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BURMA: Veterans of 1988 uprising still fighting for democracy from Norway-based station
From Irene Peroni in Oslo
THIDA THIN Myat Thu was just an 18-year-old marine biology student when she got involved with the 1988 uprising in Burma.

She managed to keep her activism a secret at home, until one day, while attending a protesters' meeting, something about the hooded man who had just taken the floor startled her.


His voice sounded very familiar: she looked down at his trousers and shoes, and knew right away it was her brother.

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Independently from each other, Thida and her two elder brothers had joined the movement. Their father, a senior officer at Rangoon's notorious Insein prison, was secretly collaborating with the protesters, too. Within a couple of months, things came to a head.

The military staged a coup and Thida decided to say farewell to her parents and flee over the border to Thailand, helped by a Swedish reporter from the Far Eastern Economic Review.

Within a few years, she moved to Norway and became one of the four founders of the Democratic Voice of Burma radio (DVB). Last year, she helped spread the news of another massive popular movement in her home country: the "Saffron Revolution", named after the colour of the robes of the Buddhist monks who led the protests.

"In 1992, when we arrived in Oslo and started broadcasting, there were only four of us and we had to learn everything from scratch," said Thida.

"We would practice reading the news at home before going to the studio so we wouldn't have to pay the rent for an extra hour."

DVB has grown to become the most authoritative source of Burmese news - a country that systematically denies access to foreign journalists.

In 2005, it started a satellite TV service, broadcasting a daily one-hour programme on a 24-hour loop.

The radio and TV station now has 16 members of staff working at its headquarters in central Oslo, as well as offices in India, China and Thailand.

A staff of 50 to 70 "undercover and underground journalists" send in news reports from all over Burma.

To protect their identities, each editor at the radio is in charge of their own team and does not deal with reporters working for the other desks.

Even on the ground, reporters do not know each other. "This is an essential safety measure: if one of our staff's homes is raided, they won't find any information about the others," explains Thida, who is currently the radio's entertainment editor.

Contributors know that if caught, they will face tough prison sentences. But, as she puts it, "in Burma, whatever we do we always have to take risks".

Listening to or watching DVB in Burma, as with any foreign news channel, is illegal. But while satellite dishes are very expensive and hard to hide, cheap, Chinese-made radios are hugely popular.

As to the internet, most people in the countryside do not even know it exists. It is estimated that only about one in 1000 Burmese has access to the web, mostly through internet cafes in Rangoon and Mandalay.

In Rangoon, young students are more computer-savvy, and have quickly learned how to get around the Electronic Act and the draconian regulations imposed after the 2007 movement.

The new measures force internet cafe owners to record personal details of each customer and take screen shots at regular intervals to monitor surfing history.

Over the past few weeks, Burmese authorities have been handing down tough prison sentences to young bloggers, poets and even a hip-hop musician - often teenagers who know hardly anything about the 1988 movement, but share the same ideals of freedom and democracy.

What are the differences between the 1988 and 2007 generations?

"In 1988, Burma was just starting to open up a bit," says DVB news editor Moe Aye.

"In those days, there were not even land lines, so it was very hard for us to coordinate. On top of that, there was hardly any international coverage - just a few Japanese journalists based in Rangoon," he remembers.

"We weren't happy with the government but we did not know where to look for inspiration. The only thing we could rely on were, literally, a couple of books by Che Guevara and Ho Chi Minh."

Today, he argues, young people can read foreign newspapers on the internet and study abroad, sponsored by international organizations like the EU or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Moe says that even though Burmese jails "are like hell", prison is a much better option than fleeing to the jungle, as many of his friends did in 1988.

"In Burma, corruption is widespread. Everybody needs money - prison guards, too," he says.

"I spent seven years in jail, and together with the other inmates we managed to do many things: we could write a story, listen to the radio "Somehow we could leave the prison - not physically, but through what we were doing. The most important thing was, to stay alive. To stay healthy in prison, because that way, you could continue your struggle."