Monday, 19 September 2011 18:06 Thea Forbes
Loi Taleng, Shan State (Mizzima) – Sai Sang walks up the muddy trail through the mist cloaking the Shan mountains to the hut that houses the transmitter for Tai Freedom Radio.
The “resistance” radio station at Loi Taleng finally emerged from a period of unintended hibernation early this September after broadcasting went silent for almost three months. The radio mast perched on the mountain was damaged by a powerful storm in June, and Shan soldiers have just finished repairing it. Heavy rain and clogging mud slow down operations in the rainy season.
Tai Freedom Radio provides a beacon for the Shan people in this region of Shan State in Burma. It is the radio broadcasting operation for the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS), the political wing of the Shan State Army (or SSA).
It is early September and rains and low-lying clouds shroud life in a claustrophobic swirl of mist. Tai Freedom Radio was established in 2002, and it has a team of more than 10 broadcasters, and transmits news on fighting and current affairs to people living in the area surrounding Loi Taleng, the SSA headquarters.
It also broadcasts the Four Noble Principles and the Six Policies of the RCSS to citizens in Shan state in the Shan (Tai Yai) language. This is the epicentre of the rallying cry for freedom from the RCSS.
Is Tai Freedom Radio ethno-nationalist propaganda? Or is it Shan news for Shan people? It’s both, according to Sai Sang, 27, who has been a broadcaster at the station for three years.
“The most important thing about Tai Freedom Radio is to get real information to the civilians so that they will know the real situation,” he said. “The SPDC (State Peace and Development Council) wants to close their eyes and ears to knowledge. The SPDC wants the ethnic people to have no abilities or knowledge.”
The SPDC may have been dissolved and elections held, but Sai Sang believes that the Burmese government is still dominated by former military generals, pulling the strings from behind the scenes.
“We want to make the citizens understand about our policies, and to understand about the SPDC and what they are doing; the reality and the falsehoods,” he said.
In 2010, the RCSS’s Information and Communications departments joined forces. From a village in central Shan State, Sai Sang came and spent eight months training as a soldier in the SSA before working in the communications department of the RCSS.
Clandestine radio has long been an important apparatus for revolutionaries. “Radio Rebelde,” the broadcasting station set up by Ernesto Che Guevara in 1958 (and which still operates today) to transmit the aims of Fidel Castro’s revolutionary movement to the Cuban people, was even used strategically to transmit some tactical military instructions over the airwaves. Tactical broadcasts reportedly became just as popular as ordinary programmes and made the local Cuban population feel closer to the movement. Here in Loi Taleng, however, megaphone politics are somewhat different. The consequences for Shan civilians caught listening to Tai Freedom Radio by the Burmese government authorities could be severe.
Sai Sang says that they can broadcast to an area of about 50 kilometres around Loi Taleng, a relatively small area. The said of the Information and Communications department told Mizzima that plans for Tai Freedom Radio to be broadcast on the Internet in October are underway, which although it has the potential to vastly increase the number of Shan listeners who live outside of Burma, is unlikely to have a significant effect in Shan State where access to the Internet is limited.
Broadcasting news from the RCSS in Shan language is Sai Sang’s way of fighting the central Burmese government’s monopoly on the dissemination of knowledge, he told Mizzima. It is also his platform for forging a strengthened unity among the different ethnic groups in Shan State, and Shan people scattered across Asia.
Aside from the call for an independent Shan state, one of the RCSS’s policies that Sai Sang broadcasts is to seek for unity among the nationalities and equal rights for all ethnic groups of which there are some 15 different groups in Shan State.
“Our Shan people are in China, India, we have many millions of Shan, but we cannot know about our culture, and in other places, about their cultures,” he said. “If we have a broadcast on the radio, it will create more friendship and more unity. It's very powerful for us.”
He said that citizens in Shan state are forced to lose their Shan identity by having to listen to propaganda via the Burmese state-run newspapers and radio. As well as transmitting the RCSS’s policies, his work at Tai Freedom Radio involves broadcasting programmes created by the RCSS on Shan history, culture and health.
The dissemination of the RCSS’s policies over Tai Freedom Radio is essential to create unity amongst Shan, said Sai Sang.
He recalled when he was a child in his village, listening to the radio meant listening to broadcasts in Burmese. He wants to help keep the Shan ethnic identity alive via Tai Freedom Radio.
“I wanted to take up this job, because it's from my heart. Before, when I was younger, I couldn't hear Shan on the radio, and so I really wanted to work.”
The radio station is the RCSS’s embodiment of what its sees as its right to self-determination in the fight against what they say is the government’s attempt to destroy the identities of ethnic minorities in Burma. It is also the platform for the political rhetoric that they hope will be accepted into the hearts of Shan people and unifies them in their fight for Shan independence.
