Burma VJ: Breaking the story

Published on Thursday 9 July 2009 15:24

A FREE PRESS IS A VITAL COMPONENT in a democracy. Little wonder, then, that in Burma (also known as Myanmar), where the military have ruled with an iron fist since 1962, attempts to report the truth outside the state-controlled media have often ended in imprisonment, torture, or worse.

Independent reporting in the country, ranked 170th out of 173 in Reporters Without Borders' 2008 world press freedom index, is a dicey pursuit. No-one knows, when they take a bus or walk down the street, whom they can trust. Anyone could be a government agent or an informer. Yet despite the dangers, a growing number of people in Burma are willing to risk their liberty, and lives, to tell their stories to the Burmese themselves and the world outside.

The work of some of these inspiring characters is the subject of a compelling new film, Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country, which reveals how a small network of underground reporters working for the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) – a TV station in exile based in Oslo – used video cameras, the internet and satellite communications to alert the world about protests that began as small pockets of dissent in August 2007 and mushroomed into an uprising of thousands of Buddhist monks.

The world got to see events unfolding in Burma practically as they were happening, in images that exposed the brutality of the generals – the point-blank shooting of a Japanese journalist is unforgettable – and the bravery of the unarmed protesters.

Burma VJ (VJ stands for video journalist) interweaves the reporters' remarkable footage with re-enactments to tell the story of how they operated and the impact their work had on the protests, while providing a fascinating glimpse of life inside one of the world's most secretive police states.

At its simplest, the film is a classic story of good versus evil, says its Danish director, Anders Ostergaard. "It's about conquering fear and how humans deal with that." He does not regard it as a political statement, however, because the situation it depicts is "undebatable". "I'm not, by nature, so categorical," he says. "I think doubt is a very important engine for art and for film-making. But, in this case, I have to say it's a very clear matter of positive and negative forces, really. I can't see it any other way."

This is not to say that the film has no political function. Indeed, last month, on the eve of the 64th birthday of the detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma VJ became the first film screened at No 10 while Vaclav Havel is reported to have screened it for Hillary Clinton during President Obama's visit to Prague.

It is unlikely that anyone is more surprised by the way things have turned out than the DVB reporter known as "Joshua". A former print journalist in Burma who had joined the station at its inception, he was Ostergaard's original subject when the film was conceived as a mini-profile of an undercover journalist.

Speaking from Thailand, Joshua admits he was initially unhappy about being the focus of a film, because his work in Burma needed to be a secret. "But it was an assignment from my organisation, so I accepted it," he says. "Later, I found out that it was not only about me. I am representing all the journalists in Burma. I am talking about the freedom of expression in Burma. And I am talking about everyone in Burma who is suffering as well. And later we had that great big event in 2007, so it changed a lot of things on the way."

The breathtaking scale of the protests two years ago took everyone by surprise. Not since 1988 had people taken to the streets of Rangoon in such large numbers. Then, 3,000 people were killed by the military. And the same might have happened again, suggests Joshua, had the DVB's smuggled footage not been broadcast around the world.

"If no international media was covering these pictures and stories, there would have been a lot more people killed, and the generals would have made people be afraid of them using every possible way they can," he says. "But because everybody internationally was watching their televisions and following up the stories, the junta dared not do everything they want. That's the difference with and without the international community."

The DVB footage did more than possibly save lives; it also helped spread the protests. Beamed back into Burma, it inspired people to overcome their fear and demonstrate. Moreover, the reporters actually helped direct the monks on the ground, advising them where to march for the greatest effect. Such a blurring of the line between activism and journalism is inevitable, Joshua argues, because of the challenges involved in independent reporting in Burma.

"There is very little you can get, but at the same time you are risking so much. So if you are not an activist, if you do not believe in something, you cannot go on, even as a pure journalist. If you want to make real news, not propaganda, you have to be an activist too."

Simply having a camera in Burma can create suspicion. So the reporters work quickly, pulling out their handicams for brief periods, before hastily stuffing them back into their bags. It is a frightening, risky business, as Joshua knows all too well. Not long before the uprising, he was arrested while filming a small demonstration. His camera and film were confiscated, but he was let go. He knew that he was probably being watched, and finally fled to Thailand after the DVB's first footage screened on international news shows. From there he helped co-ordinate the dissemination of material abroad.

The DVB became the "prime targets for the government spies and military intelligence", he says, and the regime hit back by raiding their offices in Rangoon and arresting three of their journalists. Ostergaard says they are now likely to face life in prison. "I lost my best colleagues," says Joshua. "I could not even speak at the time."

Undefeated, they regrouped, and two years later the DVB is stronger than ever, he claims. Talking like a man on a mission, he says they believe that more than just reporting current affairs, they are recording history. This is important given the way that the regime effectively wiped out memories of the 1988 demonstrations. The footage from 2007 provides irrefutable evidence of what happened and the scale of the government opposition. In more immediate terms, it has helped politicise a new generation who were largely unaware of what had happened in 1988.

"When we started television programmes, all the cameramen (himself excluded] were old 1988 generation students and former political prisoners, people like that. But now we are getting a younger generation who are smarter, more technically intelligent people. So the demonstrations in 2007 linked the two generations together, and now there is no gap at all."

Most importantly, they are finding a voice for people whose stories were "silent" before 2007 by giving them the courage to speak out. When Cyclone Nargis cut a swathe of destruction across Burma last year, and the regime did nothing, survivors sought out reporters to tell their stories. When farmers had their land confiscated by the government, the DVB kept reporting the issue until it caught the attention of the International Labour Organisation. Eventually, farmers arrested for talking to the DVB were released and their land was returned to them.

"The major thing that we can gain for our people is to break the fear with our pictures," says Joshua. "People understand that they can use media as a weapon to fight for their freedom of expression … People are becoming more and more outspoken than before. That is what we can do for our community. We can change things by showing that it works."

Joshua returned to Burma after the uprising to report on Nargis and other big stories. Later, though, his identity was revealed to the regime by an associate under torture, and he has stayed away ever since.

"I will not take unnecessary risks because I know a lot about the network and I know everybody in the network," he says. "So going back is not only taking a personal risk, but also risking my colleagues working on the ground in Burma. So I have to consider them. But I still hope that I will be able to go back soon."

• Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country is released on 17 July. For more on the film and the issues involved, visit www.burmavj.com