Episode #165: Access Denied
Many centuries ago, Thomas Jefferson remarked, “Information is the currency of democracy.” Indeed, since the inception of the modern nation-state, leaders from all sides of the political spectrum have realized that the free flow of communication and greater information sharing is both essential for a democratic society, and a direct and serious challenge to autocratic rule.
Like many other oppressive regimes the world over, in Burma, the Tatmadaw also did all it could to ensure that communication and information were controlled as tightly as possible after taking power in a 1962 coup. At the same time, it pumped a steady stream of state propaganda into the few media outlets that were permitted. The issue of access to communication and information is the subject of our conversation with Toe Zaw Latt, a journalist currently with Mizzima, and who previously worked for the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB).
Before the arrival of mobile phones and internet in the country, one of the few options for communication was the telephone. Until only recently, whole apartment complexes in urban areas shared a single phone line, while entire rural villages might have to make do with only one or two. One had to have the right kind of access—and lots of money—to secure a private phone line, and even then, this privilege was usually for just senior military figures or their cronies. But the regime didn’t just limit access to this main form of communication, they also controlled and actively monitored its use: every call had to go through an operator, with military intelligence listening in. Famously, given these circumstances, the Burmese teashop took on an outsized role as a workaround communications hub. This became one of the only places where one could learn the latest rumors—speaking carefully, in hushed tones, with friends and associates.
The internet arrived in Myanmar in the early 2000s. At first, it was in the form of private internet shops, although very sites were accessible. Toe Zaw Latt describes how military intelligence, as with the telephone, also carefully monitored all online activity. Then in 2012, as the transition period was just beginning, SIM cards offering mobile data hit the market—but at the whopping price of $1,500 per card! In Toe Zaw Latt’s thinking, the military wanted to make sure that like the private home line, only the very rich and connected could have this privilege. But then, suddenly, seemingly overnight, Telenor and Ooredoo won contracts; their networks went up everywhere…and the cost of a SIM card dropped to a single dollar! Quickly following this development, the Burmese online space exploded to about 30 million users. Toe Zaw Latt says that internet speeds were even faster than Europe or the US at that time. This online revolution was coupled with the arrival of new, independent banks as well, and so now online banking became very popular. Burmese culture was irrevocably transformed in the process.
Yet despite his appreciation for these new freedoms, Toe Zaw Latt also looked on with concern because “the majority of users had no digital or information literacy.” As an example, he references the infamous anti-Islam propaganda campaign that began to spread virally on Facebook, which he describes as a carefully planned psychological warfare operation launched on an unsuspecting public (mirroring what Igor Blaževič said on a recent podcast episode). However, at the same time, Toe Zaw Latt saw signs of optimism in how the younger generation became digital natives, a skill that would define Generation Z’s involvement in the resistance movement after the 2021 coup.
General Min Aung Hlaing definitely knew the danger that widespread access to open communication and information could pose to his plans to take over the country, and so on the morning of February 1st, 2021, he closed down all the country’s mobile networks and blocked the signals of independent media. In the days and weeks following the coup, the regime experimented with intermittently cutting off the internet, and the fear was always present that they might turn it off for good, but ultimately this never came to pass. “If they shut it out completely, they are shooting their own foot,” Toe Zaw Latt observes, noting that they simply couldn’t run the country without internet access—in other words, there was no going back to how things were before. Instead, the military tried to monitor communications as much as possible, putting up firewalls to prevent access to sites they consider dangerous or provocative (such as Insight Myanmar’s website, which is not available in the country without VPN access).
Toe Zaw Latt points out another of the military’s tactics, which also dates back decades: rolling blackouts. In contrast to the English expression, “No news is good news,“ he explains that in Burma, it’s the opposite: “No news is bad news.” This saying emerged out of the military’s aggressive limiting of the ability of people to communicate with each other on the eve of its many bloody crackdowns during the past sixty-plus years. Combined with this restriction on access to news and information, the military simultaneously rolls out massive, targeted disinformation campaigns to further confuse people.
Toe Zaw Latt notes that since the coup, some of the worst-hit regions of Chin and Karenni state have been subject to this kind of rolling blackout, and adds that some villages in the Sagaing region have not been aware of violence even in neighboring communities, so effective has this military strategy been. Independent media has tried to fill the information gap by operating satellite television, but it is quite expensive. So sadly, activists have had to fall back on more old-fashioned strategies that had been used under the previous dictatorship, such as shortwave radio, as well as human carriers who physically brought news material across the border. And as the conflict drags on, Toe Zaw Latt is especially concerned that Russia and China will provide increased assistance to the Burmese military to both enhance surveillance on, and further limit access to, information and communication.
Yet there is one communication tool that Toe Zaw Latt thinks would have a dramatic impact on the fortunes of the democracy movement: Starlink, the satellite internet technology developed by Elon Musk. There’s a startling inequity at play here: while democratic leaders in Myanmar have been pleading unsuccessfully to get connected to Starlink for years and were promised access this year (which has still not happened), it was set up in Ukraine just days after the Russian invasion. Toe Zaw Latt calls on the financial system to at least put the “people before the profit” in this one instance. “Access to information and digital rights will be the most important thing for protection this year,” he notes.
For Toe Zaw Latt, Starlink would truly be a game-changer on many levels. For one, it would save countless lives, as communities could be warned and protected prior to a violent military assault. It could also help in organizing humanitarian missions on the ground, and providing life-saving access to medicine and food. Additionally, the military would have little ability to conduct its usual surveillance, as they would have no control over this network. “I think that will be the beginning of the end of the army’s attempt to block the information flow,” he says.
Interestingly, Toe Zaw Latt points out that the Tatmadaw is actually far more afraid of its own soldiers getting access to the internet than the general population. He quotes as evidence the fact that most of the defected soldiers he’s spoken to cite gaining access to uncensored information as the reason for leaving their post, realizing that they had been lied to all along by their military commanders. And so, providing internet to those still serving could open the floodgates to defection, enabling soldiers to finally see over the high walls erected by military propaganda.
“Generation Z are actually digital natives,” he says in closing. “They are the young people who know very well how to use effective information. That is the hope for our future! My generation, the ‘88 Generation, we came from a very closed country, we relied on shortwave radio, like BBC service. [Now we have] very innovative cyber dissidents. This is the beginning of the end of the Burmese military.”