Thu, 11 Oct 2007

It is now clear that the regime was techno-savvy, patient and thorough

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:

• Junta hunts dissidents on UN computers by Kenneth Denby in Rangoon for the Times
• The Real, Sad Lesson of Burma 2007 by Jeremy Wagstaff on Loose Wire

feedback ‧ archives ‧ blog ‧ website

---