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NEWS - On-line activists step up fi



April 29, 1998

                             FEATURE / PASSING ON THE WORD 

                            On-line activists step up fight

                            Dissidence is no longer a
                            rag-tag endeavour. Today's
                            opponents of autocratic
                            regimes are making good
                            use of Cyberspace.

                            PETER ENG 
                            Bangkok

                            Once cornered in malarial jungles, dark
                            prisons and lonely exile, Southeast Asian
                            dissidents armed with computers and
                            modems are winning skirmishes as they
                            marshal the border-breaching Internet
                            against autocratic regimes. 

                            Government clampdowns on the
                            mainstream media can no longer silence
                            critics: news and vitriol zipping in via
                            Cyberspace are adding fuel to the social
                            unrest that has buffeted the region in
                            recent months.

                            After having rattled Burma's military
                            government, activists are using the World
                            Wide Web and electronic mail against
                            Indonesia's President Suharto,
                            Cambodia's Hun Sen, and the rulers of
                            Vietnam, one of the world's last
                            communist regimes. 

                            They have raised the issues higher on the
                            international agenda and forced countries
                            to give greater weight to human rights
                            and democracy concerns when dealing
                            with these governments. It no longer
                            makes any difference that the activists are
                            scattered worldwide.

                            "Before, Burmese expatriates remained
                            isolated from one another," said Zarni, a
                            leading Burmese activist. "The Internet
                            has not only enabled us to share
                            information, advise one another and
                            coordinate action, but also has been a
                            shot in the arm psychologically. No
                            feeling is more powerful than to know that
                            you are not alone in your fight for
justice."

                            With anti-government street protests
                            rocking Indonesia, opposition parties,
                            students, journalists, and
                            non-government groups have been busy
                            posting news and spreading their views
                            on the most important Indonesia-related
                            list, INDONESIA-L
                            (http://www.indopubs.com/archives).They
                            include the People's Democratic Party,
                            which fled underground after the
                            government blamed it for riots last year
                            and arrested its main leaders.

                            Up through the formation of Mr Suharto's
                            new cabinet in mid-March, an average of
                            130,000 people a day were reading
                            INDONESIA-L, compared with a previous
                            high of 100,000, said John MacDougall,
                            who maintains the list from the United
                            States. The number of Indonesian
                            readers inside Indonesia has been
                            growing vastly, he said.

                            "Posters [to the list] often compare
                            Indonesia to the Titanic: Suharto is taking
                            Indonesia down with him," said Mr
                            MacDougall.

                            "Posters are more fearful than ever," he
                            said. "That's understandable, given some
                            of the new themes of the posters, such as
                            very explicit, thorough criticism of Suharto
                            and his family, the rejection of the
                            legitimacy of Suharto's re-election as
                            president, and the open mockery of
                            Vice-President Habibie and the new
                            cabinet. There are very few
                            pro-government posters anymore.
                            Emotions and worries for country, families
                            and selves are running very high.

                            "Many INDONESIA-L postings get printed
                            out, reproduced and distributed in large
                            quantities, bringing the reach of the Net
                            far beyond the middle class elite which
                            can afford computers. Postings get read
                            by Indonesian ministers, military officers
                            and diplomats. Some rely on it for 'inside'
                            information."

                            Internet lists maintained inside Indonesia
                            have proliferated, along with new on-line
                            magazines with names like X-Pos.
                            Dissident voices travel nationwide since
                            Internet service providers now exist in
                            every province in Indonesia, including
                            insurgency-plagued East Timor and Irian
                            Jaya.

                            In Cambodia, the first provider started up
                            only last year, a welcome development for
                            dissidents since Hun Sen's formerly
                            communist party now controls all
                            broadcast media, and has threatened the
                            few opposition newspapers.

                            Activists rushed on-line after Hun Sen
                            ousted his co-prime minister, Prince
                            Norodom Ranariddh, in a bloody coup
                            last July. While Hun Sen's army
                            overpowers the resistance's few troops,
                            many resistance supporters are
                            western-educated and versed in the new
                            technology. 

                            After fleeing abroad, the opposition
                            politicians kept their voices heard,
on-line.
                            Activists organised worldwide
                            demonstrations against Hun Sen. Now,
                            with most of the politicians back in Phnom
                            Penh, the activists are maintaining
                            pressure on Hun Sen to hold a free and
                            fair election in July.

                            Much of the campaign rallies around top
                            dissident Sam Rainsy. The home page of
                            a US branch of his party
                            (http://www.kreative.net/knp)reports on
                            the struggle of the "Cambodian People Vs
                            Saddam HunSen". 

                            It casts fire-and-brimstone vitriol at Hun
                            Sen, also termed "Pol Pot Number Two",
                            and contains graphic photographs of
                            people murdered by his security forces.
                            On-line Cambodians in France, Australia
                            and Thailand also spread Sam Rainsy's
                            message, and now people inside
                            Cambodia have joined in. 

                            Through the Internet, Sam Rainsy
                            supporters also have publicised the
                            demonstrations in Phnom Penh by
                            thousands of unionised garment workers
                            who say they are being abused by factory
                            owners with the tacit support of Hun
                            Sen's party.

