On December 12, two Reuters reporters went for dinner with a pair of police officers who they had never met before on the outskirts of Yangon. They were handed rolled-up documents and told they could view them once they returned home.
Shortly thereafter, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were accosted by seven or eight police, handcuffed and then held incommunicado at a black site for nearly a fortnight.
They have since had one court appearance, where they met briefly with their loved ones and legal team before being taken to Yangon’s Insein prison. They could be charged under the Official Secrets Act, which allows for 14-year prison terms.
The recent discovery of a mass grave in Maungdaw, the northern area of Rakhine state where military operations in recent months have driven hundreds of thousands of refugees into neighboring Bangladesh, could explain why Reuters was singled out for harassment.
State media reported that the pair obtained the documents by “deception” from police officers who had been “serving security duties in Maungdaw and Buthidaung in Rakhine State”, sites of the military’s “clearance operations” that sparked the Rohingya refugee crisis.
It seems clear now that the pair walked into a trap. State media has reported that two police officers were also arrested, but there has been no explanation or follow-up. Journalists in Yangon speculate the stitch-up signals a return to the treachery and threat the media faced under decades of military rule.
It’s a sobering reminder that despite the transition toward a quasi-democratic system the architecture of the former repressive security state — Special Branch, military intelligence, and a wide-reaching network of informants – was never made redundant.
Many here question what role, if any, electronic surveillance played. Either way, the arrests have sent a clear message that even high profile global news agency journalists are at risk, and the chilling effect is not to be underestimated. Even the most hardened journalists here are spooked by the Reuters arrests.
The fact that Reuters was investigating military abuses in northern Rakhine state was no secret: in the last few months its Yangon bureau has published comprehensive coverage of the military’s controversial “clearance operations.”
Several days after the reporters’ arrests, local media reported that five people from Maungdaw’s Inn Din village, site of the discovered mass grave, had been arrested. Anonymous sources suspected they may have provided information to Reuters, something a New York Times report later confirmed.
Reuters has declined to be drawn on any connection between the Inn Din villagers and their reporters’ arrests.
The army has announced it will investigate the mass grave at to determine whether security forces were involved. The probe is headed by Lieutenant General Aye Win, who is experienced in intra-military investigations.
A separate inquiry he led into reports of atrocities perpetrated by security forces in Rakhine state found that none were committed.
With outside access to the burnt-out villages of northern Rakhine almost entirely cut off, including denied permission to a United Nations fact-finding mission, independently confirmed evidence of a mass grave would have undermined the government’s carefully managed messaging on the crisis.
Even the most conservative estimates on body counts from the violence, which Médecins Sans Frontières ventures is somewhere near 6,700 in the clearance operation’s first month, would point to the fact that there are almost certainly many more mass graves to be found.
Witnesses and victims who have fled to Bangladesh claim to have seen troops burning bodies en masse on hastily-assembled pyres. Others were said to have been buried in shallow graves or dumped in the river, according to the same witnesses and victims.
At least a handful of senior government officials appear to be aware of and acknowledge the scale and ferocity of the violence, and are reportedly genuinely vexed over how to proceed. To date, though, there has been no significant breaking of the ranks.
The official line remains that what took place was a counterinsurgency operation and that any deaths were collateral. Testimony of abuses, including rape and summary executions of civilian noncombatants, is consistently painted by officialdom as outright fabrication.
The government insists that the lack of press access to northern Rakhine state is for reasons of security and points to the few and far between stage-managed media tours to the region as evidence of its commitment to press freedom.
These security force-escorted press tours have offered marginally more room to maneuver than a trip to Pyongyang, and interviewees face the real and potent threat of reprisals for speaking frankly to reporters.
International news outlets boycotted the first of these junkets on ethical grounds. Their concerns were not unwarranted: at least one man was apparently killed for daring to speak to the press on one of the tours.
Meanwhile, state media reports on the “progress” of the rice harvest on land left vacant by hundreds of thousands of fleeing Rohingya, or on new pond-farming initiatives and road developments in the now depopulated region.
Horror stories continue to trickle out on the other side of the border from interviews with refugees stuck in squalid, crowded camps.
In theory, privately held media outlets in Myanmar can publish what they like – and barring overt criticism of the military – the situation had been remarkably free in recent years.
