For years, Burma’s
former military regime regarded Aye Chan Naing as an enemy of the state,
jailing 17 of his reporters and denouncing the exiled news organization he
leads as a producer of “killer broadcasts” and a threat to national security.
But when he arrived back home for the first time in nearly a quarter of
a century, he was neither arrested nor harassed. Immigration police simply
asked who he worked for, then smiled and waved him through.
The director of the Norway-based Democratic Voice of Burma, which has
broadcast independent news for two decades into one of the world’s most oppressed
nations, is part of a trickle of exiles spanning the globe who have begun to
see for themselves if Burma’s campaign of reforms is real.
The answer to that question is mixed, and the vast majority of those
abroad, including more than half a million refugees camped along the border
with Thailand and elsewhere, are staying put for now. But Aye Chan’s visit — he
ended a five-day trip earlier this month after the government issued him a
brief visa — revealed something he found surprising among friends, family, even
government officials — a sliver of hope.
“It’s something I haven’t really seen in the last 20 years,” Aye Chan
told The Associated Press in an interview from Oslo, where he has lived for two
decades. “Of course there’s still a lot of skepticism. People cannot forget the
past.”
But “there’s been a clear change. People are speaking out freely, going
to meet whoever they want without getting followed or arrested or punished for
it,” he said.
To be sure, Burma needs its exiles back. Decades of harsh military
dictatorship in the country also known as Burma transformed one of Asia’s most
prosperous nations into one of its poorest. Many of the country’s best and
brightest fled, part of a so-called brain drain that included an army of
doctors, engineers, politicians and journalists. Several million economic
migrants are also working in Thailand, Malaysia and other nearby countries.
A nominally civilian government took office a year ago, and since then
it has freed hundreds of political prisoners, lifted restrictions on opposition
parties, signed truces with rebel groups and enacted other major reforms.
Last August, President Thein Sein issued a call for the diaspora to
return. One of his top advisers later clarified that political dissidents could
also come back, and would not be arrested if they did so.
But half a year later, “there is still no official policy, no
government strategy to bring us home,” said Aung Zaw, another prominent exile
who founded the independent Thailand-based Irrawaddy newspaper. “They have no
idea how to welcome exiles back.”
Although international investors and foreign businessmen have begun
rushing into Burma to take advantage of the rapidly changing climate there, and
tourism numbers are on the rise, Aung Zaw estimated the number of exiles who’ve
gone back so far at only “a few dozen” — and most of those are only visiting.
“They need our skills and knowledge to rebuild, but they are giving no
incentives or assurances,” he added. “People aren’t sure whether the doors are
really open to them, and so nobody is comfortable enough to return home.”
Aung Zaw fled Burma at the height of a mass student uprising that was
brutally crushed by security forces in 1988. He returned home for the first
time since then in February, and was on his second visit back last week.
He said the official reception he has received has been “very warm,
which was quite a surprise.”
For the last two decades, he said, regime officials “rarely spoke to
the public. There was silence all the time. But they have begun demonstrating
they have the ability to listen, and that’s refreshing.”
Still, he said, “everyone remains very cautious, and skeptical of
government. They’ve seen a lot of ups and downs over the last 20 or 30 years,
and they know” the wave of recent, positive change can easily be reversed.
One thing the reforms have already given exiles is a look at the
country they were compelled to leave long ago.
Aye Chan, the Democratic Voice of Burma director, said Yangon, the
former capital, hasn’t changed much since he left, despite some new hotels and
roads. His high school is now closed and abandoned, swamped by weeds. Paint is
peeling from dilapidated buildings all over the downtrodden city. And his old
friends, he said, seemed poorer than ever. Even dentists — like the one he
wanted to be — are struggling to survive.
“There are lots of places that look exactly like they did 23 years ago
or more,” Aye Chan said. “It’s like time almost stopped in 1988.”
Aye Chan went on to help found the DVB, which began broadcasting news
on shortwave radio into Burma in 1992. Since then, the news group has expanded
online and into television. During a 2007 uprising led by saffron-robed monks,
its reporters were crucial in getting news out to the rest of the world. Some
17 of them were arrested, but all were released in January.
During his own trip back, Aye Chan met with government officials to
request that his journalists be officially accredited. There were no definitive
answers, but he said the meetings were positive.
“They want to discuss. They want to talk,” he said of the government.
“And we have more to gain than to lose by doing that.”
Both Aung Zaw and Aye Chan both said they would like to move back to
Burma one day, but the time is not yet right.
“Much more remains to be done,” Aung Zaw said. “We will return to Burma
when there is real security. When we can go back and have a dignified return.”
AP
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