Making sense of Burma
- 24 Sep 07, 05:33 PM
Burma - or Myanmar as many other news organisations now call it - could be on the brink of dramatic political change or on the brink of another bout of violent repression.
Why can't I say more than that? Because no-one really knows how the Burmese military - which has run the country since a coup 45 years ago - will respond to the current wave of demonstrations led by young Buddhist monks.
The current protests were sparked off by the military junta's decision to double fuel prices just over a month ago. Although most Burmese can't afford cars - the prices of many basic necessities have increased because of the rising cost of transport.
Young Buddhist monks emerged as the leaders of protests against the hardships that an already poor and hard-pressed population are facing, but over the last week or so the demands have become openly political - calling for an end to military rule and talks with the junta. At the weekend, they defied the military by marching past the home of the pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest for the most of the past 18 years.
Very few observers saw these protests coming, but they are now saying this challenge to the junta is the most serious since 1988 when economic protests also turned into pro-democracy protests throughout the country. Those protests were eventually put down by force and an estimated 3,000 people were killed.
Since then, the Burmese authorities have continued to restrict the access of journalists to the country and Burma's diplomats very rarely accept invitations to do interviews on programmes like The World Tonight.
This means that the people we interview are predominantly exiled opposition figures, foreign diplomats, UN officials, journalists and analysts - and the one thing they can't tell you is which way is the junta going jump.
All this makes it difficult for us to give a fully rounded picture of what is going on. We do our best when deciding who to interview to find people either inside the country or who talk to people inside the country regularly and have good contacts, and who can give an informed perspective on what the junta - as well as the protesters - are doing and why. In this way we hope we are helping to make sense of things for our audience.
Alistair Burnett is editor of the World Tonight
I came to the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½, after 24 years as a producer for CBS News in the US, to launch a new nightly news programme (beginning 1 October) presented from Washington DC by veteran ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ reporter Matt Frei and to air on ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ World, ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ America, and in the wee hours of the morning on News 24. That’s the introduction… here are the random observations:
