Websites provide crucial links in Myanmar cyclone crisis
Expatriates work with volunteers inside to leak out news, often beating the mainstream media.
BEIJING — When the cyclone hit her homeland a week ago, Mya Moeswe was frantic about her sister back in Myanmar. Thousands of miles away in Vancouver, Canada, the 38-year-old mechanical engineer sobbed as she tried over and over to get through the downed telephone lines.
Desperate for information, she turned to network television and other mainstream media, only to find them overly broad. The one thing that spoke to her as she faced the void was the network of expatriate Burmese websites stocked with invaluable, up-close details that helped her make sense of the devastation before her sister finally called with the news that she had lost a roof but was otherwise OK.
"These sites are hugely important for us," Mya Moeswe said. "It's often the only thing we know."
Acting as newsstand, town hall, bulletin board and cheerleader, these virtual communities have played a vital role in easing anxieties in the last week, managing to evade the long arm of Myanmar's cyber-police and thwart an isolated, repressive regime to bring news and personal information to the world.
Myanmar, also known as Burma, has one of the world's most censored media, according to the New York-based watchdog group Committee to Protect Journalists, with a tightly controlled official press and Internet filtering that blocks Google and Yahoo e-mail, the BBC and the expatriate websites.
In this environment, news gathering for the expatriate websites is done by informal networks of a few to several hundred volunteers in Myanmar sending out stories, tidbits, video clips and photos through Internet cafes, public phones or with departing travelers.
Some are given equipment and a few hours in reporting basics; others find their own way. Although the journalistic standards vary widely, some even call police stations and government officials for comments or a response.
In September, when pro-democracy monks led protests against the regime, the ragtag bands of news gatherers often had the best footage of the events.
In this crisis, their role has been less newsworthy. But with power and Internet blackouts, an information vacuum and the official 22,000 death toll expected to rise sharply, their role has been more invaluable personally to the estimated 3 million to 5 million Burmese living overseas.
"The diaspora media has been critical," said Aung Naing Oo, a political analyst in Thailand. "By using traditional networks of friends, they were able to get firsthand information about the cyclone."
