The shutdown of communications in Burma has slowed information to the outside world to a trickle, with the number of reports to one exile group cut by half and websites with the .mm Burma suffix being unavailable, campaigners said on Sunday.
”It is difficult to get information out because the internet has been closed,” said Moe Aye, an editor at the Democratic Voice of Burma, a media group set up by exiled Burmese students.
The group, based in Norway, said about half of all communications to the rest of the world were blocked by the regime.
Aye said: ”Some of our undercover reporters are still getting through — we’re still getting around 50% of it.”
The web had been a crucial news route for pro-democracy campaigners. Before the crackdown bloggers and journalists were able to feed information, photographs and video clips to foreign media, as well as use the net to pass information on to Burmese people.
But the shutdown has cut the number of active blogs to almost zero, with only a handful able to continue publishing via third parties. One Burmese blogger, called Dathana, wrote: ”[Mobile] phone lines and some land lines were also cut.”
An anonymous blogger on globalvoicesonline.org said: ”Information flow out of the country has been strictly monitored and even the amateur photographers are warned to be very careful as the junta is hunting down the sources.”
With ownership of most of the Burmese telecoms firms in junta hands a shutdown is not difficult. Reports last week suggested it began with a block on access from within Burma to some political blogs. Then followed a total block of Blogger.com, the Google-owned service used by millions. On Friday, all internet access was stopped completely. A Myanmar Post & Telecom spokesperson said this was due to damaged cables that provided net connectivity to Burma. However, patchy access occurred and services resumed briefly over the weekend, before disappearing again a few hours later.
Soe Myint, editor in chief of Mizzima News, a publication on Burma run by exiles in Delhi, said the regime had kept its internet servers working while blocking those used by the public. ”They run two servers and their own internet access is unaffected according to engineers who set up the systems,” he said.
Burmese exiles are now relying on erratic phone links for inside information.
According to Reporters Sans Frontières, the moves reflect the junta’s attitude to media in general. A study in 2005 claimed Burma’s internet curbs were among the most censorious in the world. ”The state maintains the capability to conduct surveillance of communication methods … and block users viewing websites of political opposition groups,” said a report from the academic body OpenNet Initiative.
There were 31 000 internet users in Burma in 2005 in a population of more than 47-million. Today, less than 1% of the population is thought to be online at home, but internet cafés are just as popular here as elsewhere in Asia.
Playing hard to get?
United Nations envoy Ibrahim Gambari was waiting to see Burma’s top general on Monday to try to persuade the military junta to ease its nationwide crackdown.
Theories varied widely as to why Gambari, dispatched after troops were sent in to end more than a week of mass protests against decades of military rule, had not met Than Shwe despite an hour of talks with detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.
The 74-year-old Senior General, frequently rumoured to be in poor health, may be sick, playing hard to get, or even demonstrating contempt for international concern, diplomats said. – Guardian Unlimited Â