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Cover Jobs Offer Some Protection for Myanmar’s Lone Reporters

February 23, 2024/in News

WASHINGTON — One works as a teacher. Others pretend to be students and shopkeepers. In Myanmar, their day jobs help mask their real profession as journalists. With the space for independent journalism all but eliminated since the February 2021 military coup, some journalists still working inside Myanmar are using cover jobs as a form of […]

Food Shortage in Sagaing Rice Basket as Myanmar Junta Raids Force 50,000 to Flee

February 22, 2024/in News

Some 50,000 people have been displaced in Sagaing Region’s Shwebo District since Myanmar junta troops resumed deadly attacks on their villages last month, according to residents and volunteers helping displaced people. The total number of residents displaced since the 2021 coup now exceeds 70,000 in Shwebo, where rice fields are lying fallow amid a growing […]

Cover Jobs Offer Some Protection for Myanmar’s Lone Reporters

February 23, 2024/in News

Food Shortage in Sagaing Rice Basket as Myanmar Junta Raids Force 50,000 to Flee

February 22, 2024/in News

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Cover Jobs Offer Some Protection for Myanmar’s Lone Reporters

February 23, 2024/in News

WASHINGTON —

One works as a teacher. Others pretend to be students and shopkeepers. In Myanmar, their day jobs help mask their real profession as journalists.

With the space for independent journalism all but eliminated since the February 2021 military coup, some journalists still working inside Myanmar are using cover jobs as a form of protection.

The trend underscores both the resiliency of Myanmar media and the threats posed by the country’s military, analysts say.

Since the military overthrew the civilian-led government over three years ago, the junta has cracked down hard on independent media, with over a dozen outlets banned and even more journalists jailed.

The risky environment prompted entire outlets to flee into exile and forced some journalists to stop working entirely. But some reporters decided to stay in Myanmar, where they report underground at great risk to their safety.

“We can be arrested by the military at any time,” one journalist secretly working inside Myanmar told VOA. They requested anonymity for safety reasons.

“Since the coup, I have already told people around me that I will no longer work as a journalist,” said the reporter. Instead, they use the cover of being a student studying foreign languages.

Another journalist in Myanmar said they convinced people in their town “that I abandoned journalist work.” A job as a teacher helps hide that they still work as a reporter.

From Exile, Myanmar’s Media Navigate Risks to Get News

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Like all the journalists inside Myanmar who spoke with VOA for this article, they requested their identity be hidden for safety reasons.

With a history punctuated by periods of military rule, Myanmar’s media already had a playbook for creative ways to continue reporting and stay safe.

The trend of cover jobs is the latest sign “that Myanmar journalists do not want to give up easily,” a journalist who fled Myanmar after the coup and is now based in Bangkok told VOA.

Despite being outside Myanmar, they requested anonymity for fear of retaliation.

In 2023, Myanmar ranked second in the world in terms of the number of journalists jailed over their work, with at least 43 behind bars, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ.

Journalists in Myanmar say they believe the arrests are intended to silence media.

“The junta wants the country to be in darkness, and they don’t want the world to know the real situation in the country,” the teacher-journalist said. “This is the reason why the junta tries to arrest journalists.”

The targeting of journalists parallels the military’s repression of the entire population. The Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners says the military and its affiliated groups are responsible for over 4,500 deaths, and that more than 20,000 people are currently detained for resisting the coup.

Myanmar’s military did not reply to VOA’s request for comment.

Tom Andrews, the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, says media inside the country take big risks.

“Journalists literally take their lives in their hands to do their work in Myanmar,” Andrews told VOA shortly before the third anniversary of the coup.

“The level of courage and commitment demonstrated by journalists working in Myanmar is just stunning and inspiring,” he said.

As recently as January, a journalist named Myat Thu Tan was shot and killed while in military custody in Myanmar’s Rakhine State.

A third journalist still inside the country said reporters “are the most wanted persons.”

That journalist, who also asked for anonymity, is pretending to be a student studying foreign languages.

Among the numerous challenges of working undercover is a sense of isolation. The fear of being discovered by the military means they sometimes don’t even talk to other reporters in the country.

“Local journalists live in silence, so it is difficult to know each other,” said one of the journalists, with a cover as a student.

Keeping a secret life for years at a time is also exhausting, experts say.

“They have to hide themselves from friends and family. They have to basically create an entire second life while trying to very subtly do their part in the revolution against the military,” Oliver Spencer, a Chiang Mai-based expert on press freedom in Myanmar, told VOA.

The journalists, however, say being able to keep reporting inside Myanmar makes it worth it. The journalist who works as a teacher said they get a better sense of public opinion.

“If there are no journalists in the country, the junta will surely do what they want,” they said.

Voa News

Food Shortage in Sagaing Rice Basket as Myanmar Junta Raids Force 50,000 to Flee

February 22, 2024/in News

The total number of residents displaced since the 2021 coup now exceeds 70,000 in Shwebo, where rice fields are lying fallow amid a growing food shortage.

A junta unit calling itself the Ogre Column has been raiding the district’s townships of Shwebo, Ye-U, Khin-U, Taze and Depayin since a ceasefire was agreed in neighboring Shan State in January.

Over 20,000 people displaced by junta raids between 2021 and December last year remain homeless. Over 20,000 more were displaced when junta troops raided their villages in January.

Junta forces have deployed the notorious “four cuts” strategy – designed to cut off food sources, funds, information and recruits – in the resistance hotbed of Sagaing.

On Wednesday, around 30,000 people from some 40 villages in western Taze fled when the regime called in airstrikes and infantry reinforcements, a member of the Shwebo District people’s administration told The Irrawaddy.

Displaced people in Shwebo Township. / Depayin Township displaced people support group

The junta onslaught came after the People’s Defense Force (PDF) seized and torched the Kan Htoo Ma village police station, between Taze and Ye-U towns, where around 30 junta soldiers and Pyu Saw Htee militias had been deployed.

Shwebo District is a rice-growing area where the country’s most popular variety, Shwebo Pawhsan, is cultivated. However, junta raids have disrupted summer paddy cultivation, sparking food shortages.

“These days, we spend more time fleeing from our homes than sleeping there. We can stay at home no more than five days in a month. And then we live in constant fear that soldiers will arrive in the village at any time. This is the time to grow summer paddy, but we can do nothing,” said a displaced villager from Ye-U Township.

Locals in Taze Township said they are unable to grow summer paddy due to the raids, adding they dare not sleep in their homes as junta troops tend to come at night.

“People flee because junta troops kill, rape, amputate and burn alive civilians during their raids,” said a member of a support group for displaced people in Depayin Township.

“And with the cold season not yet over, the cold nights mean displaced people need blankets. They also need food.”

Junta air raids in Taze Township killed a 60-year-old man and injured two travelers and a local woman on Feb. 14-15.

On Monday, junta troops backed by airstrikes clashed with local resistance fighters on the border of Taze and Ye-U, said information officer Ko Htoo Kant Zaw of the People’s Defense Comrades.

In Shwebo Township, Pyu Saw Htee militias from Myinsee village killed a three-year-old boy, a 25-year-old pregnant woman, three women aged 52, 62, 75, and a man, 62, on Feb. 15-16, according to local resistance groups.

Myinsee is one of eight junta-armed Pyu Saw Htee villages in Shwebo Township.

Ogre Column troops killed 14 civilians including a pregnant woman during raids in Ye-U, Khin-U and Depayin townships between early January and Feb. 12, according to residents. One resistance fighter was also killed in Ye-U.

The Shwebo raids involve troops from Light Infantry Battalion 708 based in Yangon Region’s Taikkyi Township, Infantry Battalion 11 based in Ayeyarwady’s Pathein Township, No. 8 Basic Military Training Depot based in Shwebo town, and pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militias.

Shwebo District suffered fewer raids during the anti-regime Operation 1027 offensive from November to early January in northern Shan State. However, junta forces intensified their attacks on Sagaing villages after the ethnic Brotherhood Alliance agreed to a ceasefire with the regime in Shan State in mid-January.

Irrawaddy News

Spring Revolution

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ND Burma

ND-Burma formed in 2004 in order to provide a way for Burma human rights organizations to collaborate on the human rights documentation process. The 13 ND-Burma member organizations seek to collectively use the truth of what communities in Burma have endured to advocate for justice for victims. ND-Burma trains local organizations in human rights documentation; coordinates members’ input into a common database using Martus, a secure open-source software; and engages in joint-advocacy campaigns.

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From Exile, Myanmar’s Media Navigate Risks to Get News

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