But even before the Rakhine crisis arrests and legal harassment were increasing, causing many outlets to exercise extreme caution or outright self-censorship when reporting on issues perceived as sensitive. Many have been content to tow the official line on the Rakhine crisis, including refusal to even use the word “Rohingya” in their published reports.
It thus seems unlikely that any media outlets based inside Myanmar will critically counter the veracity of the army-led probe’s impending findings on the mass grave at Inn Din. Nationalist outrage has been weaponized, including over social media, against those who have highlighted abuses.
The branding of journalists as traitors or worse for questioning the official line harks back dangerously to the darkest days of direct military rule
Many Rakhine question why the recent grisly murder of an ethnic Mro man has gone unreported by foreign media, while the killings of Hindu and Daignet villagers have been given scant attention.
A popular perception that international media harbors a pro-Muslim bent is dangerously growing. It is being exacerbated by a lockdown on travel authorizations to the region, including to previously accessible internally displaced person (IDP) camps outside of Sittwe, forcing many journalists to rely mainly on access to the camps in Bangladesh.
This chilling effect has extended beyond Rakhine state, with journalists concerned they could be charged with “unlawful association” or other repressive laws allowing for jail terms for reporting on other ethnic conflicts in Kachin, Shan and Chin states. There are several escalating situations the government has motivation to cover up.
But the branding of journalists as traitors or worse for questioning the official line harks back dangerously to the darkest days of direct military rule. Indeed, the sudden and rapid deterioration of press freedom conditions points to a broad closing of the country’s recently lauded democratic opening and the mounting fragility of that transition.
Blaming the Tamadaw is the old game played by western colonial governments (divide and rule the ethnics) with complicity from UN and islamic terrorist organizations to affect a regime change in Myanmar and turn Rakhine state to an islamic country. The August 2017 (Myanmar’s 9/11) attack seem to have been conveniently omitted in the above article. For the record – The attack involved not just the ARSA terrorists against the 30 security outposts but hoards of fanatic muslims goaded by the "mullahs" were on the warpath (jihad) resulting in the death, rape, displacement and ethnic cleansing of thousands of Buddhist (mostly Mro, Daingnet, Thet, Maramagyi) and Bengali Hindus, and sacking their temples and burning of their villages that required the Myanmar army to airlift them to safety. Had not been for the intervention of the Myanmar army, the entire minority Buddhist and Hindu population in Maungdaw and Buthidaung areas of Rakhine state would be annihilated and the area would be in the hands of the muslims as they did in 1942 when 30,000 Buddhist Rakhine were brutally murdered by islamic mobs and their land was taken over by muslims with the connivance of British.
FYI.. On Friday (5 Jan 2018 ), Bengali (so called Rohingya) Muslim terrorists ambushed a vehicle in western Myanmar’s Rakhine State on Friday, wounding three people, including two members of the security forces.
Fake news financed by miidle east petro$$. Reuters reporters are spies.
The Ethnic Bamar and their States (Yangoon, Mandalay, Irrawaddy etc) Must be thrown out of the "The Republic Of the Union of Myanmar" , as these Ethnic Bamars are root of all Problems for all non Bamar States within the country.
I have to agree, the great majority of ordinary ethnic Burmese/Myanmar are peaceful, generous and kind. It is only the ruling class Burmese – monarchies and governmental, Burmese Elites who have made life difficult for the rest of Burma. This present Burmese Military Elites are the WORST in Burmese history. Modern atrocities of BME began before ’48. It began soon after BIA [Burma Independence Army] invited the Japanese into the country and together fought against the Allies. BIA committed untold atrocities throughout the country against the Non-Burmese ethnics for staying loyal to the British, MyaungMya Massacre was the most egregious. Yet it is to these Non-Burmese ethnics they owe much for Independence as it was their guerrilla forces within the enemy lines – yes even back then BIA/BME was the enemy of Non-Burmese ethnics – forced the Japanese to begin retreating. The fact even the BME cannot deny is, of the 44 month ‘Burma Campaign’ of WW II, BIA did not switch sides till the 40th month when the Japanese were already retreating – The best solution for the country IMHO is for the BME to acknowledge equality of ALL ethnics of the land – “Bamah T’Kyat, Shun T’Kyat, KaYin T’Kyat . . .” as embodied in the historic ‘PangLong’ Treaty – that made “Independence” happen. It would require BME to shed their fascist ‘Skin-Head’ Supremacist mentality and genuinely embrace the UNION “PyinDaungSuu” spirit. It is a long shot. But then who knows, it’s possible their Buddhist faith will soon help them see the error of their ways, It happened to King Ashoka – the first Buddhist Emperor – and what great things he went on to accomplish for his empire after his epiphany. May that happen to the Buddhist land of Burma/Myanmar as well
The pro-Muslim terrorist media, right organizations, Muslim lobbies and liberal governments would accussed any narrative outside of poor Muslim victim is going to call Islamophobia.
