Suu Kyi ‘concerned’ as BBC Burmese risks being dropped

Thursday, 09 September 2010 01:51 Thomas Maung Shwe

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) - The BBC’s Burmese service broadcasts could be eliminated next year as part of the Cameron coalition government’s dramatic reduction in spending on the BBC World Service, The Guardian of London on Tuesday, quoting an unnamed source.

However, late yesterday in response to that report, BBC News quoted British Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt as saying that no decision had been taken about possible cuts to its World Service’s annual £264 million (US$409 million) grant, Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has told website’s entertainment and arts section

“Government departments have been told to shave at least 25 per cent off budgets to tackle the UK [British] deficit,” the report said.

The British government funds the World Service, which receives allocations from the Foreign and Commonweath Office (FCO), Britain’s foreign ministry.

Hunt was reported as saying that the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government was “absolutely committed to the global reach of the World Service and the very important job it does as a beacon for democracy around the globe”.

An FCO spokesman told the BBC: “Any proposal to open or close a language service requires ministerial approval - no such approval has been sought or given.”

All aspects of the FCO’s future budget were being considered as part of the government’s spending review, the outcome of which would be on October 20, he added.

But that is all information for public consumption.

The Guardian report quoted an insider who said: “The Burma office is up for grabs. It is a question of costs. It is very expensive and has relatively few listeners. The ‘human rights’ argument doesn’t hold much sway with the new Foreign Office [FCO].”

The service, which recently celebrated its 70th year on air, is routinely denounced in Burma’s state-controlled media. Burma observers say that cancelling or reducing BBC Burmese broadcasts would be a major victory for the military regime.

In a recent interview with Mizzima, the BBC Burmese service chief, Tin Htar Swe, foreshadowed the funding difficulties. Because of the economic recession in Britain, the FCO might be forced to reduce the funding of the World Service, which could have a knock-on effect regarding the Burmese language service, she said. However, the impact on programming would not be significant, she hoped.

Subir Bhaumik, the BBC’s East India correspondent based in Kolkata, who also contributes to the Burmese service, told Mizzima he was aware of general cost-cutting but was more hopeful considering the importance placed on coverage in the run-up to Burma’s first elections in two decades.

“I am not aware of any major budget cuts in Burmese and Bengali services in the immediate future, though there is a general tightening of belts … across the BBC,” he said. “But the BBC is giving much importance to the Burma elections and I don’t see any compromise that the BBC will make with our Burma coverage.”

Reached for comment, Win Tin, a veteran Burmese journalist and co-founder of the National League for Democracy (NLD), said that termination of the BBC’s Burmese broadcasts would be a “gift” for Burma’s military authorities “because the BBC tells the people of Burma what is really going on, something the regime doesn’t want”.

He said he hoped the British government and FCO Secretary William Hague, would reconsider the cuts at BBC Burmese “because it is an essential service for millions of people across Burma, especially the millions who don’t speak English and otherwise would be stuck with Burmese state-controlled media”.

The NLD leader added that broadcasts from the BBC Burmese service played an key role in keeping the population of Burma informed during important national events in the country’s history, including the 1988 popular uprising, the 1990 election won by the NLD and the 2007 “saffron revolution”, named so as it was led by monks.

For many years the Burmese regime has officially outlawed people listening to BBC Burmese, though the BBC estimates more than 8 million people in Burma routinely defy this ban and still tune in via short-wave radios. It is the BBC Burmese service’s large audience that prompts Burmese state media to routinely refute its reports.

The estimated audience in Burma, contrary to what The Guardian source’s statement suggests, is in fact quite large when considered as a percentage of Burma’s population. The numbers are however dwarfed in comparison to the BBC’s broadcasts in Hindi and Urdu, directed at India and Pakistan, which have far bigger populations than Burma.

The Southeast Asian Press Alliance’s 2007 report “Foreign Assistance to the Burmese News Media” said in terms of all outlets based outside Burma, the BBC Burmese service probably had a larger audience than any other medium in the Burmese language.

It added that: “Since November 2003, the BBC World Service Trust - the station’s charity arm - has been broadcasting educational soap operas and magazine-style programmes in Burmese that have become very popular.”

Suu Kyi, British opposition, ‘very concerned’ by BBC Burmese cuts

The London Independent newspaper reported that Kyi Win, a lawyer for the detained NLD leader said that Aung San Suu Kyi had “heard that the BBC could be facing some funding problems due to the current economic situation in Britain and the BBC Burmese service might be facing cuts rather than expansion. She is very concerned about the situation as the people in Burma are relying on [the] BBC … for news and information.”

