"Inside Burma:
Land of Fear" shown in San Francisco

By Jared M. Saylor

The military government in Burma intended to attract visitors and tourists in 1996, which they heralded as "Visit Myanmar Year." Using the forced labor of prisoners, political dissidents and children, officials attempted to create a prime market for wealthy western and Japanese tourists intent on seeing the beauty and culture of this secluded land.

But what they didn't account for was the presence of an accomplished and ambitious journalist from the United Kingdom named John Pilger.

Pilger, in conjunction with the Network First series in the U.K. produced a documentary titled "Inside Burma: Land of Fear" which aired in 1996. In October of 2000, this documentary was screened in San Francisco as the first event of the recently reorganized Bay Area Burma Roundtable.

The BABR, a non-profit organization created by former Burmese students and activists living in the Bay Area, seeks to intensify awareness of the junta's atrocities against the Burmese people. Formed in 1994 and disbanded in 1997, the BABR has reinvented itself with the showing of the 45-minute film and plans to hold monthly forums in San Francisco.

Pilger begins "Inside Burma" by explaining the secrecy required in filming the documentary, which often resulted in minimal lighting and sound. Secrecy was a prerequisite for many interviews with students and citizens who, by describing their experiences, risked arrest for speaking publicly against the junta.

Pilger documents not only the brutal repression that halted Burma's surging democracy movement in 1988, but also the continuing use of forced labor. He films workers bound in chains and shackles, breaking rocks or clearing roadways to prepare for the growth of the tourism trade. He reveals that an entire village was displaced by the arrival of a country club and golf course for use by Japanese businessmen.

Tourism is a major focus of the film. Burmese government officials recognized the potential revenue to be gained by reconstructing many of Burma's crumbling national relics. According to Dr. Naw Angelem, Burma's Director of Tourism, the labor used was completely voluntary.

However, Pilger captures a different story. He interviews an Australian lawyer traveling to Burma with his wife to investigate the destruction of Burma's forests who unexpectedly witnessed some 30 workers in chains and shackles breaking rocks near his hotel.

Pilger captures children no older than nine packing mortar to make bricks. In a poignant sequence, a young child pulls wet clay from a mill grinder moving only inches above his head. Suddenly an older youth pushing a wheelbarrow loses his balance and accidentally covers the boy in hundreds of pounds of wet clay. Speaking over the scene, Pilger states that he and his photographer stopped filming in order to save the young boy from suffocation.

The documentary provides compelling historical context, tracing Burma's colonization by the British back to the 19th century and giving a brief overview of the Japanese occupation during World War II.

He also details the movement for an independent government under the brief leadership of General Aung San, whose assassination in 1947 led ultimately to the rise of a military dictatorship that still controls Burma's government today.

Sitting along the White Bridge in Rangoon, Pilger describes the protests that engulfed the city on August 8, 1988. Finally speaking out after 26 years of military dictatorship, a coalition of students, monks, workers and professionals opposed the country's precipitous economic decline, calling for freedom and a multi-party system. Much of the footage shown in the documentary came from amateur photographers and cameramen present during the protests, in which an estimated 3000 people were killed and many more injured.

Pilger was also able to sneak a camera into the home of Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the National League for Democracy and the most outspoken opponent of the military regime. In July of 1989, Suu Kyi, the daughter of Aung San, was placed under house arrest, accused of "nurturing public hatred for the army." Her party won an overwhelming victory against the military dictatorship in May of 1990, but the dictatorship nullified election results.

Suu Kyi details the difficulties of her house arrest, which prevented her communication with her British husband Michael Aris and her two young sons. She also addresses the current state of democracy in Burma saying, "I am convinced that Burma is headed towards democracy because it is what the people want and because of what the people are doing, not because of investors or any other reason."

She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her efforts to establish democracy in Burma and for raising international awareness of the human rights violations there.

Although Suu Kyi remains optimistic about the future of Burma, she certainly is realistic about the sacrifices she and other members of the NLD must make. In March of 1999, Suu Kyi's husband died from prostate cancer in Britain. He was not granted permission by the government to visit her, though she would have been allowed to leave Myanmar to visit him. Fearing that if she were to leave she would not be permitted to return to her country, she elected to stay under house arrest.

The power of "Inside Burma: Land of Fear" issues from its dissemination of historical and political information about Burma in an understandable way. Pilger makes the atrocities committed by the government against its own people come alive in images and interviews. His concern for the future of Burma is emotional and infectious.

For more information on Burma, please click on the links below.