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One of Myanmar’s leading media-savvy politicians who was caught up and jailed in the 2004 government purge has died in jail.
Win Aung, a former Myanmar foreign minister and one of ex Prime Minister General Khin Nyunt’s aides, died on Wednesday morning November 4 in Yangon infamous Insein Prison. He was 65.
Fluent in English, Win Aung was said to be media savvy with foreign journalists and willing to give regular interviews with foreign media, including Time Magazine.
“I am a democratic person myself,” Win Aung told Time in 1999. “I would like my children and myself to live under a real democratic situation.”
Before his removal from the foreign minister post, he wrote religious and political articles under the pen name of Sithu Nyein Aye.
His younger son, Thaung Suu Nyein, is now editor-in-chief of a leading Yangon-based weekly, 7 Days News Journal.
Win Aung was one of the first senior government officials to become a victim of the 2004 purge of reformists.
Win Aung was arrested in September 2004, a month before a government crackdown on powerful Military Intelligence officers and several political leaders including the Prime Minister Khin Nyunt.
The junta originally announced Win Aung and his deputy Khin Maung Win’s retirement following news that he had told senior officials at an Association of Southeast Asian Nations Ministry meeting in Jakarta in July 2004 that Prime Minister Khin Nyunt was in political trouble.
“He is in a dangerous position,” Win Aung was quoted as saying. “Khin Nyunt may have to flee the country. If that happens, I will have to flee with him.”
After his arrest, Wing Aung was detained under house arrest for two years. In 2006, he was sentenced to a 7-year jail term on charges of misuse of authority. He was detained in Insein Prison until he died.
U Myat ‘Sonny’ Swe, deputy ceo of the Myanmar Times newspaper was also arrested during the same purge and he is still in prison where he is serving a 14 year sentence for alleged newspaper censorship avoidance..
His father, Brigadier General Thien Swe, who was head of the unit in charge of censoring the private enterprise Myanmar Times newspaper, was also jailed. Reports of his prison sentence vary, but it is around the 130 years mark.
All persons jailed were part of a moderate (by Myanmar standards) political push which crumbled when the Prime Minister Khin Nyunt released Aung San Suu Kyi in 2003. On her release she began campaigning vigorously through the country, prompting the Depayin massacre of her supporters on the night of May 30, 2003.
This marked the end of Aung san Suu Kyi’s freedom, and the beginning of the brutal end of the reformist push led by Khin Nyunt and the upper echelons of military intelligence.
Public broadcaster Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s managing director Mark Scott has outlined sweeping changes for the future of the corporation’s international broadcasting operations, calling for the unification of its radio and television arms into one strong unit.
Scott said a fully funded plan to combine the ABC’s two international broadcasting arms, Australia Network and Radio Australia, into one strong unit, such as the BBC or CNN, could spearhead a more vigorous approach to broadcasting in the region that met the demands of this new era of globalisation.
This would include five additional news bureaux, bringing in a total of 14 bureaux in Asia, the Pacific and India, more than either CNN or the BBC.
This is hoped to establish the ABC as the pre-eminent source of news and current affairs about and for the region, particularly in China and India.
The ABC said it is intent on securing “the all-important landing rights for the service in China”.
Set to deliver the annual Bruce Allen Memorial Lecture on Friday evening, November 6, titled A Global ABC: Soft Diplomacy and the World of International Broadcasting, Scott called for a revaluation of the importance of Australia’s soft diplomatic efforts and renewed investment into international broadcasting.
He said, “Australia has played a crucial role in creating the G20 as the preeminent global institution for economic policy making and problem-solving and we are proving adept at promoting frameworks for co-operation that stem from Australian interests, values and perspectives.
“We have an important role to play and we have to use all the tools at our disposal to continue to do so – one of these tools is soft diplomacy – using the media to put our nation’s culture, values and policies on show.
“The past 12 months have demonstrated just how hard-nosed the competition can be in the sphere of soft diplomacy: the German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle launched its second television channel DWTV Asia Plus, the Chinese have announced an international media program worth $8 billion and the Japanese and French also launched new services into the Asia Pacific region.
“The UK spends $868 million dollars on the BBC World Service and BBC World News; France over $600 million on international television and radio services, Germany ranks next with $532 million; China currently commits $380 million, and Japan spends $226 million.
“Australia, with $34 million covering the cost of Australia Network and Radio Australia, is at the other end of the table, about the same spend as Mexico and Brazil and 50 per cent smaller than Singapore.
“We may be a significant, strategic player in the G20, but our investment in broadcasting is meagre in comparison to our colleagues.”
Radio Australia launched its much-delayed re-introduced service to Myanmar on October 26, with the commencement date of a Myanmar-language component to be announced shortly.
This follows a statement by the Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd on August 12 this year , when, while decrying the continued detention of Aung San Suu Kyi, he announced that the government and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation have “agreed to Ms Suu Kyi’s previous request to have Radio Australia resume broadcast service” to Myanmar.
Rudd said it is a gesture of solidarity to her and opens a new channel of international contact for the people of Myanmar.
