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Virtual
Diplomacy Homepage >> Virtual
Diplomacy Publications >> Networking
Dissent
Networking Dissent Tiffany Danitz and Warren P. Strobel Part One Technological Revolution and Internet Activism There is much in recent history to suggest that the appearance of new information technologies has aided grassroots, or "citizen," activists in challenging non-democratic regimes by widely exposing the offending issue, by facilitating public education about the issue, and by promoting and mobilizing netizens in actions against the regimes. In doing so, the activists have augmented the impact of their activities in international relations, challenging the management of diplomatic affairs traditionally carried out by states and their diplomatic representatives. Nevertheless, the promise may be greater than the reality. This study seeks to examine the use of the Internet by the Burma pro-democracy activists as a case study with that question in mind. It is also reasonably well established that new communication technologies, including the 15-year-old revolution in real-time television, have given new powers to non-state actors, challenging officials' primacy in international and internal affairs.3 Ordinary citizens have used the hand-held videocamera, the telephone, the fax machine and other communication technologies to make their causes known, from the "people power" revolution in the Philippines to the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and, more recently, the Zapatista rebellion in Mexico.4 At the level of regime change, the past decade is replete with examples of how technologically expedited flow of information has played a central role in helping grassroots activists, who seek democratic rule, to counter dictatorial regimes. The 1989 revolutions throughout Eastern Europe were fueled by both personal media, such as hand-passed videocassettes and newsletters, and mass media beamed in from abroad, allowing citizens in one place to learn of, and then mimic, political dissent elsewhere.5 While the peaceful demonstrations on Tiananmen Square were in progress, information was the crucial umbilical cord between the Chinese students, their cohorts around the world and an international audience. One technology often blended with and fed into another, in a sort of "feedback loop," as news sent out of China by foreign reporters was "smuggled" back in via hundreds of fax machines. The dissemination of information and news facilitated by the new technology helped delegitimize the regime significantly in the eyes of the international community and the Chinese people. Nevertheless, because information and communications increasingly form the base of international transactions, the dictator finds himself in a dilemma. Modern states require citizens—whether doctors, businessmen or inventors—to have access to the latest sources and forms of information in order to compete in the global marketplace. "But the more they [i.e., dictators] permit these new technologies, the more they risk their monopoly of control over information and communication."6 Another view is that new information and communication technologies do not give an inherent advantage either to governments or other centralized authorities, on the one hand, or citizens, on the other. In this analysis, new forms of information distribution cause temporary changes in the societal structure, but these soon dissipate. "When the political system absorbs a new technology, the public may know a temporary high of influence before the balance of power returns to a shared custody over policy."7 Whereas McLuhan declared "the medium is the message,"8 in this view, the intrinsic characteristics of the medium are less important than who uses it and how. The fundamental nature of technology is "its irrepressible ambivalence."9 Put another way, "Cyberocracy, far from favoring democracy or totalitarianism, may make possible still more advanced, more opposite, and farther apart forms of both."10 A third point of view concentrates on what might be called the darker side of the destabilizing changes hailed by the technological optimists—that technology advances social disintegration, increases the divide between the information "haves" and "have-nots" and hastens the spread of racist, pornographic or other undesirable materials.11 More to the point of this study, new technology is said to create a ruling "knowledge elite" and aid the powers of centralization—to the point where governments can threaten and intrude on the privacy of their citizens.12 Critics of the Clinton administration's policies with regard to electronic privacy and government databases have raised these concerns in a more than theoretical way. This study strives to cast fresh light on these issues by tracing the impact of the rapidly growing and changing global computer network known as the Internet. The Internet has characteristics in common with other technological innovations throughout history—the ability to more rapidly replicate information and transmit it in large quantities over great distances. But the Internet also has distinct advantages and disadvantages that flow from its particular characteristics. More than any other technology, it permits its users to create and sustain far-flung networks based on common interests or concerns of the members, where none existed before. In the study, we seek to answer two questions. First, how, in practical terms, has the Internet aided grassroots activists seeking to promote political change? It is well established that some of the earliest and most creative use of the new information networks has been undertaken by advocacy groups of all types—from those revolving around human rights and democracy, to those interested in advancing consumer and political issues. In the United States, these often-temporary coalitions have succeeded in affecting the outcome of races for Congress, protecting the Internet itself from government regulation and blocking or modifying legislation at the state and national level.13 Second, has the rapid and largely unexpected appearance of the Internet as a major form of global communication permanently altered information flows in a manner that is inherently beneficial to, indeed a tool for, political change? Does it represent a threat to national sovereignty, or at least to the grip of closed and dictatorial regimes? We will try to answer these questions through case studies of expatriate and non-Burmese activists seeking to remove the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) from power in Burma and replace it with the democratically elected government. In this international struggle, the Internet has—for the first time—been the communication tool of choice for those seeking to promote democratic change. This study shows how the Internet has aided the cause of activists dispersed by geography and culture in ways that would not have been possible in the era before the Internet's networking capabilities became cheaply and globally available. We also will describe some of the potential disadvantages of reliance on the Internet for activists. We will examine how the Internet has affected information flows into and out of Burma itself. And we will describe SLORC's response to the Internet campaign being waged against it.
