Web opens window to unrest in Myanmar

The street protests in Myanmar turned deadly Wednesday when at least one person was killed by security forces, according to news and witness accounts trickling out of the closed-off country.

The world has been watching the unrest in Myanmar unfold through television and still images smuggled out over the Internet. The cyber dispatches provide a look into the uprising in a country where journalists working in the open could be arrested by the ruling military junta.

Cellphones and the Internet are playing a crucial role in telling the world about the country's pro-democracy protests, with video footage sometimes transmitted one frame at a time.

In Oslo, Norway, a shoestring radio and television network called the Democratic Voice of Burma has been at the forefront of receiving and broadcasting the information by satellite TV and shortwave radio.

Chief editor Aye Chan Naing said the station, founded in 1992 by exiled Myanmar students, is able to pass on nearly real-time images and information about anti-government protests — unlike in 1988, when a similar uprising was shut down in a bloodbath that left more than 3,000 dead.

This time, dramatic images arrive via e-mails to exiled activists and via mobile-phone calls to journalists outside the country, also known as Burma. Hundreds of images are simply posted on the Internet for anyone to see.

On Wednesday, dozens of protesters, many of them Buddhist monks clad in burgundy robes, were said to have been beaten and dragged off by authorities as they rallied in Yangon, Myanmar's main city, for the ninth straight day. Protests also were reported in Mandalay, the second-largest city.

Early today, security forces raided two prominent Buddhist monasteries, beating and hauling away more than 70 monks. And Myint Thein, the spokesman for detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's political party, was arrested, family members said.

The ruling military junta acknowledged that one man had been killed and three wounded during the standoff in Yangon on Wednesday, but witnesses and overseas dissident groups told news agencies that as many as five people had died of gunshot wounds or other causes amid demonstrations attended by thousands of people. "They are marching down the streets, with the monks in the middle and ordinary people either side. They are shielding them, forming a human chain," one witness told Reuters news service, as the crowd behind roared its anger at government forces.

"If these stories are accurate, the U.S. is very troubled that the regime would treat the Burmese people this way," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said. "We call on the junta to proceed in a peaceful transition to democracy."

The current protests in Myanmar, which has been under military rule for 45 years, were sparked by a rise in fuel prices, which hit residents hard. Led by monks, who hold strong moral authority in Burmese society, the crowds have grown over the past eight days and presented the military junta with its largest and most sustained challenge since the 1988 uprising, when the government crushed protesters by firing on them, arousing international outrage.

Aung Zaw, editor of the independent Irrawaddy Magazine in Thailand, said that in 1988, "it took days, sometimes weeks, even months" to get images out. "Now, it's so fast."

"The world doesn't know where Burma is. Now they see images about the situation and want to know more. That's a huge difference from 1988," he said.

At the Democratic Voice of Burma, Naing, a mild-mannered former dentistry student, said new technologies are crucial, although he declined to give details about exactly how his 30 to 40 "undercover reporters" inside Myanmar get news out.

"We don't want to say too much about how we use the Internet. They must know we use it, but we don't want to draw too much attention," he said. "Mobile phones are essential. Mobile phones are the way they can report from the ground. This morning [the military] cut off some mobile phones, so we can't get ahold of some of our people."

Vincent Brossel, director of the Asia desk for Reporters Without Borders, said the junta was trying to staunch the flow of information by slowing Internet connections and cutting cellphone service. Slow Internet connections Wednesday made it hard to send photos and videos, Brossel said. Many Internet cafes — the main online providers in a country where few can go online at home — were closed, he said.

But Brossel said the opposition was fighting back with satellite telephones, which can bypass censors, firewalls and other restrictions.

Cellphones, although often confiscated, have proven invaluable, said Soe Aung, a spokesman for the National Council of the Union of Burma, a coalition of opposition groups based in Thailand.

Mary Callahan, a Myanmar expert at the University of Washington, said by e-mail that, "In 1988, it was relatively simple for the military to shut down railroads, set up road checkpoints and cut phone lines, which made it quite difficult for protesters to organize. Now, of course, protesters can use both the Internet and cellphones to mobilize support internally and externally."

Aung Din, policy director with the U.S. Campaign for Burma in Washington, D.C., agreed, saying, "The junta can't control the technology totally, and it's a huge difference to deliver the information fast."