Tensions are high and feelings are strong. Some soldiers in Loi Taleng resent the word “rebel,” because it implies their position outside of nation-state central control is invalid, the Foreign Affairs Secretary of the RCSS told Mizzima. He asked Mizzima not to use his name.
“I don't want to be called a ‘rebel’; we call it ‘resistance’. Resistance is better,” he said. “We have a country, we lost our power; we lost our power to occupy our country. Now the Burmese regime, or the SPDC, they are invaders in our country… We have to fight back until they get out of our country, and then we can occupy our motherland. We have to be leaders. We need to lead by ourselves, not by other people, coming to be our leaders. This is our right, our land.”
Fighting between Shan troops and the Burmese army has escalated since the contentious elections were held in November 2010.
The Burmese Army broke a 22-year-old cease-fire with the Shan State Army-North (SSA-N) on March 13, by capturing their second largest base, Nam Lao.
Fighting has continued since. SSA-N joined with the Shan State Army-South (SSA-S) to form the SSA on May 21 this year.
The suffering from continued conflict in the area is hard on the civilian population. Seemingly, not by coincidence, Burmese government forces have launched attacks in SSA-N territories that lie in the projected route for the large oil and gas pipeline project that will traverse Burma from the Indian Ocean to China and is due for completion in 2013.
Since recent fighting between the Burmese Army and the SSA in the SSA North territories, up to 30,000 villagers have fled their homes, Mizzima reported on August 17.
The Shan Women’s Action Network and the Shan Human Rights Group released a joint statement on August 10 calling for humanitarian aid for Shan war refugees. Both groups have also accused the Burmese army of committing acts of rape during their recent offensives in Shan state. Other abuses by the Burmese Army in Shan State recently documented have included shelling of civilians, forced relocation and labour, arbitrary detention, the use of torture, the use of civilians as porters and “human shields” and arbitrary execution.
Sai Sang says he strives to transmit the truth about the conflict and human rights abuses that are occurring in Shan State. He also wants to create unity among the Shan people and a sense of ethnic identity.
The radio mast is back up as of early September and clandestine broadcasts are back on the air. Sai Sang is back on the airwaves.
Sai Sang is a pseudonym
Loi Taleng, Shan State (Mizzima) – Sai Sang walks up the muddy trail through the mist cloaking the Shan mountains to the hut that houses the transmitter for Tai Freedom Radio.
The “resistance” radio station at Loi Taleng finally emerged from a period of unintended hibernation early this September after broadcasting went silent for almost three months. The radio mast perched on the mountain was damaged by a powerful storm in June, and Shan soldiers have just finished repairing it. Heavy rain and clogging mud slow down operations in the rainy season.
 |
| Sai Sang walks through the mist to the radio station, Loi Taleng. Photo: Thea Forbes/Mizzima |
Tai Freedom Radio provides a beacon for the Shan people in this region of Shan State in Burma. It is the radio broadcasting operation for the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS), the political wing of the Shan State Army (or SSA).
It is early September and rains and low-lying clouds shroud life in a claustrophobic swirl of mist. Tai Freedom Radio was established in 2002, and it has a team of more than 10 broadcasters, and transmits news on fighting and current affairs to people living in the area surrounding Loi Taleng, the SSA headquarters.
It also broadcasts the Four Noble Principles and the Six Policies of the RCSS to citizens in Shan state in the Shan (Tai Yai) language. This is the epicentre of the rallying cry for freedom from the RCSS.
Is Tai Freedom Radio ethno-nationalist propaganda? Or is it Shan news for Shan people? It’s both, according to Sai Sang, 27, who has been a broadcaster at the station for three years.
“The most important thing about Tai Freedom Radio is to get real information to the civilians so that they will know the real situation,” he said. “The SPDC (State Peace and Development Council) wants to close their eyes and ears to knowledge. The SPDC wants the ethnic people to have no abilities or knowledge.”
The SPDC may have been dissolved and elections held, but Sai Sang believes that the Burmese government is still dominated by former military generals, pulling the strings from behind the scenes.
“We want to make the citizens understand about our policies, and to understand about the SPDC and what they are doing; the reality and the falsehoods,” he said.
In 2010, the RCSS’s Information and Communications departments joined forces. From a village in central Shan State, Sai Sang came and spent eight months training as a soldier in the SSA before working in the communications department of the RCSS.
