Note: This article was first published on 20 November 2018 at The Interpreter here.
It has been a bad year for press freedom across
Southeast Asia. Myanmar has been no exception.
Media freedom fell to new lows this month as a
self-proclaimed anti-Rohingya supporter, American Rick Heizman, was welcomed
with open arms in
Myanmar. Heizman, a little-known musician and traveller to
Myanmar, made an amateur film claiming Islam threatens to is at
risk of being overtaken by Islam. In September this
year, Heizman's video was forwarded
by the Myanmar Ministry of Foreign Affairs to a range of United Nations
agencies based in Myanmar.
Among his claims, Heizman argues that there should be
no repatriation of the Rohingya to Rakhine State. Heizman's
rants have attracted the attention of Facebook who first deleted some
posts and now has suspended his account, as has Twitter.
This month, Heizman claims he was able to travel
freely in northern Rakhine State to report on sites scarred by the conflict
that has displaced 700,000 Rohingya. The assumption that his reporting is
accurate lacks credibility, given that the areas affected by the
conflict have otherwise been out
of bounds for
foreigner journalists.
Heizman’s lone-wolf anti-Rohingya antics
have seemingly been embraced by a range of local institutions and
officials – the University of Yangon, the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, policy think-tank the Myanmar Institute of Strategic and
International Studies, and the Rakhine National Races Affairs Minister in
Yangon.
His rhetoric is perceived to bolster the poorly
evidenced claims of radical nationalist that the Rohingya do not belong, that
the problem is one of terrorism and not of humanitarian crisis, and that
actions must be taken to protect Buddhists and the state against Islam more
broadly.
Ministerial collaboration
The collaboration between Heizman and U Zaw Aye Maung,
the Yangon Region parliament Rakhine National Races Affairs Minister, is
particularly concerning. Zaw Aye Maung hosted an event for Heizman in
Yangon and praised his alleged independence.
Zaw Aye Maung’s post is a sub-national level position
that is designed to facilitate representation of the interests of minority
ethnic groups. His role is to advocate for the interests of Rakhine people in
the Yangon Region, far from northern Rakhine State.
Instead, he is using his position as a platform to
argue that the interests of Buddhist Rakhine people and official national races
more broadly need to be protected from the Rohingya and Islam.
Rather than his ministerial position potentially
promoting federalism and democracy through the representation of minority
interests, this incident is yet another example of how toxic the politics of
national race in Myanmar has become. The Rohingya fall outside this list
of official national races, and any attempt to claim such status is
perceived to diminish the rights of officially recognized national races.
The challenges journalists face
Enter journalists, or at least the brave few who are
attempting to confront the skewed narrative propagated by foreigners such as
Heizman and local officials such as Zaw Aye Maung. Journalists face major
challenges in their efforts to uncover uncomfortable truths about what has occurred
in Rakhine State.
Despite media reforms in 2012, genuine investigative
reporting on conflict in ethnic armed areas has remained exceedingly difficult
and risky. The attacks since 25 August 2017 by the armed Rohingya group known
as “ARSA”, and the subsequent major military offensive in Rakhine State, have
proven particularly precarious for journalists to cover.
The most infamous contemporary case of restrictions
and punitive measures against journalists in Myanmar is the case
of two local Reuters journalists, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo. This case has garnered
global attention because of their connection to Reuters as an international
news outlet and because the journalists were covering what the UN
Fact Finding Mission has identified credible markers of genocide.
The facts of the Reuters journalist case are now
well-known. While meeting with the police in late 2017, they were arrested for
allegedly possessing documents that contained state secrets. In fact, they
were set
up by the police who
were aware that they were investigating a massacre that took place in
Rakhine State. It is worth noting that the police fall under the Ministry of
Home Affairs, which is headed by a minister selected by the Commander in Chief
of the military.
On 8 February, Reuters proceeded to publish
the findings of
its devastating investigation into the killing of ten Rohingya men. Wa Lone and
Kyaw Soe Oo were two among four of the attributed authors.
In September this year, the court trial of Wa Lone and
Kyaw Soe Oo culminated in a guilty verdict and a sentence of seven years jail
for their alleged crime. They have since appealed
and the appeal
remains ongoing.
In a further twist, the
military admitted that its soldiers
were responsible for the massacrethat the two journalists had been investigating. A
courts martial was established, although the entire proceedings are under the
control of the military. Seven military officers were convicted for their role
in killing eight Rohingya men and two boys. A courts martial hearing is an
indication that the military wanted to deal with this case quickly and on its
own terms.
Ongoing controls
The case of the two local Reuters journalists is an
example of how the military and the administration works to control the
narrative about what has occurred in Rakhine State. Despite a transition from
direct military rule since 2011, authorities continue to assert the right to
determine the news people consume in Myanmar.
Ongoing attempts by officials to control the news of
atrocities in Rakhine State over the past year further discredits the claims of
anti-Rohingya sympathisers. The Rakhine Minister is doing no favours to Rakhine
people by collaborating with Heizman.
Neither is Heizman’s trumped up visit to Rakhine State
an indication of a free press. Rather, the entire affairs points to the thin
and fading mirage of media freedom in Myanmar.
