I will tell the real truth (14)

I will tell the real truth (14)

Published on Friday, 05 July 2013 17:58

Written by Than Htut Aung

 

The scene of conflict between President Morsi's supporters and protestors in Egypt (Photo:AP)

(1)
At the 11th anniversary of Eleven Media Group in 2011, I told the audience that:

1) To both the government and the Opposition, the national reconciliation was utmost important as we [the country] is located next to a powerful country. (Then it was very difficult to talk like that in our country).
2) I urged the government to open up and join the international community.

At a special forum on the Myitsone Dam Project, I talked about the project suspension as well as building a "Federal Union" which is a top national issue. (It took me two days to get a word "real union" out in the open, as it was almost impossible to use the word as "Federal" at the time.) At the same time, I said a real democratic union would spring to life if the Army as the 'sixth pillar' is transformed into a credible and professional establishment to work for the sake of the people and the state.

In 2012, I wrote articles under the theme "I will tell the real truth", series. In early April of that year, the National League for Democracy (NLD) won by a by-election landslide. On May 8, Ma Thida Htwe was killed. News and photos about her murder that was usually impossible to obtain for a normal reporter emerged on Facebook accounts of some people including government officials. I wrote (1) and (2) of the "I will tell the real truth" on May 23 and 30 last year. At that time, no Rakhine and Muslim conflicts had yet to erupt.

In all, I believe that there are three paramount issues that can derail Myanmar's reform process;
1) National ethnic issue related to forming a real Federal Union.
2) The rule of law and weak legal system.
3) Corruption and slowdown of economic progress.

My thoughts are:
There are many corrupt people in power who became rich from corruption. They don't want to see the reform go through. They would try to stop it. And the gap between classes of society will get larger. [They] would push the country into a state of unrest. The role of the Army will increase. This would possibly lead to a civil war. If another military coup comes, it will surely bring the dictatorship back to the country.

[We] should review the past-year events:
I wrote the articles "I will tell the real truth (11)" and "We Must Be Courageous in 2013" early this year. Both discussed the supporting pillars behind the dictatorship. The main pillar for the dictatorship is not the Army. Secret police force and pre-meditated propaganda campaigns are the main pillars. I pointed out that there existed then tens of thousands of faked Facebook accounts with the propaganda messages. (Parliament's investigation into the "the report of Dr. Seik Phwar" is a case to point.) Those who want to revive dictatorship always try to control and attack the media. They have a link with the secret police and secret intelligence to get hold of some information. I wrote that they publicized their propagation in this way.

In the article titled "I will tell the real truth (11), I strongly criticized the Press Bill which is designed to enable the government to continue to control the media. (This Bill has now been approved by the Lower House of Parliament). I mentioned in the article that we don't want to copy the democracy as practiced in Singapore, Malaysia or Cambodia.

"Myanmar should not copy Cambodia, where the oppositions are suppressed through tactics which undermine the political awareness of the youth, who are not allowed to politically mature, and are lost in self-indulgence due to the prolonged civil war. Moreover, the military is side-stepped, and the media is under control, at the mercy of democratic dictator prime minister Hun Sen. Myanmar will not fit in that model either. When the autocratic rulers wanted to hold on to power, they use unjust laws, propaganda machinery, and deploy secret tactics to backtrack path to democracy and public interest," I wrote in the article.

(2)

The two most popular world news stories these days are the July issue of the TIME magazine's front page cover story under the headline 'The Face of Buddhist Terror' by Hannah Beech and the Egyptian army's overthrow of President Mohammed Morsi.

Before those events, I remember what I have told a correspondent from a well-known French magazine. I told him that I first thought our democratic change was the greatest ideal on global scale. But with the ultra-nationalism that has emerged, I was worried that changes of our country might be like Slobodan Milosevic's Yugoslavia or Ceausescu's Romania, I said.

Hannah Beech is a professional journalist as well as an expert in Myanmar affairs. In her story, she argued about her so-called radical Buddhism, opening way to riots and violence in Myanmar. She might have featured her story without pointing out the root cause of the incidents and without thinking that the content of the story would be controversial when inciting religion as the cause. She should have known that religious violence in Myanmar is not caused by Buddhist monks. It is different when comparing her story with that of well-known Reuters correspondent Andrew Marshall. Foreign journalists usually write favourably towards Muslims. But Andrew Marshall highlighted the entire history of '969' movement to U Kyaw Lwin.

What he forgot to write was Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's meeting with government leaders in 2002; the arrest of Buddhist monk U Wirathu in 2002 when religious riots took place in Kyaukse, central Myanmar; and Debeyin plot against Daw Aung San Suu Kyi during her tour of Mandalay and Sagaing regions in 2003.
For me, I want to say how Hannah Beech's story impacted on Myanmar's political affairs and how we have to remedy it rather than condemning her story.

To be continued…

Source: http://www.news.myanmaronlinecentre.com/2013/07/05/i-will-tell-the-real-truth-14-2/