Clandestine radio has long been an important apparatus for revolutionaries. “Radio Rebelde,” the broadcasting station set up by Ernesto Che Guevara in 1958 (and which still operates today) to transmit the aims of Fidel Castro’s revolutionary movement to the Cuban people, was even used strategically to transmit some tactical military instructions over the airwaves. Tactical broadcasts reportedly became just as popular as ordinary programmes and made the local Cuban population feel closer to the movement. Here in Loi Taleng, however, megaphone politics are somewhat different. The consequences for Shan civilians caught listening to Tai Freedom Radio by the Burmese government authorities could be severe.
Sai Sang says that they can broadcast to an area of about 50 kilometres around Loi Taleng, a relatively small area. The said of the Information and Communications department told Mizzima that plans for Tai Freedom Radio to be broadcast on the Internet in October are underway, which although it has the potential to vastly increase the number of Shan listeners who live outside of Burma, is unlikely to have a significant effect in Shan State where access to the Internet is limited.
 |
| Shan guerrillas walk through the forest at Loi Taleng. Photo: Thea Forbes/Mizzima |
Broadcasting news from the RCSS in Shan language is Sai Sang’s way of fighting the central Burmese government’s monopoly on the dissemination of knowledge, he told Mizzima. It is also his platform for forging a strengthened unity among the different ethnic groups in Shan State, and Shan people scattered across Asia.
Aside from the call for an independent Shan state, one of the RCSS’s policies that Sai Sang broadcasts is to seek for unity among the nationalities and equal rights for all ethnic groups of which there are some 15 different groups in Shan State.
“Our Shan people are in China, India, we have many millions of Shan, but we cannot know about our culture, and in other places, about their cultures,” he said. “If we have a broadcast on the radio, it will create more friendship and more unity. It's very powerful for us.”
He said that citizens in Shan state are forced to lose their Shan identity by having to listen to propaganda via the Burmese state-run newspapers and radio. As well as transmitting the RCSS’s policies, his work at Tai Freedom Radio involves broadcasting programmes created by the RCSS on Shan history, culture and health.
The dissemination of the RCSS’s policies over Tai Freedom Radio is essential to create unity amongst Shan, said Sai Sang.
He recalled when he was a child in his village, listening to the radio meant listening to broadcasts in Burmese. He wants to help keep the Shan ethnic identity alive via Tai Freedom Radio.
“I wanted to take up this job, because it's from my heart. Before, when I was younger, I couldn't hear Shan on the radio, and so I really wanted to work.”
The radio station is the RCSS’s embodiment of what its sees as its right to self-determination in the fight against what they say is the government’s attempt to destroy the identities of ethnic minorities in Burma. It is also the platform for the political rhetoric that they hope will be accepted into the hearts of Shan people and unifies them in their fight for Shan independence.
Tensions are high and feelings are strong. Some soldiers in Loi Taleng resent the word “rebel,” because it implies their position outside of nation-state central control is invalid, the Foreign Affairs Secretary of the RCSS told Mizzima. He asked Mizzima not to use his name.
“I don't want to be called a ‘rebel’; we call it ‘resistance’. Resistance is better,” he said. “We have a country, we lost our power; we lost our power to occupy our country. Now the Burmese regime, or the SPDC, they are invaders in our country… We have to fight back until they get out of our country, and then we can occupy our motherland. We have to be leaders. We need to lead by ourselves, not by other people, coming to be our leaders. This is our right, our land.”
Fighting between Shan troops and the Burmese army has escalated since the contentious elections were held in November 2010.
The Burmese Army broke a 22-year-old cease-fire with the Shan State Army-North (SSA-N) on March 13, by capturing their second largest base, Nam Lao.
Fighting has continued since. SSA-N joined with the Shan State Army-South (SSA-S) to form the SSA on May 21 this year.
The suffering from continued conflict in the area is hard on the civilian population. Seemingly, not by coincidence, Burmese government forces have launched attacks in SSA-N territories that lie in the projected route for the large oil and gas pipeline project that will traverse Burma from the Indian Ocean to China and is due for completion in 2013.
Since recent fighting between the Burmese Army and the SSA in the SSA North territories, up to 30,000 villagers have fled their homes, Mizzima reported on August 17.
The Shan Women’s Action Network and the Shan Human Rights Group released a joint statement on August 10 calling for humanitarian aid for Shan war refugees. Both groups have also accused the Burmese army of committing acts of rape during their recent offensives in Shan state. Other abuses by the Burmese Army in Shan State recently documented have included shelling of civilians, forced relocation and labour, arbitrary detention, the use of torture, the use of civilians as porters and “human shields” and arbitrary execution.
Sai Sang says he strives to transmit the truth about the conflict and human rights abuses that are occurring in Shan State. He also wants to create unity among the Shan people and a sense of ethnic identity.
The radio mast is back up as of early September and clandestine broadcasts are back on the air. Sai Sang is back on the airwaves.
Sai Sang is a pseudonym
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