Burma is a very clear-cut case. There was a democratically elected government which was canceled by what the Wall Street Journal calls 'ruling thugs' and whose people have reached out to the U.S. for help.
The Western world introduced itself to Burma when British entrepreneurs ventured into the region. Three wars later, in 1885, British cartographers drew Burma onto the maps. The new territory fell under the title "Indian Colonies," another acquisition for the expanding empire. Since the end of the imperial age, Burma has been ruled in succession by the Japanese; a somewhat-democratic Burmese government; and socialist military regimes. A constant barrier to each of these ruling bodies has been the ethnic divisions that plague the region. Hundreds of ethnic groups call Burma home. The largest among the population of 44 million is the Burmans, followed by the Karen, the Shan and the Mon. Under British rule, certain "hill tribes," the Karenni, Shan and Katchin, who inhabited the mountain regions, were given autonomy.15 When the British governed the region, they found that federalism was the best system for these divisive circumstances, and they set up a legislature in the 1920s to meet the demands of local protesters. Dissension continued despite British efforts, and during the 1930s, university students founded the All-Burma Students Union to campaign for independence. The leader of this student movement was Aung San, the father of Aung San Suu Kyi, who is now the leading symbol of Burmaºs democratic aspirations. A large student strike in 1936 resulted in the British separating Burma from India. Then they set up a semi-independent government for the colony. The long struggle for independence from the great colonial power ended in 1942 with the Japanese invasion. The students had formed an opposition army and helped Japan conquer the region, taking it from Britain. But the Burmese grew to detest their Japanese rulers more than the British. They formed the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League (AFPFL) led by Aung San, who helped the Allied powers retake Burma at the end of World War II.16 In the aftermath of the war, when Great Britain dismantled her empire, Burma was among the nations given independence. In 1948, the people of Burma saw their efforts come to fruition with the birth of the Union of Burma. Aung San was assassinated, but his colleague U Nu emerged as president of the AFPFL and prime minister of the new nation. U Nu chose to shape the infant country into a socialist welfare state. Land reform and nationalization policies were paid for with rice exports. The struggling nation found itself in crisis by the late 1950s. Communist rebels and ethnic groups fought the new government. In 1958, a split in the AFPFL party caused U Nu to call on General Ne Win, leader of the Burmese army, to bring order to the erupting chaos. Win set up a temporary military government to restore law and order. Worsening economic conditions and the fear of mass instability reportedly worried Win, and he organized a communist coup. In 1962, the elected government was abandoned and the constitution scrapped. Win appointed himself to the post of chairman of the Revolutionary Council. Burma's name was changed to the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma. Win's government was not interested in civil liberties, and to secure its power base, silenced political dissenters with imprisonment or death.17 The government took over the business sector, rejected foreign aid and restricted foreign reporters and tourists. It controlled the newspapers and ran the schools. Win monopolized all foreign trade contracts. Only a minute segment of the small business and agriculture communities escaped government centralization and maintained a measure of autonomy. The new socialist regime founded the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP), then made all other political parties illegal. The economy spiraled downward, farm production fell and consumer goods were nowhere to be found. Win's government furthered centralization by establishing a far-reaching intelligence-gathering network to monitor the daily activities of Burma's citizens.18 In the summer of 1962, students and ethnic groups rose up in protest. Win reacted by imprisoning and killing hundreds. U Nu was among those imprisoned. The protesters were undaunted, and in 1974 they tried to regain their country once more, but failed. That same year, a constitution was written establishing the BSPP as all-powerful. Some restrictions on agriculture and foreign aid were removed. Two years later, students again joined workers in an uprising against the harsh rule of the generals, but this too was quelled. New laws were passed that endangered anyone suspected of anti-government activities. Those found guilty were given lengthy prison terms, and many complained of torture.19 On March 17, 1988, a student was murdered in Rangoon. Fellow students were outragedãthey held mass demonstrations, which mushroomed into a large grassroots call for democracy. The ranks of the thousands who marched on Burma's capital city, Rangoon, were made up of government officials, housewives, monks, policemen, soldiers and workers. They demanded free elections. In the ensuing twenty-four hours, at least forty-one people lost their lives. The exact number is unknown. "Government secrecy makes it impossible to arrive at a reliable estimate of casualties. Some responsible observers place the March deaths in the hundreds."20 The students remained vigilant in their call for democracy well into the autumn. Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of Aung San, was in her home in Burma nursing a sick family member when the student protests broke out. Swept up with the desire to change her country, she accepted a position as head of the National League for Democracy (NLD), and she ran for office. In July 1988, Win announced his resignation as chairman of the BSPP. Initially, protesters saw this as a breakthrough, but then the party named Win's protÈgÈ, Sein Lwin, to the post. Protesters were enraged and from August 8 to 11, Rangoonºs gutters turned red with blood. Violence continued into the next month. On September 18, General Saw Maung took over and declared martial law. He replaced Win's government with SLORC, a regime best described as a military junta. Machine gun fire swept the streets clean of protesters. Those who were not buried in mass graves ran to the borders. Published reports claim the death toll climbed to 3,000 during a seven-month period.21 The following year, SLORC changed the name of the country to Pyidaungzu Myanma Naingngandaw, or the Union of Myanmar. It also set a date for elections in May 1990. SLORC's conditions for elections were a "peaceful and tranquil" country and food, clothing and shelter for each person.22 SLORC candidates ran under the National Unity Party banner. Candidates who opposed SLORC were "often intimidated and denied access to the government-controlled radio and television," according to the Institute for Asian Democracy. Because of this, many voters had to rely on foreign radio reports, such as those offered by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and the All Indian Radio, to gain information about candidates. Despite the fact that SLORC arrested Suu Kyi and approximately forty of the NLD's top brass on July 20, 1989, the people still voted overwhelmingly for the opposition. Of the 425 seats available, the NLD won 392 seats, some ethnic minority parties (also opposed to SLORC) won 65 seats and the juntaºs candidates won 10 seats. SLORC never allowed those elected representatives to assume office. It initiated a clamp-down, imprisoning a number of NLD party members and forcing others to flee the country. Over 300,000 refugees collected at the borders. Today, the regime carries on many of the policies of Win's government. It controls all media—including news, movies, publications and songs—with censor boards. Foreign journalists are not welcome in Burma except for short, closely supervised stays.23 Suu Kyi was released on July 10, 1995, but a recent letter from Sen. Mitch McConnell to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright claims that she is nonetheless still "in effect, under undeclared house arrest."24 SLORC had arrested and imprisoned hundreds of NLD party members as of May 1997 for their attempt to hold a constitutional convention. Human Rights Watch states that nearly 3,000 political prisoners continue to languish in prison on remand awaiting trial. Laws have been expanded beyond the scope of just NLD members to punish any of its supporters or advocates of democracy with the threat of prison. While snubbing the democratic West, SLORC has improved its image with its Asian neighbors in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which it was invited to join in July 1997, and with China. It has been reported that a division of Chinaºs People's Liberation Army run by Wang Jun has been providing arms to the Burmese military junta.25 There are a number of ethnic groups involved in the trade of heroin, and many reports indicate that SLORC, too, is involved in the opium trade. Burma supplies 60 percent of the world market in opium. It has been reported that SLORC trades heroin with China, as well as with strategically located islands, in exchange for arms to sustain its power base. To date, SLORC has been successful in negotiating cease-fires with over a dozen ethnic groups. It tends to use the ethnic instability as justification for its repression. The NLD also has aligned itself with twenty-five ethnic groups. It has held constitutional assemblies and has established a government in exile, the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB). Its members are hoping to be recognized by Western governments as the official government of Burma. They and Suu Kyi have been pressing for the opportunity to take their seats in their nation's parliament. In April 1997, President Clinton signed legislation that bans any future U.S. business investments in Burma. The Cohen-Feinstein legislation is an amended and weakened version of McConnell's 1995 bill to end all business with Burma. From 1995 through 1997, many U.S. cities and states have passed their own sanctions legislation. Most of the bills prohibit the state from doing business with any company that also does business in Burma. Currently, McConnell is drawing up stricter sanctions legislation in an effort to persuade the regime to allow the elected representatives of 1990 to take their seats.