Also, Shadow Foreign Secretary David Miliband agreed with the stance of Win Tin and other Burma watchers when he told The Guardian that ending BBC broadcasts to Burma would play into the hands of the country’s ruling military junta.

“The World Service is a steady, credible voice in parts of the world where the only other messages blend threats and propaganda,” he said. “Scrapping the World Service in Burma would be a gift to the military junta, and an insult to political prisoners locked in Burma’s jail for no crime.”

Burma is the subject of tough Western sanctions, because of its refusal to recognise the last elections in 1990 and the prolonged detention of opposition leader Suu Kyi.

The country will hold its first election in 20 years in November, but pro-democracy parties say that restrictions imposed by the military government will virtually ensure its proxy parties win the poll.

What the Burmese regime has to say about BBC Burmese and the 1988 uprising

New Light of Myanmar
Monday, June 13, 2005

However, BBC and VOA purposely breached the journalist ethics and broadcast fabricated instigations to incite uprising and anarchistic acts during the 1988 unrest. With fabricated interviews to fuel the problem, they made attempts to push Myanmar into abyss. Everybody can still remember the skyful of lies made by BBC and VOA at that time.

After the 1988 incidents, in addition to BBC and VOA, new foreign media such as RFA, DVB and other broadcasting stations and foreign periodicals including Shan Thandawsint have been broadcasting slanderous fabrications and instigations without shame in order to disintegrate the Union; disintegrate the national solidarity of Myanmar and perpetrate the loss of her sovereignty.


SPDC denies claims in BBC report on political prisoners

New Light of Myanmar
Friday, 13 August, 2004
Those who daren’t show their face - 57

As they are making wicked lies and slanders one after another, the BBC and the VOA [Voice of America] have become skilled in creating fabrication. At 6 a.m. on 26 July 2004, the BBC aired an interview with Ko Teik Naing of the AAPP [Assistance Association for Political Prisoners Burma] concerning the demise of poet U Kyi Tin Oo. The VOA also broadcast an interview with his daughter at 9 p.m. on the same day.

The brief account of the fabrication was that the BBC interviewed the so-called secretary of the AAPP about U Kyi Tin Oo, who was released from jail on 26 March 2004 and who died on 24 July. Teik Naing told the BBC that U Kyi Tin Oo died of hypertension, cardiac disorder and diabetes, which he was suffering from, while serving his jail term. Teik Naing also said that his toe was already decomposed; and that bits of bamboo were found inside his body as he was stabbed and hit with pointed bamboo sticks during the interrogation.

But during the VOA interview, her daughter said that his father was suffering from hypertension since before he was sentenced. She even said that her father underwent medical treatment at Insein Hospital before he was released from prison.
So, it has become quite clear. What the so-called secretary of the AAPP, an organisation that is located at a far corner in a remote border area, said about U Kyi Tin Oo was nothing but lies to make the matter worse. Such a person who is skilled in creating lies and fabricated sad stories will be very rare.

The acts of the expatriates and fugitives of the AAPP and the corrupt politicians from inside the country attacking Myanmar [Burma] and her Government on all fronts to the degree beyond imagination to make political gains were so mean.

Whenever a person dies after he was released from prison for a period of a month or a year or ten years, the AAPP and the corrupt politicians always create a sad story, with fabrications, saying that the said person died of the effects of tortures in the prison or during interrogation or died of a certain illness or diseases due to lack of prison health care services. And if he died in prison, they slander the Government for not releasing him sooner for enabling him to undergo medical treatment in time. In reality, those persons are very pitiful for they are constantly under the influence of the greed to grab power.

Man is not free from death, sufferings and illness. Death may come at any time. So, a prisoner or an ordinary person can die at any time. Moreover, a person can be contracted by some kind of disease while he is in prison or at his house. But a prisoner like U Kyi Tin Oo is sentenced to imprisonment without hard labour. U Kyi Tin Oo was so comfortable in the prison, enjoying sound sleep every night and daily meals served at the right time. The prison doctors provide regular medical check-ups for inmates, and give them medical treatment. If necessary, specialist surgeons make medical check-up on and gave medical treatment to them. The prisoners are even treated at public hospitals outside the prison. So, the accusations that a prisoner is stricken with a certain kind of illness or disease while serving his jail term are just lies. And the liars create the slanderous accusations not because of their goodwill for the prisoners, but just because of their greed to earn dollars.