“What bloody country could I have become editor in with such a small investment? Sure the government backed me. I said to them: hey, your international image is not that great. Maybe I can help you”. So says Ross Dunkley, the Australian director and editor of The Myanmar Times, the only Burmese newspaper targeting the outside world.
On 10th February, Ross was arrested in Rangoon on immigration charges. He is also reported as having been charged with consorting with prostitutes and marijuana possession. Ross is being held at Insein prison, a place where political adversaries are detained and tortured. His hearing is set for 24th February. If found guilty, he risks up to five years in jail.
Up to last Thursday this big, bald-headed Australian could call himself a lucky man. He had always managed to get on in a country where the worst nightmares can come true in a rude awakening.
In fact, Ross had made a deal with the devil. His Mephistopheles was Khyn Nyunt. In 2000, when Ross launched The Myanmar Times, the operation was approved by the then first secretary of the military junta and military intelligence commander. That’s why, when I asked Ross how he was coping with the censorship (I’m still amazed by how ingenuous the question was), he replied: “I said: I could be more useful to you if the newspaper weren’t subject to the standard censorship, Military Intelligence control would be more appropriate”.
At the time of our meeting, General Nyunt was prime minister and Ross had the benefit of full protection: he was the man presenting the human face of the junta to the West. A few months later, though, the General was removed from office “for health reasons”, then arrested for corruption and sentenced to 44 years in jail at Insein. Some say that he was later placed under house arrest, but no one really knows where he has ended up.
A few years later I met Ross again. He was still fighting fit and busier than ever. In the meantime he had made other deals with other devils. The first with “Sonny” Myant Swe, the son of General Thein Swe, who in 2005 was head of the department of international relations at the Military Secret Service. Then the Swe family also fell out of favour and ended up in jail. Ross then made a deal with doctor Tin Tun Oo, a local tycoon who had links with the junta.
The problem is that Dr. Oo has not been disgraced. On the contrary, he has become a member of the Union Solidarity and Development Party, the “democratic” side of the junta. So when discussions began over the running of The Myanmar Times editing company (which in the meantime had started other publications in South East Asia), it was time for Ross to suffer for his past deals. This is the view taken by many local observers and by his partner and fellow countryman David Armstrong.
Maybe Ross wound up in jail because he thought times really had changed and that in Burma there was room for discussion (which insults his intelligence). More probably, his bosses in the authorities thought they didn’t need him, or his help improving the country’s image, anymore. They seem to be convinced of having initiated a country on its way to a new era, a new system and a new political platform towards democracy. “Discipline-flourishing”, as General Than Shwe, the real Lucifer of Burma, puts it, but still democracy.
Some western newspapers will have you believe that the Burmese and Than Shwe have achieved their goal. This deprives many people of strong outside support and puts them at risk. Not Ross though. He will probably, and hopefully, be alright. But what of the over 2000 political prisoners held at Insein jail and at other detection centres across Myanmar? They have been there for years and will probably remain there. Forgotten.
Once again, it’s the world that’s making a deal with the devil. So how can we condemn Ross? Let’s not, however, turn him into a martyr.