Laughter only way to cope with Burmese surveillance madness

In the surveillance state of Myanmar a simple encounter is a complicated business. Nobody knows which telephone lines have been tapped, or when or who is being watched. The people are cautious.

The taxi driver knows the cafe and starts immediately. "Bloody government, they are all thieves," he complains. "Filthy rich, and we have nothing." He says he backs opposition figure Aung San Suu Kyi.

"Do you want to see where she lives?" he asks. One has to be careful. Taxi drivers waiting for guests at tourist hostels could be informants. Is he trying to provoke his customers to find out whether the western guests are not just interested in tourist attractions, as they pretend? 

The best is to feign ignorance. To the present reporter's bored question: "Who is Suu Kyi?" he replies: "The democracy-lady." The Nobel Peace Prize winner has gained cult status in Myanmar. Everybody knows her.

As his customer doesn't show any further interest in her and instead asks for the best place to take a picture of the famous Shwedagon Padoga, the taxi driver abandons the topic. He laughs disarmingly, like a lot of people do here. It's the only way to survive the daily madness of the surveillance state.

The pagoda can only be photographed through the barbed wire. All the streets leading up to the pagoda are blocked.

Initially, the spiritual landmark of the deeply Buddhist country was the centre of the protests against the military regime. Things changed a week ago, when the police and the military came with bats and teargas, and the regime imposed a curfew.

The demonstrators were not particularly active at night. "They want to do their dirty business undisturbed," the dissident says, referring to the regime.

At night, the regime's henchmen arrive. During the first curfew, they attacked the monks. At 1 a.m. the army stopped at several monasteries and woke the men, hitting them with bats.

"Even the worst commanders are fairly religious," a restaurant owner in Yangun says. "That is why they hesitated to detain the monks. They forced them into civilian clothes before they took them away." 

More than 300 monks are said to be missing. Nobody knows where they are. In the second night, the raids became more serious.

"When the soldiers arrive, the monks hit their metal plates with spoons to raise alarm. Then, the entire neighbourhood gathered to protect them," the cafe owner reported about events in her own neighbourhood. The soldiers then retreated without fighting.

The internet has not been working for days, and the telephone lines, especially those of regime critics, all of a sudden went dead.But gossip spreads quickly.

"Every morning before we start working, the whole crew shares their news from the different areas of the city," the head of a German aid organisation says.

"The result is pretty accurate, most of the time," she says. On the street, the drivers shout the news through their open windows. When a bus from downtown passes the hotel, the guards immediately call: "What's going on down there?" 

False rumours don't survive for long, like the one that two army divisions had laid down their arms. Even diplomats had heard about it, but it quickly died.

Meanwhile, normal life continues in a city which has members of the military stationed on every corner. People are selling, buying, working, children are playing, eating.

Those who have spent years in the regime's prisons are naturally alert, such as the writer who was sentenced to three years for spreading propaganda against the government. He has come to the hotel and is talking to visitors in a corner of the hotel's cafe.

It's not the nosy foreigners who are in danger, but the locals who talk to them. Sometimes they are taken to be questioned afterwards.

"In jail I realised what a good liar I am," the man, who appears to be in his sixties, says. "Don't worry, I know how to talk to them." These people are prepared to take the risk because they want their country's situation to be on the news.

One can also read about the political situation in the state newspaper New Light Of Myanmar. "Government builds democratic nation with prospering discipline," the junta's mouthpiece titles.

Activists are libelled as traitors, aid organisations as terror backers and the BBC and other foreign broadcasters are portrayed as saboteurs. The newspaper has become a joke.

The local population has an amazing sensitivity for who might be an informer, where one can meet undisturbed and when it's better to stay at home. The naive visitor on the other hand scents danger everywhere.

A meeting doesn't take place, although everything had been arranged in detail. The other party is waiting nervously, attempting to stay calm, then finally calls anxiously, trying to figure out what might have happened - in encrypted language.

Finally, after a 53-minute eternity, the person shows up. "I am so sorry, my alarm clock is broken, I overslept," he says and laughs.//DPA