hankyoreh

Myanmar

By Steven Borowiec, Hankyoreh English Deputy Editor in Yangon

For Myanmar, South Korea is a natural comparison, and a model to emulate as it seeks to transition from dictatorship to democracy. South Korea underwent a process of opening in the 1970s and 1980s, becoming a successful market economy and functioning democracy. And after years of isolation under a military government, Myanmar is currently undergoing reform and opening to the outside world.

Media reforms are a key part of this process toward an open society, as citizens of a democracy need a free media to provide news and information. Myanmar’s evolving media was the main subject of discussion at the 2014 East-West Center Conference held in the capital city Yangon from Mar. 10-12.

The conference brought together more than 350 journalists and media professionals from the US and across Asia under the title “Challenges of a Free Press”.

Myanmar is a natural place to hold a conference on the topic of a free press, due to its evolving media. For 60 years under its military government, media in Myanmar functioned under a system of pre-publication censorship, by which all printed media had to be submitted to government censors before hitting newsstands.

The law on pre-censorship effectively created a government monopoly with strict control on the news media. The system was formally abolished last year, but still today, the government retains strong control over the media.

Myanmar media outlets require licenses from the Ministry of Information before they can publish, meaning the government can issue and revoke publishing licenses according to its own will.

The progress towards media freedom Myanmar, however moderate, has been recognized internationally. In 2013, Myanmar ranked 151 out of 179 on the Reporters Without Borders (RWB) Press Freedom Index, 18 places higher than the previous year.

Myanmar’s opening is coming at a time when media freedoms in South Korea are being rolled back. South Korea placed 50th on the RWB index, down 6 spots from 2012. In 2011, South Korea’s Freedom House press freedom ranking fell from “free” to “partly free” and has remained there ever since.

Over the past several years, conservative governments in Seoul have peeled away democratic freedoms of dialogue and expression. When President Park Geun-hye gave her first press conference as president in January, she read a prepared statement and only answered pre-coordinated questions. In the following days, a video circulated online of reporters freely raising their hands to ask questions at a 2003 press conference given by President Roh Moo-hyun when he was in power.

Also, the Park administration has increased use of the anachronistic, anti-communist National Security Law (NSL). Between 2008 and 2011, the number of NSL cases shot up by 95.6 percent, according to an Amnesty International report released in December 2012. Last year 103 people were charged with violating the law, the highest figure in ten years.

Asia Pacific Media Services Foreign correspondent Bertil Lintner addressed these types of concerns, which he called “backsliding”, at a Mar. 10 panel. Referring to the possibility that Myanmar’s gains may not be sustained, Lintner said, “I think it’s unlikely we’ll see a reversion back to the really harsh levels of the late 1980s and early 1990s, but there are concerns that as big business comes to control more of media, we‘ll see more self-censorship.”

In pre-conference remarks made on Mar. 9, Aung San Suu Kyi underscored the importance of media freedom being accompanied by the rule of law, saying, “If people ask me do we have absolute freedom of media in this country, I would say ‘no,’” she said, “for the simple reason that we do not have as yet the kind of laws that would truly defend and promote a free press. But at the same time I would also say that we do not have enough media responsibility either.”

One important difference between the two countries is that South Korea’s media freedom was the result of a long battle with the military regime of the late 1980s. Freedom of the came only with sustained popular movement in the streets, while in Myanmar the media changes were a top-down move by the military government.

Another difference between the two countries is their ethnic composure: South Korea’s transition to a free media was eased by its ethnic and linguistic cohesion, which meant that the entire population could read the same publications, and that the population was generally committed to the prospect of statehood. In contrast, Myanmar, also called Burma, is made up of a wide variety of ethnic groups. Society is dominated by the Bamar majority, which makes up 68% of the population. There are another 135 officially recognized ethnic groups, some of which, most notably the Karen people, seek independence from the Myanmar state.

And those ethnic groups are underrepresented in the media. “Information on ethnic groups is very weak because most media outlets don’t have correspondents in the ethnic and border areas,” said Zin Linn, Editorial Quality Consultant at Burma News International, during a Mar. 11 panel on ethnic voices in Myanmar media.

Presidential spokesperson U Ye Htut noted the media concentration and lack of representation for ethnic minorities in remarks at the East-West Center conference on Mar. 10, saying, “99 percent of the media is based in Yangon...the Minister of Information is working for the diversity of information and diversity of ownership in our process.”

While South Korea has never had the challenges of representing the voices of such a broad spectrum of ethnic groups, it is in a similar position of fighting a history of dictatorship to secure reliable freedom of expression. The case of South Korea demonstrates for Myanmar that even with an established system of free media, it’s possible for freedoms to wane under governments that don’t value free speech, such as the current South Korean administration.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]