Interviews with Khin Ohmar

The advances in the international communication technology have helped strengthen our movement, both inside and outside the country. While we also see that also raises more risk for us within inside and outside the country. I mean, I think it definitely is a plus. Because of those technologies, we were able to communicate inside and outside the country, even though we know the phone will be tapped, even though we know that the emails will be monitored and even, you know, hacked.

But there is a way for us to speed up with our communication inside and outside the country. And therefore, you see, for example, in 2007, because of the Internet cafes, because of the Internet availability in the country, people were able to — you know, just ordinary citizens, really, many of them are just citizen journalists without even having a proper training or anything. But they just take the pictures of all these crackdowns on the monks and students and the demonstrations. And they send out all these footages to the international community, international media.

Many of the international media were able to use those footages. Otherwise they couldn’t have even known of that took place except the Burmese. And therefore the whole world was able to see what happened during the Saffron [Revolution] in 2007. And like back in 1988, during our time, nobody knew, nobody saw it except us.

So it definitely helps. But on the other hand, because these are the technologies for the military regime, after the Saffron Revolution in 2007 they also learned very well that people use it so well, by sending out all these information and images to the world, that they couldn’t stop.

So for that, they also made their own preparation. And we know so well, with the technology assistance from China, they have upgraded their mechanisms, their communication technologies and all. So sometimes when you call, you know basically during the time of any of demonstrations or any crisis, your phones are already jammed and your phones are already answered by Chinese language, you know, machine or whatever. And in that case you know.

And in the country, people are able to communicate better than before, particularly among the democracy activists, because you have mobile phones that are now pre-paid card phones. But of course when the time comes, if there are any demonstrations or such, it’s going to be very sure that they will shut down on those.

That the people will be left with no way to communicate except our traditional way of communicating: words by words from mouth to mouth. But I think we have to be prepared for that. And we are prepared for whatever means possible to make sure that information is out. We have so many journalists in the country, who are more like undercover, that continue to send out the information to the ASEAN media.

And therefore every day of what’s happening in the country, if a political prisoner is sick today, we learn today or tomorrow. If there is a worker strike took place outside the Rangoon, now we already got the information in few hours, including the footages, for example. So there are these advantages, definitely.

Khin Ohmar is a Burmese democracy activist who lives and works in Mae Sot, Thailand. She is a leader of the Women’s League of Burma, the main umbrella organization for women’s organizations in exile and inside Burma.

Khin has served as a spokesperson for the Burmese democracy movement in the United Nations General Assembly and in other international forums. She also serves as coordinator of the Burma Partnership, a regional coalition of civil society groups supporting democracy in Burma, and she is an organizer of the ASEAN civil society and human rights consultation processes.

Admitted to the United States as a refugee after being persecuted for her participation in the 1988 student demonstrations, Khin became a United States citizen and worked for refugee and human rights organizations in Washington, D.C., before moving back to the Thai-Burma border area in the late 1990s.