A Short History of How the Internet Came to Play a Role in the Burma Crisis In the early 1990s, a few Burmese exiles opposed to the regime in Rangoon began communicating on the Internet via electronic mail. Among the first was Coban Tun, an exile living in California who redistributed newspaper reports from Bangkok, Thailand, and other information about Burma on the Usenet system, using an electronic mailing list called seasia-l.26 The first regular and consistent source of information on Burma available on the Internet was BurmaNet. It took shape in Thailand in late 1993, the brainchild of student Douglas Steele. In October 1993, at the Internet Center at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University, he perused an on-line Usenet newsgroup called soc.culture.thai and Thai newspapers that carried the only in-depth English-language accounts of events in neighboring Burma. Steele realized that the Internet could be used to provide information about human rights abuses and the usurpation of democracy in Burma.27 Steele began keying in, verbatim, reports on Burma from The Bangkok Post, The Nation and other sources and sending them out on the Internet without comment. Unadulterated news remains BurmaNet's editorial hallmark today. The effort got a vital boost before the year's end. Steele received a $3,000 grant from the Soros Foundation's Open Society Institute to purchase modems and electronic mail accounts, testing whether it was feasible to train the large Burmese exile community in Thailand to be active on-line.28 Far more important than the news that was transmitted was the new network itself, which provided information, and in so doing empowered members of the Burmese diaspora. This educated elite, scattered around the world in the thirty years since the events of 1962 and cut off from their homeland, for the first time had access to the same up-to-date information and a means to communicate. "Once it was so obvious that people were using it, that it was useful to them, more and more came on. Pretty soon you had, if not the entire Burmese exile community in the world, but all the ones who have $20 a month and a modem," Steele recalled. "There's a lot of Burmese in exile, but they weren't together and the Net allows them, in one way, to be together." The Internet's power to connect and organize geographically disparate individuals and groups would be dramatically displayed in the activist campaigns behind the Massachusetts selective purchasing legislation and the Pepsi boycott. BurmaNet—maintained on a computer server run by the Institute for Global Communications (IGC), a computer network serving peace and human rights activists29—grew rapidly. The number of electronic subscribers went from a handful, to 30, to 100, to 400 in its second year, until it was impossible any longer to keep track of the real "readership," because BurmaNet's reports were posted on the Usenet system and reprinted in paper newsletters.30 As of January 1997, BurmaNet had 750 known subscribers worldwide.31 A difficult decision faced the activists in 1994: whether to allow the Burmese regime's embassy in Washington and other known SLORC representatives to subscribe to BurmaNet and "post" messages giving Rangoon's viewpoint. The decision was made to allow SLORC to join, in the interests of free speech and full debate—which is, after all, a strong part of the Internet's culture. According to Steele, "it's actually sort of beneficial to have this on the 'Net," because the regime, by its very nature, is able to communicate little beyond its standard propaganda. Activist Michael Beer of Nonviolence International agrees. "Very often they come across as looking ridiculous," said Beer, a veteran among those using the Internet and working for political change in Burma. But by seeing SLORC's viewpoint, like a Kremlinologist of old, "you can then get in their heads. . . . we can sit in their shoes."32 At about the same time BurmaNet was ending the international drought on news about Burma and helping both form and inform an international network whose members were dedicated to ending SLORC's rule, related efforts got under way to challenge the regime's choke-hold on information within Burma. This effort was and continues to be hampered by the regime's intelligence apparatus, and the lack of any significant private Internet connections inside Burma itself. In September 1996, SLORC passed the "Computer Science Development Law," which metes out a prison sentence of seven to fifteen years and fines of up to $5,000 for anyone who owns an unregistered modem or fax machine.33 Still, information seeped in and out. Despite SLORC's stiff controls, exile groups along Burma's borders with Thailand and India began feeding news—which had first been transmitted on the Internet—back into Burma on computer diskettes or simple, two-sided newsletters. [Rank-and-file SLORC soldiers have been among the customers.] The