At the same time, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Radio Australia issued a press release stating, “Radio Australia today has announced plans to reach audiences in Burma including a new special service in Burmese. Radio Australia ceo, Hanh Tran, says events in Burma in recent times, including the devastation of Cyclone Nargis, the extension and detention of Aung San Suu Kyi and the prospect of coming elections, highlights the need for strong communications into the region. He says the service to Burma in English will be imminent with a Burmese language service to follow.
“Director ABC International, Murray Green, said the ABC had been working with the federal government looking for ways of improving the flow of information to the people of Burma. Murray Green said the move reflected the ABC’s on-going commitment to serving people in those parts of the Asia and the Pacific without press freedom.
“Radio Australia has served audiences in the region for nearly 70 years, however much of that capacity was constrained in the late 1990s as a result of budget cuts. Mr Green said this latest move to re-introduce Burma as a service area was another milestone in the strengthening of the ABC’s presence in the region.
“The new services will utilise proven shortwave radio distribution as well as digital technologies to communicate to Burmese nationals and Burmese expatriates.”
Please note: MediaBlab uses the name Myanmar to describe the country formerly known as Burma, while some countries such as Australia for political reasons still adhere to the name Burma. When quoting directly from press releases etc, MediaBlab retains the nomenclature adopted by the originator of the release.
Two people from Thailand’s securities industry have been arrested on suspicion of spreading rumours by posting information about the King’s health on websites that allegedly caused a sharp drop in the Thai stock market last month.
The Bangkok Post reported that Thiranant Wipuchanin, 43, was arrested at Suvarnabhumi airport yesterday after returning from a trip to Vienna.
She was charged with an offence covering the posting of false information which causes damage to national security and alarms the public
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Western Australian author, poet, lecturer, journalist, editor, and lawyer Hal G.P Colebatch wrote a stirring article headlined The Saigon Media Slaughter in The Australian newspaper on Friday.
Colebach said, “It is a graphic demonstration of the political skew in Australian culture that the killing of a group of journalists, probably but not quite certainly, by anti-communist Indonesian troops at Balibo in Timor in 1975 has been the subject of ongoing agitation, including two books, a recent film and countless articles, ever since as well as demands for reparation and the punishment of the guilty.’
He adds, “Meanwhile, the killing of a group of Australian journalists by communist Viet Cong in the Cholon district of Saigon during the 1968 Tet Offensive has been almost completely forgotten
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Some interesting points emerged from a Washington Post article last week on the decline of American newspapers.
The Post said, “Almost without exception, the circulation gainers are the nation's smallest daily newspapers, which tend to focus almost all of their limited resources on highly local news that is not covered by larger outside organizations. Also, these papers tend to have a lock on local ad markets.”
It added, “Online, newspapers are still a success – but only in readership, not in profit. Ads on newspaper internet sites sell for pennies on the dollar compared with ads in their ink-on-paper cousins
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An information leaflet from the Myanmar government’s Ministry of Information promoting the annual Traditional Performing Arts Competition has an irksome misspelling of a word that has irritated and embarrassed the military leadership.
The Irrawaddy Journal reports that the misspelling of one Myanmar word occurred in the title of a play meant to honour the Tatmadaw (military). Instead of ‘Sons as Valuable as Treasure,’ the title reads, ‘Sons Who Make Their Parents Suffer.’
The information leaflets have been distributed to a wide audience, including the generals
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An unprecedented attempt by British oil trading firm Trafigura to prevent the Guardian reporting parliamentary proceedings has collapsed following a spontaneous online campaign to spread the information the paper had been barred from publishing.
The Guardian reports that Carter-Ruck, the law firm representing Trafigura, was accused of infringing the supremacy of parliament after it insisted that an injunction obtained against the Guardian prevented the paper from reporting a question tabled last Monday by the Labour MP Paul Farrelly.
Farrelly's question was about the implications for press freedom of an order obtained by Trafigura preventing the Guardian and other media from publishing the contents of a report related to the dumping of toxic waste in Ivory Coast
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JARGON BUSTING: UPTIGHT COMPLAINT EVENT ISSUED BY AUSTRALIAN STORY TELLER IN REAL TIME
Australian author Don Watson launched his latest book on the decay of language, ‘Bendable Learnings’, in Sydney this week, according to newssite, Crikey.
During his launch speech he highlighted a quote from a joint media release from the Australian Prime Minster and the Minister for Education
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AMERICAN REGULATOR RULES THAT BLOGGERS MUST DISCLOSE FREEBIES AND FINANCIAL INTERESTS OR BE FINED
Bloggers, whether they like it or not, are being dragged into the rules that the so-called “traditional media” must obey.
Recent court cases have shown that bloggers can be held liable for libellous comments on their blogs, and hiding behind anonymity is no longer an option. Courts it seems can order the identify of bloggers to be revealed
[ Click here to read more ]
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Comment by JJ McRoach
on AUSTRALIAN MAN CONVICTED OF CHILD PORN OVER DRAWINGS OF THE SIMPSONS HAVING SEX
Watching the Media
There have been and still are big protests against this, but the government seems result to move on this.
Therefore any doodlings of cartoon characters that could be regarded as children should be kept to a minimum, otherwise you could get arrested and jailed. Good luck