Thu, 11 Oct 2007
The Times' staff correspondent in Rangoon reports in
Secret
cremations hide Burma killings:
The systematic arrests have continued at night – a
convoy of lorries
and other vehicles rumbled past my hotel windows long after midnight –
initially puzzling diplomats and activists, who wondered how military
intelligence drew up its lists of those to be arrested.
The answer, it seems, was a grimly paradoxical use of the internet,
whose liberating role in disseminating images and sound of the protests
was prematurely celebrated by many as marking the world’s first
globalised on-line revolt, instantly dubbed the Saffron revolution.
It is now clear that the regime was techno-savvy, patient and thorough.
It kept the internet open long enough to allow its own cyber-operatives
to down-load the images and recordings of street protests to identify
the protesters. The internet is now shut down.
Also on Burma:
