1. The red pen campaign
There has been a significant and celebrated change in how private
sector newspapersand journalscan cover the election compared with
fiveyears ago.
The election campaign had begun and the kyatwas makingnews but no
one was reading about it. It was September 2010 and pre-publication
censorship was ensuringthat election news wasbeing subjected to
rigorousscrutiny. Asusual, some stories were being rejected in their
entirety.
One was about a sudden and unexpected strengtheningof the kyat
against the US dollar. It wassubmitted to the censors by the Myanmar
Times, where I was workingas foreign newseditor. I was also compiling
a record of rejected or mutilated stories that I’d begun the previous
month when the governmentannounced thatthe election would be held
on November 7. Asthe Myanmar Timesand all other privatesector
journalswereto learn in the comingweeks, any story that touched on
the country’sfirstparliamentary election since 1960 wasalmost certain
to be cut or rejected. The censors never gavereasons for wieldingtheir
red pens, even if asked, and wecould only speculate about the necessary
instructionsthat may have informed their decisions.
The kyatstory mentioned pre-election currency hoardingas a possible
reason why it had strengthened from 975 to the dollar on September 6
to 910 three dayslater. Other reasons given in the story for the rise in
the valueof the kyat included repercussionsfrom Myanmar’s closureof
the Myawaddy-MaeSotborder tradingpoint and capital raising by four
new banks. The report quoted a Yangon economist, U Khin MaungNyo,
as saying a major reason behind the strengthening of the kyat wasa
general businessslowdown becauseof the election and the closure of
the border (because of a disputewith Thailand over an embankmentit
was buildingon the Moei River, which formsthe frontier. The
Myawaddy-MaeSotborder crossing did not reopen until December 5,
2011). Perhaps the juntawas sensitive to the consequencesof the
decision to close the border and its effect on tradewith Thailand. The
reportalso quoted the chairman of the Crab Entrepreneurs’Association,
U Hninn Oo, as sayingmany exportershad suffered financially from the

2. border closure, includingthose dealingin rice, seafood and beans and
pulses.
Not surprisingly, the launchof the election campaign was lead story in
the September 13, 2010, edition of the Myanmar Times. It was
published remarkably intact, though the three minor cuts were
mystifying. Onewas a quote by U Ye Tun, chairman of the 88 Generation
StudentYouths (Union of Myanmar), that someof the party’scandidates
had to sell property to raise fundsfor campaigning. Another was a
commentby National Democratic Force chairman Dr Than Nyein about
its prospectsin the election. The censors cut an admission by Dr Than
Nyein that the NDFwould “struggle to emulate the NLD’s success” in
1990, when the party led by Daw AungSan Suu Kyi won 392 of 492
seats in the election for a constituent assembly. The final cut resonates
with concerns permeatingthe campaign this year. It was a commentby
Dr Than Nyein that one of the two factors on which the success of the
NDFwould depend was“whether the authorities concerned are eager to
make the comingelection a free and fair one”. It was a prescient
concern. They weren’tand it wasn’t.
Although censorship decisionswere often difficultto comprehend, cuts
could be expected in any story about membersof the junta or its
activities. A reportin the September 13 edition about a visit to Chinaby
juntaleader Senior GeneralThan Shwe was no exception. The Agence
France-Presse despatchcovered his high-level talks in Beijing before
travelling to Shanghai to visit the World Expo.
It included a sentence that began by saying: “China has longsupported
Myanmar throughtrade ties, investmentsin its large naturalresources
…” and from which wascut “… armssales and by shielding it from UN
sanctions as a veto-wieldingmember of the Security Council”.
Facts of history could also have the censorsseeing red. The next
sentence began, “In return, Chinais assured of a stable neighbour and
access to raw materials such as teak and gems from Myanmar …“ and
from which wasexcised “… which has been ruled by the military since
1962”.
Geoffrey Goddard hasworked inAustralia and Asia for more than40
yearsand had variousrolesat the Myanmar Timesbetween2001 and
2013.