EYE ON ETHICS

MYANMAR, also known as Burma to the western world, is scheduled to have its first national elections for parliament and local positions this year.

The military junta, in absolute control of the nation of 50 million since 1962, had promised last year to call the elections this year but nobody in and outside Myanmar knows for sure when exactly.

The dilemma of reporters is how to cover the process vigorously, independently when the rules are mostly unknown to the voters, candidates and the press, and the process under absolute control of the junta.

For starters, nobody outside the junta’s circles knows for sure when the elections will be held. The Burmese journalists and bloggers who attended a training seminar conducted by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism weeks ago offers two possibilities — 11-7-10 (November 7, 2010, as the junta had indicated earlier) or never-never-never.

The opposition parties in country and in exile are split over whether to boycott or to field candidates.

The boycott proponent, Myanmar’s largest opposition party, the National League for Democracy or NLD, sees with prescient wisdom that the elections would just serve the junta’s purpose to cloak itself with a veneer of democratization.

The other parties, however, see in the elections a few if feeble opportunities to capture some seats, inform and engage the people, and debate issues with the junta.

The outsider is wont to ask: So why ever vote? Or why ever bother with elections in a country where last 48 years, the story is one writ in repression and the absolute absence of democracy? Yet through it all, this outsider has been so struck and humbled by brief, periodic encounters with Burmese in country and in exile—they are a people of grace and will, their manner gentle, their spirit unbroken, and their optimism seemingly a bottomless pit.

That is the impression that we have affirmed time and again, with every group Burmese journalists and bloggers we have engaged over the last few years. It is an impression difficult to explain, given the morose state of repression, poverty, and abuse that has been Myanmar’s tragedy in nearly five decades.

In 1988, the junta crushed with mass demonstrations with savage force, killing and maiming hundreds, and forcing tens of thousands to hike for weeks on end across borders Myanmar shares with India and Thailand. The story goes that nearly two-thirds of the country’s intellectuals now live in exile.

In 1990, the opposition NLD whose most famous member is Nobel Peace prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi won a landslide victory in the first multi-party elections since the junta came to power. She has been placed under house arrest since, and her party was never allowed to take office.

In 2007, Buddhist monks led street protests that would be known as “the Saffron revolution” but hundreds eventually ended up in jail, beaten to a pulp, or found floating lifeless in the creeks and rivers.

In 2008, the junta submitted a new Constitution to a national plebiscite that it said was overwhelmingly ratified by the voters—except that only the junta and its allies knew how many voted, and how or if in fact the vote was conducted.

In 2009, a destructive cyclone, Nargis, pummeled most of Myanmar and left thousands drowned to death and homeless.

Nearly everything that could go wrong and against the conduct of free, fair, honest, and credible elections endures in Myanmar.

The generals control key industries, as well as the black market economy. The generals, in tandem with co-opted former rebels, are running a brisk trade in heroin, one of Myanmar’s major exports. Children are forced into labor, the women sold to prostitution rings under protection of the military, and corruption is endemic across sectors of the economy.

The irony is Myanmar is a resource-rich country but remains one of Asia’s poorest. Largely rural, densely forested, Myanmar is the world’s biggest source of teak, and also a major source of pearls, jade, sapphires and rubies. Perhaps enriched by the blood of its sons and daughters, Burma’s soil is so fertile, while its oil and gas deposits are abundant.

Nonetheless, it is poverty, gross, pervasive, vile, that is the common twisted bond of the people of Burma who come from over a hundred ethnic groups with as many ethnic languages.

On the eve of national elections, hopefully on 10-10-10, the challenge that faces journalists and bloggers is how to tell the story not just of a restricted democracy in transition, but also of a people and body politic evolving in scattered, myriad ways, on fast-track mode.

To be sure, all the numbers assumed to be correct by independent media agencies in exile tell of some unchanged premises, and a few that are by now off and implausible. According to Mizzima, the online news agency with writers from inside and outside Myanmar, this is the story of Myanmar by the numbers:

• Population: 57.5M, as of May 2008; perhaps 60 million now
• 100-plus ethnic groups with as many languages
• 27.36 million registered voters
• 2,100 political prisoners; 248,000 total prisoners
• 22 million children, many forced into labor
• 500,000 Buddhist monks, 13,500 Christian fathers, 12,000 Islamic religion servants
• Exiles and migrants: Two million in Thailand, 500,000 in Malaysia, 150,000 refugees, Thai-Burma border camps, 50,000 in Mizoram State, India, and hundreds of thousands more elsewhere in the world.

How the political parties compare in terms of command votes is a difficult call. All claims by the parties of their membership bases are all off. There are supposedly 24 million members of the junta‘s USDA or Union of Solidarity and Development Association (National Development Party), 12 million members of the NLD, 3.5 million members of Ethnic Unity Party, and 150,000 members of the Union of Myanmar National Political Force led by Aye Lwin.

Altogether, if the figures are to be believed, the four partisan groups claim to represent nearly 40 million members—a third more than the assumed 27 million registered voters. The Burmese say that the junta-backed party counts even children who could not vote as members. There are in Myanmar today about 60 political parties.

In the anticipated vote, the seats up for grabs include the top positions in the 325 townships and the 100-member parliament. The junta has, however, appropriated 25 parliament seats for its Cabinet appointees, and the odds are, through cheating, intimidation and command of the rules, it will capture most of the remaining 75.

The 17-person Election Commission has rejected requests by foreign and independent election monitors to observe the vote.

Through it all, hope animates the irrepressible journalists and bloggers of Myanmwar. They want to cover the vote, and cover it well for the voters, more than for the political parties.

At the recent seminar conducted by the PCIJ, we asked Burmese journalists and bloggers what they wish would or could be the good result or impact of their coverage of the anticipated elections.

One says he hopes it would be “50% free and fair.” A second intones, “people need to believe in the party and to make real what they say.”

A third adds, “we need to educate people more and more because through information, we can send in news, because only 2 percent of the 60 million population know about the issues.” A fourth writes, “people must have the experience of voting and how voting is done.”

And still a fifth voices a simple wish: “People will get the experience of voting, know the importance of votes, know the unfair process during the elections, so they will be ready for the next elections.”

With journalists and bloggers like them, Myanmar is off to a rocky but hopefully useful exercise in democracy–for the voters more than just for the political parties.

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Malou Mangahas is the executive director of the Manila-based Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism.