Flap over Asean Press Conference

By YENI
The Irrawaddy News

It was sad to learn that about 20 Burmese journalists encountered difficulties and felt slighted when they tried to attend a scheduled press conference organized by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) in Rangoon on June 24 at the Chatrium Hotel, following a meeting of the Asean Roundtable with the Post-Nargis Joint Assessment for Response, Recovery and Reconstruction team (PONJA). The PONJA group is made up of UN, Asean and Burmese representatives.

According to local Burmese journalists who is a correspondent for an international news agency, when they asked to cover the roundtable meeting, officials told them a press conference was scheduled at 6 pm. When the Burmese journalists returned that evening, Asean officials placed them in a room on the hotel’s 9th floor.

However, Burmese journalists who were not on a list of invited journalist were then told by organizers that they could not attend the press conference. After a brief discussion, the Burmese journalists left the room. Asian reporters from four Asian news agencies were allowed to remain in the room, said the local journalists.

What happened next is unclear. See the letter to the editor of The Irrawaddy from Asean Sec-Gen Surin Pitsuwan’s special representative and Surin’s commentary article, “Asean Came in Full Force.”

Apparently, the press conference was cancelled. The Burmese journalists who told The Irrawaddy about their perceived slight, were apparently unaware the press conference was not held.

Probably, canceling the press conference was the easiest response to a potentially delicate matter between PONJA and the Burmese junta, which wants the local press to toe its line in all matters. Or maybe a press conference was never scheduled. In Burma, the unknown is often all that is known. At any rate, the Burmese journalists told The Irrawaddy they felt discriminated against.

Meanwhile, the Singapore ambassador to Burma, Robert H K Chua, and Daniel Baker, a UN official, met with members of the local Burmese media in a separate room in the hotel and discussed the Asean Roundtable briefing.


According to Sec-Gen Pitsuwan, Asean took almost a month for the junta to invite a few members of Asean media into Burma to report on what the UN, Asean and Burmese representatives were doing to respond to the cyclone and the needs of cyclone victims. Surin wanted more international coverage by big media outlets, because, he said, "very little real news and information of our efforts were reported to the outside world."

Surin was right in one regard. The international media outlets had almost no access to the delta, where the story was unfolding. As a result, they lacked access to the hard facts and the emotions that told the story.

But Surin was also wrong. Some of the Burmese journalists who felt they were slighted by PONJA officials, were the ones who successfully told the tale of the refugees’ plight, starting only days after the cyclone struck.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists praised the local Burmese reporters: "Their reporting often uncovers previously undiscovered areas of need, and they help keep the international community of donors informed of conditions on the ground."

It’s sad that the best reporting from the delta came from Burmese journalists whose stories appeared mostly in exiled media, to be picked up by international news agencies around the world, and not in the local Burmese media. The journalists were driven to tell the story by a sense of professional duty and a personal awareness of the scale of the suffering. They knew the best way to get the real story to the Burmese people was to write for the exiled Burmese media.

They, like Surin, wanted the story told. Journalists everywhere—whether international or local—should be allowed to do their work without governmental interference.