                            In Vietnam, the government wavered for
                            many months before finally allowing the
                            first Internet service providers to start up
                            last December. It worried about
                            Vietnamese exiles fomenting political
                            instability, especially as people inside the
                            country have stepped up the challenge to
                            the Communist Party over the past year. 

                            Just as other Internet activists have
                            turned Burma into "the South Africa of the
                            1990s", the exiles are trying to turn
                            Vietnam into another Eastern Europe.

                            When prominent figures in Vietnam
                            including retired Gen Tran Do and
                            mathematician Phan Dinh Dieu wrote
                            recently to the party urging it to pursue
                            democratic reforms, the exile groups
                            triumphantly put the full texts on-line.
                            When thousands of villagers in Thai Binh
                            province demonstrated against corruption
                            by officials, Vietnamese state-controlled
                            media stayed silent for months. But
                            on-line activists quickly broadcast detailed
                            accounts that were spiced with mockery
                            of the media's silence.

                            Many of these accounts were posted by
                            Vietnam Insight
                            (http://www.vinsight.org/),a US-based
                            group sponsored by the National United
                            Front for the Liberation of Vietnam, which
                            in turn was founded by a former admiral
                            of the South Vietnam government that the
                            communists defeated in 1975.

                            "Our service reaches and is sought by
                            Hanoi's officials and offices both at home
                            and abroad," said Vietnam Insight's
                            editor, Mrs Chan Tran. "Among many of
                            them, we believe, are dissident members
                            who want to reach out. People in Vietnam
                            download en masse the information on
                            our web pages. People in Vietnam e-mail
                            and ask us questions. We also reach
                            Vietnamese students sent abroad by the
                            Hanoi regime."

                            In moments of doubt, activists can draw
                            reassurance from the campaign against
                            the generals of Burma, who have been
                            blamed for widespread human rights
                            abuses. In just a couple of years, Internet
                            activists have turned an obscure,
                            backwater conflict into an international
                            issue and helped make Rangoon one of
                            the world's most vilified regimes.

                            By using the Internet to rally around
                            pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi
                            and to organise worldwide protests and
                            consumer boycotts, the activists have
                            twisted the arms of many institutions
                            dealing with Burma. 

                            Last year, the United States and Canada
                            imposed economic sanctions on Burma.
                            Many US local governments have
                            restricted business with companies that
                            invest in Burma. Leading US companies
                            including PepsiCo and Apple Computer
                            have pulled out of the country, as have
                            European giants including Heineken and
                            Carlsberg.

                            The spearhead is the Free Burma
                            Coalition (http://www.freeburma.org); now
                            one of the world's largest on-line human
                            rights campaigns, it groups activists at
                            over 100 educational institutions in North
                            America and people in 26 other countries.
                            The coalition was founded in 1995 by
                            Zarni, a Burmese activist who is studying
                            at an American university, and it grew
                            quickly.

                            "People downloaded campaign posters
                            and ready-made flyers from the site," said
                            Zarni. "The site also served as a 24-hour
                            recruiting centre. During the past three
                            years, there has not been a single day
                            when no one subscribed to the Free
                            Burma Coalition listserve or offered to
                            help with the campaign."

                            In Burma, the unauthorised possession of
                            a computer with networking capability is a
                            crime punishable by seven to 15 years
                            imprisonment. But the government itself is
                            starting to use the Internet to fight back
at
                            its critics on the Internet.

                            Rangoon frequently dials up the
                            Burmanet news mailing list that was
                            created by anti-Rangoon activists. Hiding
                            behind pen names and using cryptic,
                            formalistic language, officials including
                            diplomats at Burma's embassy in
                            Washington post attacks on their critics
                            along with articles from the Burmese state
                            media glorifying the military. Then there's
                            the official Myanmar Home Page
                            (http://www.myanmar.com),which
                            describes a "Goldenland" of tourist
                            attractions and business opportunities.

                            Last December, Hun Sen's Cambodian
                            People's Party launched a home page
                            (http://www.cpp.com.khor via
                            http://www.cppusa.net)which aims, as it
                            says, "to refute liberalism and its allies
in
                            the media using the facts of the issues
                            rather than deception". 

                            The site contains lengthy attempts to
                            justify the coup, and in an attempt to
                            soften Hun Sen's image, offers
                            photographs of him sitting on a mat with
                            elderly villagers, and happily clutching a
                            giggling school girl.

                            The Cyberspace struggle is set to
                            expand. Governments battered by the
                            regional economic turmoil feel they have
                            little choice but to count on information
                            technology to drive economic growth in
                            the next century.

                            The number of Internet users in Asia will
                            rise by 63 percent during the 1995 to
                            2001 period, says a research firm, the
                            International Data Corp Asia-Pacific.

                            Malaysia has deferred other
                            mega-projects to save money, but says it
                            still will invest US$10 billion (400 billion
                            baht) into the Multimedia Super Corridor
                            for high-technology industries. 

                            To lure the multinationals, the
                            government has guaranteed uncensored
                            Internet access. In a country where the
                            authorities have emasculated the
                            traditional media, the Internet may give a
                            new weapon to those opposed to Prime
                            Minister Mahathir Mohamad.

                            * Peter Eng has covered Southeast
                            Asia since the mid-1980s