Interviews with Khin Ohmar

The advances in the international communication technology have helped strengthen our movement, both inside and outside the country. While we also see that also raises more risk for us within inside and outside the country. I mean, I think it definitely is a plus. Because of those technologies, we were able to communicate inside and outside the country, even though we know the phone will be tapped, even though we know that the emails will be monitored and even, you know, hacked.

But there is a way for us to speed up with our communication inside and outside the country. And therefore, you see, for example, in 2007, because of the Internet cafes, because of the Internet availability in the country, people were able to — you know, just ordinary citizens, really, many of them are just citizen journalists without even having a proper training or anything. But they just take the pictures of all these crackdowns on the monks and students and the demonstrations. And they send out all these footages to the international community, international media.

Many of the international media were able to use those footages. Otherwise they couldn’t have even known of that took place except the Burmese. And therefore the whole world was able to see what happened during the Saffron [Revolution] in 2007. And like back in 1988, during our time, nobody knew, nobody saw it except us.

So it definitely helps. But on the other hand, because these are the technologies for the military regime, after the Saffron Revolution in 2007 they also learned very well that people use it so well, by sending out all these information and images to the world, that they couldn’t stop.

So for that, they also made their own preparation. And we know so well, with the technology assistance from China, they have upgraded their mechanisms, their communication technologies and all. So sometimes when you call, you know basically during the time of any of demonstrations or any crisis, your phones are already jammed and your phones are already answered by Chinese language, you know, machine or whatever. And in that case you know.

And in the country, people are able to communicate better than before, particularly among the democracy activists, because you have mobile phones that are now pre-paid card phones. But of course when the time comes, if there are any demonstrations or such, it’s going to be very sure that they will shut down on those.

That the people will be left with no way to communicate except our traditional way of communicating: words by words from mouth to mouth. But I think we have to be prepared for that. And we are prepared for whatever means possible to make sure that information is out. We have so many journalists in the country, who are more like undercover, that continue to send out the information to the ASEAN media.

And therefore every day of what’s happening in the country, if a political prisoner is sick today, we learn today or tomorrow. If there is a worker strike took place outside the Rangoon, now we already got the information in few hours, including the footages, for example. So there are these advantages, definitely.

Khin Ohmar is a Burmese democracy activist who lives and works in Mae Sot, Thailand. She is a leader of the Women’s League of Burma, the main umbrella organization for women’s organizations in exile and inside Burma.

Khin has served as a spokesperson for the Burmese democracy movement in the United Nations General Assembly and in other international forums. She also serves as coordinator of the Burma Partnership, a regional coalition of civil society groups supporting democracy in Burma, and she is an organizer of the ASEAN civil society and human rights consultation processes.

Admitted to the United States as a refugee after being persecuted for her participation in the 1988 student demonstrations, Khin became a United States citizen and worked for refugee and human rights organizations in Washington, D.C., before moving back to the Thai-Burma border area in the late 1990s.

Burma, a Southeast Asian country with about 57 million people, is ruled by a military regime that seized power in 1962. Although the reformist National League for Democracy (NLD) won overwhelmingly in a 1990 election, the country’s military rulers ignored the results and arrested NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 “for her nonviolent struggle for democracy and human rights.” The military government held a referendum on a new constitution in 2008 and a parliamentary election in 2010, neither of which was regarded by international observers as free or fair, and both of which resulted in overwhelming majorities for pro-government positions and candidates. The military regime has committed widespread and systematic human rights violations, including extrajudicial killing, torture, rape, and denial of freedom of expression, association, assembly, and religion.

Throughout its existence, the regime has been at war with a number of Burma’s ethnic minority groups. Ethnic minority voters overwhelmingly supported the NLD in the 1990 election, and after the suppression of the democracy movement several of these groups continued or resumed armed resistance to the de facto government. Although the government signed cease-fire agreements with several of these groups ostensibly granting them autonomy within their respective regions, the Burmese military has used a range of brutal techniques, including the killing of civilians, forced labor, rape, and the destruction of homes, crops, and villages, in cease-fire zones as well as in areas where there is still armed resistance.

In 2007, as on several previous occasions, there were mass demonstrations throughout the country demanding freedom and democracy. The 2007 demonstrations were led by Buddhist monks and eventually became known as the “Saffron Revolution” after the color of the monks’ robes. The armed forces brutally suppressed these demonstrations—estimates of the number of protestors killed range from 31 to several thousand—and intensified popular dissatisfaction with the government by the killing, beating, and public humiliation of monks.

The nominally civilian government resulting from the 2010 election has been widely regarded as a façade for continuing military rule. However, in October 2011, the government released 206 of Burma’s estimated 2,000 prisoners of conscience. The next month, the government announced that it would soon release all remaining political prisoners. The NLD, which had declined to participate in the 2010 election, registered to participate in the next election and announced that Aung San Suu Kyi would be among the NLD candidates.

Although the military regime announced in 1989 that it had changed the English name of the country from Burma to “Myanmar,” the United States government and other international supporters of democracy in Burma have generally continued to call the country Burma because this is the name preferred by Aung San Suu Kyi and other democracy advocates who won the 1990 election.