The People’s Voice in Myanmar Must Not Be Muffled

When the military government in Myanmar announced the release from house arrest of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, an official statement made a tantalizing promise: “We shall recommit ourselves to allowing all of our citizens to participate freely in the life of our political process.”

What could the generals in charge possibly mean? The last time the junta allowed citizens to participate in the country’s political life was in 1990, and the government ignored the election results when it became clear that the regime had lost, badly.

Suu Kyi’s release came after months of secret talks between the opposition leader and the ruling generals. It’s time to let the public in on the discussion. If the government is serious now about permitting the public a voice in the country’s affairs, then the first step toward political reform must be to lift state censorship of the media.

Myanmar, which was known as Burma before the junta renamed it, is a country in crisis. The economy is a shambles. One-third of all children under 5 are malnourished, according to the United Nations, and more than half a million citizens are HIV-positive. The country is one of the world’s leading exporters of opium. Its jails hold more than 1,000 political prisoners.

Yet information about these issues is hard to come by because real journalism is nearly impossible. Local journalists are forbidden by state censors to publish almost anything of substance and are subject to imprisonment for simply expressing a dissenting view. “The censorship board has told us we must not write about AIDS, corruption, education or the situation of students,” an editor said last year. “We also cannot write about any bad news, and we must be careful about everything political. That does not leave very much for us to publish.”

Witness Suu Kyi’s release, which grabbed headlines around the world--but not in Myanmar, where state-controlled newspapers and TV neglected to mention it.

Censorship used to be obvious, with the Press Scrutiny Board either inking over or ripping out offending sections from magazines and books. In the past few years, however, the censors have become subtler, forcing editors themselves to make the required cuts and adjust layouts to hide the damage. Because these last-minute changes can be costly, self-censorship is widespread. And even when journalists do tackle sensitive topics, they often write in an elliptical style that is designed to confuse the censors but can be equally puzzling to ordinary readers.

Restrictions on foreign correspondents also have helped ensure that Myanmar’s problems do not receive the international attention they deserve.

The regime announced that “national unity, peace and stability” must accompany any moves toward democratization. But these worthy goals will never be born of repression. To get there, the junta must consult the people and this time listen to what they have to say. A national conversation, carried through free media, would be a beginning.

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Kavita Menon is the Asia program coordinator of the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based press freedom advocacy group.