Radio Burma

In the book Finding George Orwell in Burma by Emma Larkin was a single passage about radio. [It's quite a good read by the way.]

"By far the most trusted source of news are the daily radio programmes broadcast to Burma by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the Voice of America (VOA and the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB). To try to prevent people from listening to these, the government occasionally jams the signals. A few years ago a 70-year-old man was sentenced to two years in prison for listening to VOA in a tea shop."

Larkin's book was published in 2004 and the situation in Burma has changed significantly since then. But lets talk semantics. In 1989, the military government officially changed the English translations of many names dating back to Burma's colonial period or earlier, including that of the country itself: Burma became Myanmar. The renaming remains a contested issue nationally and internationally. More here.

Many opposition groups and countries continue to use "Burma" because they do not recognize the legitimacy of the ruling military government. So choosing to call it Burma or Myanmar is a political decision. I'll use the name Burma for consistency and as I too choose to see dictatorships and other authoritarian governments as inherently illegitimate. But the change occurred in 1989, and even the U.S. State Department's website lists the country as "Burma (Myanmar)".

The DVB started as a non-profit media organization operated by Burmese expatriates based in Oslo, Norway. They started the operation in 1992. It made radio and television broadcasts aimed at providing uncensored news and information about Burma. They operated in defiance of the authoritarian military government. The news outlet has long been one of the only credible sources of news from Myanmar.

The DVB brought a highly charged air of defiance to the country’s heavily censored media, with reports detailing human rights abuses, oppression, corruption, and the perspectives of ethnic rebel armies. DVB states that it has four primary goals:      

• The provision of accurate and unbiased news to the people of Burma.
• To promote understanding and cooperation among Burma's religious and ethnic populations.
• To encourage and sustain independent public opinion and to provide for social and political debate.
• To impart the ideals of democracy and human rights" to the Burmese people.

2012 was a pivotal year for the DVB. In 2010 Burma held it's first elections in 20 years. Following the election, the military government formally gave control of the administration to a quasi-civilian government. In March of 2011, Thein Sein, a retired senior general was sworn in as president. Somewhat unexpectedly the Thein Sein government scaled back other media restrictions even allowing privately owned newspapers to operate. DVB gradually moved back into Burma, where it became an independent media company operating openly. In March of 2018, DVB started broadcasting on digital terrestrial television.

Then came the coup of February 2021. Myanmar's military seized control,  declared the results of the last general election invalid and revoked the licenses of several media outlets... including DVB. Burma reverted to a pre-2012 state virtually overnight. More here.

The the arrests began. On the behest of Myanmar, the police in Thailand arrested three DVB journalists. They were trying to flee to Thailand. The group included Min Nyowho had been reporting on the coup. On May 9th, Thai authorities arrested more of Min Nyo’s DVB colleagues in Chang Mai. The group are being detained pending a court decision. More here.