Democracy does not equat press can write free-for-all whatever they think without verifiable evident. If the writer is employed by foreign media company, especially hostile to Burma, the writer has incentive to search the scoop news which could be used to embarass the country.
This implication of the rumour or speculation due to Bumeses government caught those two Reuters reporters red handed and charged with colonial era law Official Secret Act of 1929.
The speculation of mass grave in Arakan state by AP is as dangerous as Reuters attempt to land restricted documents.
Aung San Suu Kyi western liberal idea of offering Bengali Muslim solution is now dead and forever. The NLD leadership is now watched by the all powerful military, the voting people of Burma and Ma-Ba-Tha. Nobody would dare to pick up her attempt again.
The pro-Muslim terrorist media, right organizations, Muslim lobbies and liberal governments would accussed any narrative outside of poor Muslim victim is going to call Islamophobia.
Democracy does not equat press can write free-for-all whatever they think without verifiable evident. If the writer is employed by foreign media company, especially hostile to Burma, the writer has incentive to search the scoop news which could be used to embarass the country.
This implication of the rumour or speculation due to Bumeses government caught those two Reuters reporters red handed and charged with colonial era law Official Secret Act of 1929.
The speculation of mass grave in Arakan state by AP is as dangerous as Reuters attempt to land restricted documents.
Aung San Suu Kyi western liberal idea of offering Bengali Muslim solution is now dead and forever. The NLD leadership is now watched by the all powerful military, the voting people of Burma and Ma-Ba-Tha. Nobody would dare to pick up her attempt again.
I suppose there may be some people who are curious about my own ethnicity: I’m an ethnic Chin (100%) from Chinland.
Atrocity is endemic to Burmese/Myanmar culture? I won’t go that far. I would limit these fascistic atrocities to the Burmese elite, those granted or worse usurped authority. Majority Burmese/Myanmar ethnic are “happy go lucky” fatalists,
Who has to change are the Burmese elites who have misappropriated power, counting on the quiescent nature of their people to commit their horrendous atrocities on the non-Burmese/Myanmar ethnics
What has to change is the fatalism peoples of Burma have resigned to into activism and get actively involved in resisting these Burmese Bullies. These Burmese Military Elites are ignorant of how to use ‘power’ productively for the good of the country-contrast it with British colonial power that made Burma the most prosperous country in the region during their rule – BME has plunge the country from the ‘rice bowl’ of S E Asia before they came on into a shameful begging bowl. Thanks to their Kleptocracy Burma is at the lowest rung of LDC, NOW.
No amount of cover up or destroying of evidences would be able to hide the crime against humanity. Rest assure that the evil deeds done by those will come back to haunt them in no time. No one will be able to run away from the karma seeds that he or she has sowed.
I have been deeply involved in Burma’s politics from my very young age, say since 1963 (I’m now 72), but not as a political activist, rather as an independent observer. As far as my experiences are concerned, almost all the problems that the country has been confronted with since 1948, the main culprits are only the political and military elite of the ethnic Burmans. The great majority of the ordinary ethnic Burmans are peaceful, generous, kind and not racist. That’s why all the different ethnic peoples in the country at grassroots level have been living peacefully and harmoniously together for even centuries despite the ruling classes’ (both political and military) inhumane treatments against all non-Burman peoples.
Those non-Burman ethnic peoples, therefore, have to rely solely on the mercy of those ethnic Burmans in authority for their everyday survival. The only long-term solution for this vicious circle would be to build up strong and fair institutions in the country. Until or unless there are no such institutions, the suffering of those ethnic peoples will have no endings.