Read Online Everything Is Broken by Emma Larkin - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Emma Larkin
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journalists still managed to slip past them, hidden beneath rice sacks or wrapped in tarpaulin sheets. Some Asian journalists donned Burmese dress and traveled freely past the checkpoints. But within only a week or so, the restrictions on movement were, like the restrictions on news and information, firmly in place.
I met a British journalist in Rangoon filing for the Daily Telegraph who told me he had tried every way possible to get down to the delta and had been rebuffed at every turn. He was halted at roadblocks and prevented from boarding passenger ferries. And he had not been able to hire a Burmese fixer to arrange transport for him no matter how much money he offered—the job had become too dangerous. Traveling to the cyclone-torn areas with an aid organization was also out of the question, as aid groups were not willing to risk what little access they had negotiated for themselves. In the end, the journalist had resorted to reporting on Cyclone Nargis from his hotel. He was staying at a prominent business hotel in Rangoon where some UN agencies are headquartered. “There’s a lot of aid agencies working out of the hotel, so I can pretty much cover the story from there, and in considerable comfort,” he cheerfully admitted.
A number of foreign journalists had been caught by the authorities and deported. Teza Oo, a Burmese writer who also acted as a fixer for visiting foreign correspondents and was used to working undercover, had a close call while assisting some French reporters. Leaving Rangoon at 3:00 A.M. to avoid checkpoints, he had taken the reporters to the delta town of Bogale but was stopped by a soldier as soon as they reached the town. The soldier took the Frenchmen’s names and passport details and ordered them to return to the city. When Teza Oo went to meet the reporters at their hotel that same evening, he saw them in the lobby being questioned by a group of Burmese men he did not recognize; though they wore plain clothes he knew instinctively that they were government spies. The soldier in Bogale must have filed the newsmen’s details with his commanding officers, and from there it was a simple step for the authorities to check hotel registration lists and confirm where they were staying. Luckily for Teza Oo, the soldier had been focused on the foreigners and had neglected to note down his identity. To avoid seeming suspicious to any curious onlookers in the lobby, he went up to the front desk and made a mundane inquiry about room rates before quickly leaving the hotel.
“It’s of absolute importance to me that this story stays in the international news, so that we can keep the pressure up on the generals,” Teza Oo said, clearly frustrated that he was no longer able to play his part in making that happen. “I feel it’s my duty to help document these events and get the information out of the country but, at the end of the day, I must also think of my family and keep them safe.”
Without being able to go to the delta, foreign journalists had to rely on secondary sources. A friend from Bangkok, who was in Rangoon filing for a daily in Europe, regularly did the rounds at NGO offices and UN agencies, but she still wasn’t able to gather many concrete answers. I accompanied her one day when she went to meet a spokeswoman for ECHO, the European Commission’s humanitarian aid office. The European Commission has a small office in the unlikely setting of the Kandawgyi Palace Hotel, a fanciful construction of intricately carved teak roofs set in a small jungle alongside the lake. The offices are located in several hotel guest rooms where the beds have been removed and replaced with office furniture. We were ushered into a guest-room-turned-meeting-room by a spokeswoman who seemed harried and overloaded. “To be quite frank, we haven’t been able to get an overview of the situation and assess what the needs are,” she told us. “It is becoming more and more difficult for our staff to get down
I met a British journalist in Rangoon filing for the Daily Telegraph who told me he had tried every way possible to get down to the delta and had been rebuffed at every turn. He was halted at roadblocks and prevented from boarding passenger ferries. And he had not been able to hire a Burmese fixer to arrange transport for him no matter how much money he offered—the job had become too dangerous. Traveling to the cyclone-torn areas with an aid organization was also out of the question, as aid groups were not willing to risk what little access they had negotiated for themselves. In the end, the journalist had resorted to reporting on Cyclone Nargis from his hotel. He was staying at a prominent business hotel in Rangoon where some UN agencies are headquartered. “There’s a lot of aid agencies working out of the hotel, so I can pretty much cover the story from there, and in considerable comfort,” he cheerfully admitted.
A number of foreign journalists had been caught by the authorities and deported. Teza Oo, a Burmese writer who also acted as a fixer for visiting foreign correspondents and was used to working undercover, had a close call while assisting some French reporters. Leaving Rangoon at 3:00 A.M. to avoid checkpoints, he had taken the reporters to the delta town of Bogale but was stopped by a soldier as soon as they reached the town. The soldier took the Frenchmen’s names and passport details and ordered them to return to the city. When Teza Oo went to meet the reporters at their hotel that same evening, he saw them in the lobby being questioned by a group of Burmese men he did not recognize; though they wore plain clothes he knew instinctively that they were government spies. The soldier in Bogale must have filed the newsmen’s details with his commanding officers, and from there it was a simple step for the authorities to check hotel registration lists and confirm where they were staying. Luckily for Teza Oo, the soldier had been focused on the foreigners and had neglected to note down his identity. To avoid seeming suspicious to any curious onlookers in the lobby, he went up to the front desk and made a mundane inquiry about room rates before quickly leaving the hotel.
“It’s of absolute importance to me that this story stays in the international news, so that we can keep the pressure up on the generals,” Teza Oo said, clearly frustrated that he was no longer able to play his part in making that happen. “I feel it’s my duty to help document these events and get the information out of the country but, at the end of the day, I must also think of my family and keep them safe.”
Without being able to go to the delta, foreign journalists had to rely on secondary sources. A friend from Bangkok, who was in Rangoon filing for a daily in Europe, regularly did the rounds at NGO offices and UN agencies, but she still wasn’t able to gather many concrete answers. I accompanied her one day when she went to meet a spokeswoman for ECHO, the European Commission’s humanitarian aid office. The European Commission has a small office in the unlikely setting of the Kandawgyi Palace Hotel, a fanciful construction of intricately carved teak roofs set in a small jungle alongside the lake. The offices are located in several hotel guest rooms where the beds have been removed and replaced with office furniture. We were ushered into a guest-room-turned-meeting-room by a spokeswoman who seemed harried and overloaded. “To be quite frank, we haven’t been able to get an overview of the situation and assess what the needs are,” she told us. “It is becoming more and more difficult for our staff to get down
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