Wi-fi, War, and Peace in Myanmar
Electronic Communication Fosters Human Rights
SOURCE: AP/David Longstreath
If the Internet is a force for democracy, then is there a moral imperative to bring the World Wide Web to citizens living under repressive regimes? Above, a protest outside the Myanmar embassy in Bangkok, Thailand.
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Three years ago, traveling through Myanmar, I sat in Internet cafes that smelled of freshly ground local coffee and dusty roads, beside barefoot monks with shaven heads and bright saffron robes. Madonna sang overhead as we all sent and received email. They typed on the white plastic keyboards, and moved and clicked their mice. Change seemed coming—finally, if slowly—in this country, where a tyrannical junta has refused since 1990 to allow the democratically elected leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, to take office.
This change hasn’t happened, but that raises questions of what else the West can do to promote human rights in this totalitarian country, and whether the West should facilitate freer electronic communication in such contexts.
In September, 2007, when the monks in Myanmar protested in the streets, the government cracked down, stripping, beating, and arresting them. Protesters filmed the violence with cell phones and emailed the images across the world—until the junta shut down Internet servers, all of which it owns and tightly controls. When cyclone Nargis devastated large parts of the country in May 2008, the junta impeded delivery of relief aid to victims and detained activists for distributing aid to needy villages.
The West can also help by considering ways to facilitate electronic freedom.
The U.S. government voiced protest and sent to the region four ships laden with relief, along with aircraft for delivering it. The junta has allowed a small amount of the aid that is needed to enter into some regions, but refused to grant permission for the ships to land, or for necessary supplies to reach the hardest-hit areas. Though activists urged the United States to deliver the supplies anyway, airdropping them if necessary, on June 5 the United States capitulated and withdrew the ships.
Yet in an increasingly global community, we will increasingly face moral dilemmas of whether and when to intervene in humanitarian ways. The Internet is creating global communities. But global communities mean global responsibilities. As reformers in a country communicate with the outside world, sending vivid images directly in “real time,” and seek to establish close bonds with us, how should we respond? When, if ever, do we have any responsibilities to them, and if so, what are they?
Many observers around the world have predicted that the Internet would readily lead to democratization and peace. Yet despite the Web’s spread, free speech is still limited or threatened in most countries in the world. Fierce battles for freedom rage from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.
A critic can argue that we must respect first and foremost the sovereignty of a regime over the emails of its citizens. But what if the legitimacy of that government is questionable? As walls between nations shrink, we need to consider how best to help reformers in a repressive country. We must consider what rights they have, and what rights we have to intervene. As the world becomes more global, in many ways we are entering a new Internet-driven era of “post-nationalism.”
The full implications of this development are not wholly clear, but in the case of Myanmar, we can do several things.
The West can first supply and deliver more humanitarian aid, and second can apply further political pressure. India, China, and Thailand all still support the junta, and Chevron is involved in building an oil pipeline, supplying the regime with about $1 billion last year alone. Congress is considering ending tax breaks for Chevron as a result, but could apply more pressure.
But importantly, the West can also help by considering ways to facilitate electronic freedom. For example, in October, Burmese protesters asked U.S. and U.K. embassies and the United Nations to make free wireless Internet access available. It didn’t happen. But in countries where regimes control Internet use, questions arise of whether the West should ever make Wi-Fi freely available, and if so, when. Just as the Voice of America reached millions in totalitarian countries, should we not develop the Web of America?
The junta also uses California-made censorship software to limit the availability of websites to the Burmese. The West could consider scrutinizing the sale of such censorship tools to repressive regimes, perhaps as it monitors sales of armaments.
Relatedly, the United States needs to protect and promote human rights more vigilantly and consistently. More reformers will need to feel that they will be supported. Their dreams will only be dampened by the United States disrespecting human rights and overlooking human rights violations in Iraq and elsewhere.
Three years ago, I wondered what the monks beside me were writing. I didn’t know, but sensed hope. The media seemed the message.
Unfortunately, it is not enough. Over the past few months, the tragedies in Myanmar have saddened me all the more. These men were reaching out to new worlds that I wish don’t now let them down.
I could not see their words—only their fingers flying rapidly over the keys. But I will never forget their intense and hopeful gazes. The screens before them revealed both distorted reflections of the small dark room around us, and the great World Wide Web beyond.
Robert Klitzman is an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and the Director of the Ethics and Policy Core of the HIV Center at Columbia University.
Comments on this article
Quote:
“Relatedly, the United States needs to protect and promote human rights more vigilantly and consistently. More reformers will need to feel that they will be supported. Their dreams will only be dampened by the United States disrespecting human rights and overlooking human rights violations in Iraq and elsewhere.”
It is precisely this type of statement which is undermining the human rights of the people of Burma.
The statement dwells on the few negative aspects of the liberation of the Iraqi people to determine their own fates democratically, rather than the many positive aspects of the liberation of Iraq.
It is a strange world we live in where the World’s Democratic politicians stand in the way of Democracy, and liberals proclaim a liberation as being an occupation.
Saddam Hussein was a tyrant who was a threat to his people and his neighbors, and a destabilizing force in the region who sought to bring all Arabs and Moslems into a Holy War against Israel, yet he is now wistfully spoken of as if he were Bishop Desmond Tutu or Ghandi.
If the liberation of Iraq had been properly backed by the Democratic nations in favor of establishing Democracy in Iraq, that would have sent a clear message to the SPDC that they are not immune from World scrutiny of the overthrow and incarceration of Aung San Suu Kyi and her NLD Party.
The point of this article should be
“What has kept the Internet media from reporting on what has been going on in Burma for over half a century”?
or
How have so many people died in Burma decade after decade without the media even noticing it?
or
Why have the media kept so quiet about the slavery, ethnic persecution, rape as a weapon, destruction of food as a weapon, torture, and forced relocation in Burma for half a century?
or
Why have we not seen in depth reports on Burma which is the second largest heroin producing country behind Afghanistan, largest producer of methamphetamines in Asia, a major Asian human trafficking hub, and the rampant spread of AIDS/HIV and multi-drug resistant tuberculosis with no plans for treatment?
With all of this hoo-hah about the Internet being a source of the world finding the truth, over the past few weeks the major media outlets of CNN, FOX NEWS, and MSNBC have allowed the plight 2.4 million cyclone victims to literally fall off the radar screens. You will have to really dig deep to find any updates on Burma from these world leaders in truthful reporting.
The media rams the death toll in Iraq down our throats every 15 minutes, and ignores 2.4 million Burmese who are starving and dying of disease in order to bring us more negative updates on Iraq and Afghanistan again and again.
The cyclone survivors may not be able to bury their dead, but the world media is doing its best to bury them.
They will tell us again about the four soldiers killed in Afghanistan, but not bother reporting the four hundred, or four thousand that may be dying in cyclone ravaged areas of Burma today.
And the media will continue to ignore the other 540,000 starving internally displaced ethnic minority refugees hiding from the Burma army in the disease infested jungle hide sites of Eastern Burma.
And we need that quarter hour update on the civilian death toll in Iraq which is pushing 100,000 since Iraq was liberated in 2003.
The media spin is that they were all killed because of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, not by foreign Islamic extremists bent on derailing Democracy who bomb one area and blame it on one ethnic group, and the next day bomb that ethnic group and call it a retaliation for the first attack, as well as sending suicide bombers into marketplaces and mosques.
But the media wont bother even mentioning the ever-increasing death tolls in Burma, or quoting the January 2008 report from Dr Osamu Kunii, a nutrition expert in Burma with the United Nations Children’s Fund, who said that between 100,000 to 150,000 children under five years of age die every year in Burma. That’s every year folks, and that is only the children under five.
The media, the liberal politicians, the Hollywood personalities, and the rock stars have simplified all of the suffering and dying of Burmese citizens, and the slavery, persecution, murder and exploitation of millions of ethnic minority citizens which has gone on in Burma unabated since before WW2 down to one person to glom onto and rain praise and awards, and honorary doctorates and citizenships…Aung San Suu Kyi.
While famous for her non-violent struggle towards Democracy, she has spent most of the 18 years since her election locked in her house. She can’t even speak in public about any of the issues in Burma, and rather than consistantly report those unpleasant issues for her, the media ignores them and gives her another award.
Meanwhile, based on the above statistics, the media has failed to report that in the 17 years since Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize between 1.7 million and 2.5 million children have died under the age of five years. And again, that is just the children.
How’s that for non-violent struggle?
The better question is, how do all of those people heaping praise on her expect non-violent struggle to be effective if they act like the biggest problem in Burma is that the Prime Minister elect is under house arrest?
On behalf of Aung San Suu Kyi, and the other 53,000,000 burmese citizens who are not free to tell the stories of death, disease, slavery and exploitation I have a message for the media and all people who want to help Burma:
NON-VIOLENT STRUGGLE WILL ONLY WORK SOMEDAY IF YOU REPORT THE TRUTH!
SILENCE=DEATH!
No news is good news does not apply in Burma.
No news from Burma, means that the SPDC and the Burma army are getting away with murder, and the media is not reporting it.
Talking about Wi-Fi helping Burma is not realistic, very few people have laptops, and hanging out at a Wi-Fi hotspot would accomplish nothing more than to mark them for the security police. Only the truth will ever help the people of Burma.
Garrett
June 25th, 2008 at 10:07 pmi want to get democracy,
January 15th, 2009 at 9:46 ami love of our country but i don`t like this government.