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Burmese Magazine Apologizes For Pri
- Subject: Burmese Magazine Apologizes For Pri
- From: strider@xxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 22 Jul 1994 18:53:00
Subject: Burmese Magazine Apologizes For Princess Article
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A magazine believed to be published by Burmese military intelligence has
apologized for an insulting reference to Thailand's Princess Sirindhorn. The
June issue of Myetkhin'thit (translated as The New Grasslands or The New
Sward) apologized for an insult published in its February issue. A rough
translation of the apology is reproduced here:
>From the June, 1994 issue, #50
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APOLOGY
In the February 1994 issue, Myetkhin'thit #46, in Hpo Kan Kaung's
article on p. 135, column one, line 15, a conversation between
fictional characters defamed a neighboring country's state figure.
Regarding the case, Myetkhin'thit's editorial staff did not
carefully edit, thus this is our responsibility. We have already
warned the responsible person in order that this kind of incident
does not reoccur in the future.
Editorial group
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In the original article, a fictional Vietnamese character is quoted as
telling a fictional Thai character that:
Though your girl is not Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, you believe that
she is more intelligent and more patriotic. Sirindhorn is a well-
known person as she was born from the Thai King; however, if she
were born from an ordinary farmer or fisherman, she would have
become a prostitute.
(Myetkhin'thit, Feb. 94, p. 135)
The article was one installment in a serial and the characters were
discussing poverty in Thailand. The context was a comparison between
differing fates of a Thai girl if she were born to a poor family or the royal
family.
As a rule, Thais take great offence to demeaning references to the Royal
Family, and especially to one as popular as Princess Sirindhorn. A brief
mention of the article was made in the May 11 issue of Asiaweek:
Thai-Myanmar ties stand to freeze over once a Burmese publication's
attacks on Thailand, its social system and, most shockingly, a
princess go public. One respected royal recently visited Myanmar
[Princess Sirindhorn visited Shan State in early 94]. Observers
say the slanderous item in the magazine Myetkhin'thit could not
have appeared without knowledge of government censors. Why would
SLORC want to bash one of its few global supporters; especially a
nation it's banking on to get it observer status in ASEAN? One
explanation may be anger over alleged Thai poaching of Myanmar fish
and lumber.
page 2
When news of the article came out, no official statement was issued by the
Thai government but a Foreign Ministry source privately stated that the issue
was "resolved."
In a 1993 report by the PEN American Center detailing censorship in Burma,
described Myetkhin'thit this way:
There is one recent newcomer to the publishing scene that does not
have to contend with the multiple obstacles of checks on authors,
the filling in of forms with biographical details of all
contributors, predistribution scrutiny, silver-inking, or torn-out
or glued-together pages: This is a new monthly literary magazine
called Myet-khin-thit (A New Sward). In early 1990, a group of
students that had fled to the Indian border returned and gave a
press conference during which one of them, U Soe Hla Thin,
expressed a wish to start a magazine in which they would reveal
their experiences. Shortly after, Myet-khin-thit appeared, edited
by a certain Hpo Kan Kaung. This person is suspected of being a
military intelligence official who had been detailed to join the
fleeing students and then "return to the legal fold: with them as
part of his duties. The first issue of this magazine carried the
supposedly true story of Papima, a girl student who went to the
jungle with a group of friends, and who had her morals, her world,
and finally her life destroyed by contact with the evils of Bangkok
and the Karen National Union and the Democratic Alliance of Burma
rebel forces in the jungle. The story, intended to persuade those
who took part in the democracy movement to abandon their struggle,
has since been made into a lengthy TV file and is shown at frequent
intervals on Burmese television.
Myet-khin-thit is characterized by stories that criticize and
attack the student movement, written supposedly by students from
Rangoon University or the Rangoon Institute of Technology. It also
frequently features articles that describe in minute detail rape,
corruption, and murder in foreign countries, with the aim of
discrediting these very countries that are calling on the SLORC to
respect the rights of Burmese citizens.
Anna J. Allott,
"Inked Over, Ripped Out: Burmese Storytellers and the Censors"
A PEN American Center Freedom-to-Write Report.
PEN American Center: New York, NY. 1993 (p. 19)
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