Melted Euphoria

Friday, 26 February 2010 03:24 Kyi Sin Thawda (Commentary)

As I was leaving the township chicken market, a young man in a blue municipal uniform approached me. I was surprised and scared.

“Brother, I just saw you taking photos in the market. Please come with me for a while” he said.

“No, I didn’t take any photos” I replied. “The gadget I’m holding in my hand is an MP3 player” I tried to explain.

Pointing to my MP3 player he shot back “I’ve seen these small cameras in magazines. They come with a TV, you can explain it to us later. Please come with me to our office now”.

I thought it was funny that he thought the menu on my MP3 player was a TV, but this was no laughing matter. I knew I couldn’t talk my way out of it and had to go with him, I had no other choice. I had in fact taken photos in the market, not with my MP3 player however, but with a camera now hidden under my shirt.

I had come to the market to cover bird flu epidemic and Burma’s preparations or lack thereof. The busy market butchers who prepare the chickens wear no gloves. Working for hours on end with their bare hands they appear completely unaware of the deadly viruses and infections they risk contracting. Carefully, I managed to snap the photos that I wanted, I thought I hadn’t been seen, I was wrong.

On the walk over to the municipal market office, I desperately thought of how I could hide my camera. Luckily, my escort was walking behind me. Whilst pretending to re-wrap my lungyi (Burmese sarong) I pushed my camera down into my underwear. Fortunately my accuser didn’t notice what I was doing.

When we reached the municipal office, my accuser’s superior asked me which media organization I was with. I replied that I was not a journalist and had only come to buy chicken. In my defense I explained that my accuser must have mistakenly thought my MP3 player was a camera. The official took my MP3 player and examined it.

He then asked to frisk me, one of those requests I couldn’t refuse. I thought to myself “What shall I do? Is it better just to confess?” Instead I opted for the ‘total denial’ method, knowing full well that I alone would have to deal with whatever consequences came my way. If arrested no one, especially my exile news organization, could rescue me. When trouble arises my only option is to face the music head on.

The superior frisked me and fortunately found nothing. Only after his failed search did he let me go and I could take a big sigh of relief. Many others haven’t been so lucky and Burma’s jails are full of many journalists caught trying to report the news from a closed a country.

Every day in Burma undercover reporters take great risks to get photos and video. And my brush with jail came because I was only trying to get pictures in a chicken market!! You can imagine how difficult it is trying to get shots of demonstrations, forced labor or of the military on the move. In Burma there is a lot of news that needs to be covered and journalists must be very careful while regularly taking huge risks. You can never tell a stranger or even many of your friends that you are a journalist. If those who ask what you’re doing are police informers and they report one you, expect the worst to happen.

After successfully getting good photos or video footage, an underground journalist gets a great feeling. The elation however is all too brief, as we then have the difficult task of sending the photos, articles or footage to our news agencies in exile without getting caught in the process.

Like most people in Burma we don’t have internet connections at home. Instead we have to rush to an internet café whenever we want to send something to our colleagues in exile. As soon as we reach the internet cafes, we have to check and see if there are any unfamiliar faces inside. One gets used to doing this automatically and within a few seconds we can distinguish suspicious strangers and familiar faces. We must be very careful at this stage. The man sitting beside me may either be a police informer or from military intelligence.

While at the internet café at any moment someone could come and say ‘brother, please come with me for a while’. Under the ‘Electronic Act’ alone, this ‘for a while’ will at the very least result in a minimum 15 year prison sentence. After checking my surroundings and making sure there are no strangers inside the cafe, I now can start work on my memory card.

Before sending the files one has to do many things, most importantly deleting unnecessary portions and compressing the file to save space. Often software that is not installed on the internet café computers is needed to do our work. So I have to store all the necessary software that I have secretly downloaded from websites into my own thumb-drive. And then we have to reinstall the software on the computer I’m working on. Not only is it time consuming but every minute that goes by results in me having to pay a higher bill when I leave the internet café.

Burmese exile based news sites are banned in Burma. In order to visit them, we have to use proxy servers to bypass the internet filters imbedded on the government controlled servers. One cannot relax at the cyber café while engaging in underground journalism work. We must be vigilant and observe our surroundings at all times, getting caught means years in prison. Even being found with two double A batteries and an ohmmeter is enough for the paranoid military authorities to convince themselves you are a dangerous bomber.

Once I have done all the compressing and editing then all that is left is to upload the files for my colleagues in exile. Just when I think I’m about done suddenly the internet connection becomes incredibly slow. A task that normally takes less than a half an hour can last several hours. Not only does it take great courage to upload our work but it takes great patience too.

And then after the uploading when all the files are sent, I have to delete all electronic clues that prove I engaged in “subversive” activities on the computer. This last step is extremely important.

One gets a great feeling of jubilation when they see their own news reports on the websites of an opposition news agency. Video journalists have to wait days or months for a brief glimpse of their footage on exile TV. And if their footage appears on a famous foreign channel like CNN, BBC or Al Jerzera, they have to celebrate their victory alone. The consequences of being found out are just too high.

Now I’m sitting in front of my TV ready to watch the bird flu news report that I recorded and nearly got arrested for. It’s coming soon.

Suddenly my room becomes dark. The electricity in my town has gone down again for the millionth time. I am really disappointed. My brief solitary moment of victory will have to wait till tomorrow.