BBC and the Democratic Voice of Burma, a Burmese-language radio station operating in Norway, broadcast news picked up via the Internet into Burma.34 Burmese pro-democracy activists use the Internet to publicize news from within Burma that is taken out of the country in other ways and for safe (encrypted) communications between various pro-democracy groups or between them and supporters in the United States and elsewhere. In terms of cost, rapidity, and ease of use, the Internet is a significant advantage over previous technologies for this purpose.35 These efforts and their effects inside Burma will be discussed in more detail later. In 1994 and 1995, a new front was opened in the struggle for political change in Burma, as students and expatriates in the United States began to organize the Free Burma campaign, whose central goals included pressuring American and European companies to cease doing business with SLORC. The Internet was again the most frequent communication medium of choice for organizing and exchanging information. By this time, powerful new Internet tools were available, especially the World Wide Web and associated technologies that make it possible to view and share audio, video and graphics. With the necessary computer hardware and software and a click of a mouse, interested parties and more particularly activists anywhere in the world could listen to a speech by Aung San Suu Kyi, transmit Free Burma campaign materials such as posters and flyers or look through a virtual keyhole into Burma itself. Within days of the December 1996 student demonstrations—the largest in Rangoon since 1988—images of them, taken from a private videocamera that surreptitiously recorded the events, were available on the Internet.36 Dozens of World Wide Web pages now exist covering every imaginable facet of Burma. SLORC has responded by paying an American company to set up its own Web site, www.myanmar.com. The site, which was registered in Laurel, Maryland,37 features pictures of the country and information about tourism, business and development—no politics whatsoever. SLORC almost certainly monitors the public Internet discussion dominated by pro-democracy activists. A known SLORC representative, who uses the electronic mail address In the summer of 1997, SLORC and its representatives appeared to have begun a more aggressive attempt to use the Internet. While the timing may be coincidental, it should be noted that this took place shortly after the United States instituted federal sanctions against doing business in Burma. In May 1997, the regime began its own electronic mailing list, MyanmarNet, to compete with BurmaNet. It was moderated—i.e., articles are selected or rejected for electronic distribution to the list's subscribers—by the individual known as Okkar. Okkar stated that his policy would be (a) to accept most of the submitted postings, omitting "only the junk mails and very rude usages,"39 and (b) to welcome submissions of news, information and comments about political, social and economic affairs in Burma that have "not been posted elsewhere such as soc.culture.burma and other mailing lists."40 This ensures that BurmaNet cannot electronically "flood" MyanmarNet with its own content. In practice, MyanmarNet appears chiefly to echo the regime's point of view: postings include text of the government-controlled New Light of Myanmar newspaper, other government statements, reprints of articles favorable, or at least neutral, to the regime, and information on business opportunities for foreign investors. However, in MyanmarNet's first weeks, Okkar did accept several reprints of articles critical of SLORC's handling of the economy and its reputed drug ties, which had been posted on BurmaNet by members of pro-democracy groups. SLORC's ability to fight back outside its borders when the Internet is used against it appears to be limited to monitoring public Internet discussions and trying to publicize its own point of view. "The delete key can't do very much to you," Steele said. "The only currency that works on the Internet is the ability to persuade, entertain, whatever."41 Nevertheless, the year 1997 saw modest, but potentially significant, changes in SLORC's attitude toward the Internet within Burma. In mid-April, the government-controlled Myanmar Poste Telegraph and Telephone signed an agreement with a Singaporean firm for Burma's first digital communications link with the rest of the world. This modest-sized link, which uses Singapore as a gateway, will be available for businessmen from the city-state with interests in Burma, as well as foreign businesses operating in Burma. The All Nippon Airways office in Rangoon, as well as several universities in the capital, reportedly now have Internet access.42 It remains to be seen whether SLORC can keep its citizens' use of the Internet limited to business and academic matters. 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