REPORT ON MEDIA, SPDC STYLE

[BurmaWatch@xxxxxxx]

REPORT ON MEDIA, SPDC STYLE
12/28/99

Recently Freedom House reported that "Burma The State Peace and Development 
Council continued to exercise absolute control over domestic media  and 
expanded its control expelling or detaining six foreign reporters who were 
critical or who interviewed Aung  San Suu Kyi, the democratically elected 
leader under house arrest."

BurmaWatch has investigated and discovered  that SPDC scans reporters before 
they are given an entry visa into Burma. There is a computer data base that 
has black-listed the reporters who have objectively reported on the regime. 
If you are a reporter and have objectively reported the unbiased,true stories 
about the brutal regime, you will be barred from entering the country. If you 
enter the country with a tour visa and do a journalist's work again , 
attempting to interview Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi of National 
League for Democracy, you can be jailed a long time too. 

But the junta  gives special treatment to the journalists who have no ethics. 
The junta tempts reporters with gratuities and gifts. These reporters are 
supposed to report unbiased and true stories about Burma accurately and 
responsibly. Yet with the free accommodation and gratuities received from the 
junta, these reporters have become morally and ethically corrupt enough to 
shed a false light on Opposition Leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the rest of the 
opposition. Two years ago Opposition Leader Aung San Suu Kyi refused to see 
such a reporter who has reported in favor of the regime. 

On the whole, th regime itself is corrupt and freedom of press has to be the 
most hated expression for the generals. The media controlled by the state is 
the major tool to spread propaganda about the regime's works and its image 
but to shed a false light on NLD, the opposition party and its Leader, Aung 
San Suu Kyi. That's media, the SPDC style.