any group of people whether they are demonstrators or not. After hitting violently, they arrest the people who collapse.
The picture is grisly and it’s not what you’d expect to see in a mainstream media report.
But, posted on a blog, it drives home the terrible reality that people are being mained and killed in Myanmar and although the traditional media have been locked out and prevented from reporting, the Net continues to deliver, with satellite imagery as the newest adjunct.
Citizen reporters are helping to keep the world informed while dictatorships and repressive regimes strive to blanket entire populations, preventing negative reports from getting out and information they see as a threat from getting in.
‘Three bloody days’
Ko Htike’s posts are garnering international media attention, but the picture of the disembodied brain originally appeared in myanmarmuslim.net, as did the photo of troops chasing demonstrators which comprises the other part of the picture on the upper right.
The photograph here on the left showing troops brandishing rifles with fixed comes from the same source.
Today, streets in Rangoon and Mandalay are “relatively quiet” following, “three bloody days in which at least 10 protesters were gunned down, according to state-run media, and scores of monks and civilians were beaten and arrested by security forces,” says The Irrawaddy, based in Thailand and covering Myanmar and South-East Asia.
The magazine was shut down by hackers, says Reuters, but it’s back online today and states:
“[...] members of Burma’s opposition groups say as many as 200 people may have been killed in the standoff between monks, pro-democracy demonstrators and security forces. Many hundreds of people were seriously injured.
“Many corpses were taken to secret locations, according to opposition sources.
“In Rangoon, as many as 1,000 monks have been imprisoned since a boycott on alms from the military government and its supporters was declared on September 17, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners based on the Thai-Burmese border.
“The monks are being held in the notorious Insein Prison and the Government Technology Institute compound, located near the prison in north Rangoon, according to sources in Rangoon.”
‘Myanmar’s military junta has forbidden such images’
Ko Htike, 28, left Myanmar seven years ago to study in England, says CNN Asia, continuing:
He told CNN.com … that he has as many as 40 people in Myanmar sending him photos or calling him with information. They often take the photos from windows from their homes, he said.
Myanmar’s military junta has forbidden such images, and anyone who sends them is risking their lives.
“If they get caught, you will never know their future. Maybe just disappear or maybe life in prison or maybe dead,” he told CNN.
The Net is back online, Ko Htike posts, “but it is difficult to use proxy.”
‘One of nine fatalities’
Modern technology, “has become the generals’ worst enemy,” says the Los Angeles Times, going on:
There were only rusty phones, if you could get through [in 1988],” said Bertil Lintner, a Myanmar expert and author of several books on the country.
Graphic video also emerged of what appeared to be a soldier firing point-blank at veteran Japanese photojournalist Kenji Nagai, who was killed Thursday. Nagai was shown lying on the ground, his camera still held up in his hand, as a soldier pointed his rifle at him. Tokyo has demanded an explanation from the Myanmar government.
Nagai was one of nine fatalities that were acknowledged by state media during protests Thursday in Yangon against 45 years of autocratic and brutal military rule.
“Pictures and video footage relayed by citizen reporters have played a major role in fuelling international revulsion at the crackdown on mass protests against 45 years of military rule and deepening economic hardship,” admits Reuters, going on, “But the generals appear to be getting more sophisticated in cracking down on dissent too.
The story refers to the hack attack on The Irrawaddy.
Today, “Sources say a disinformation campaign consisting of counter-demonstrations organized by the Union Solidarity and Development Association, a junta-backed group, has forced people from Kyaukpadaung, Myingyan and Nyaung Oo to demonstrate in support of the junta crackdown,” it states.
Eye in the sky
The generals are under the mistaken impression they can control the and off-line media, but they can have no such belief about satellite imagery. 
“A new analysis of high-resolution satellite images completed by the ]AAAS pinpoints evidence consistent with village destruction, forced relocations, and a growing military presence at 25 sites across eastern Burma where eyewitnesses have reported human rights violations,” says the association on its site, stating its research offers “clear physical evidence to corroborate on-the-ground accounts of specific instances of destruction”.
This is the first time satellite image analysis has been used to document human rights violations in Myanmar, it says.
In the wake of anti-government protests and the Burma junta’s violent response the last week in September, says AAAS researcher Lars Bromley.
Satellites have been deployed to collect new images from the country’s urban areas and as phone lines and Net service are cut off, “these images, if they come through, will be one of the few ways to understand the level of the military deployment in these cities,” he says.
Research is continuing, Bromley emphasized, but further study by other investigators would be ideal in order to rule out any possible alternate explanations for the removed or severely degraded villages.
Reporting organizations and other parties should also become involved in the image-analysis process, states Bromley.
Also See:
American Association for the Advancement of Science – Satellite Images Corroborate Eyewitness Accounts of Human Rights Abuses in Burma, , September 28, 2007
The Irrawaddy – Monks Sentenced to Six Years Imprisonment; Rangoon, Mandalay Locked Down by Troops, September 29, 2007
Reuters – Internet access restored briefly in Myanmar, September 29, 2007
CNN Asia – Internet cut in Myanmar, blogger presses on, September 28, 2007
Los Angeles Times – Myanmar tries to cut Internet, cell access, September 29, 2007
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September 29th, 2007 at 10:20 pm
To see what the situation in eastern Burma captured by satellite looks like on the ground -filmed by human rights videomakers from Burma – watch the video, ‘Shoot on Sight’ at http://www.witness.org/shootonsight and on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPSsKcpxJMk
September 30th, 2007 at 9:26 am
What the Burmese people need are guns and lots of them. The cowards in military uniforms would not be a likely to fire on those who can defend themselves as they are on helpless demonstrators. As repressive as the United States and state governments are, they are still careful in many things they do because they know that people will only put up with so much!
September 30th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
What the Burmese people need are guns and lots of them.
The problem is that bhudists will not use violence. I believe that we have to convinces our governement to invade and kick the parasites in power out! This will certainly work!
Wahy are we paying taxes for?
October 1st, 2007 at 9:54 am
Naaa, will never work. Not with the Iraq situation going on. The US is not repressive (good grief, we have the most freedoms of any country in the entire globe) but will never get involved in Burma. And, pacifism is fine and dandy but eventually they will all be dead, then it won’t matter. What will their government exist to rule over then if all their people are dead? Finally, not to be a conspiracy-theorist, but how does anyone *really* know if those videos were faked or not? With modern digital technology you can create things like that without anyone knowing if they are real. No longer is “seeing is believing.”