Timor Experience
By U AC
Timeline
Timor Press Council, with funding from UNDP, organized the Dili Dialogue Forum in the capital city of Dili from 25 and 26 August 2022. The Forum is titled Media Challenges in Timor Leste and South East Asia. Representatives from members of the South East Asia Press Council (SEA-PC) were also invited to participate. I was selected to represent Myanmar Press Council (MPC). SEA-PC comprised five countries – Indonesia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Timor Leste.
The trip was long and arduous as Timor does not have much international flight connectivity. From Yangon to Bangkok, overnight in Bangkok, then to Bali and overnight again in Bali. An early morning flight from Bali landed me in the capital of Timor on the 24th. After checking into the hotel, I together with other participants from Thailand and the Philippines were picked up to visit the offices of the Timor Press Council. We had a brief meeting, took a few photos and discussed the agenda for the upcoming two days of the forum. Timor Press Council did say they together with attendees long to hear about the happenings in Myanmar. The agenda was also altered from being a panel concept to one where each country represents their own state of affairs.
The change from panel to presentation meant I have to work through the night to gather data and sufficient content for presentation slides. I was representing the country and MPC and was determined to do my very best to ensure that all the falsehoods and misinformation about my country are addressed in the presentation.
The Forum
I have a chance to present in the middle of the first day of the forum. The presentation comprised of the events leading to the change of government, terror statistics of 2021, the reasons why terrorism would fail, NLD as the party of the corrupt, the negative impact of Facebook and fake news, the current state of the economy and the analytics to show things are on the uptrend.
Some of the participants did congratulate me for speaking out on the facts that they never expect to read from fake news media outlets or anti-Myanmar propaganda groups.
Ex-forum
The return trip was as long, with an overnight stay in Bangkok, through Bali, Indonesia.
A couple of weeks after arrival, a press conference was organized to brief the local media on the work done by MPC during the World Press Councils assembly in Kenya and Dili Dialogue Forum.
The Aftermath
A few days after the press conference, unlawful news channels outside of Myanmar started producing fake news and slanders, regarding especially, my factual presentation in Timor. Probably as a result of a few press conference invitees, reporting back to their rebel and terrorist counterparts outside of Myanmar, a few of my quotes were taken out of context, especially since the presentation was in English.
Then a series of fake news invaded the internet, led by illegal outlets such as Kit Thit, Mizzima, etc.
Not being able to counter facts, they went on to attack the person delivering the content, putting in lies and slanders to diminish my character. This also resulted in lots of death threats to me in the comments section as well as on subsequent sharing pages. Ensuing misinformation included myself running away, being banned from certain countries and calling me and not picking up the calls. None of that was true, of course. I have forwarded these death threats, fake news and false personal slanders with evidence to international press councils as well as some established Asia media channels.
Where Timorese Get it Wrong
These illicit media groups and terror supporters did write to Timor Press Council and persons such as Jim Nolan, who has fallen prey to lies from fake news channels. They decided to believe in the fake news outlets, exile groups and their agenda and wrote and issued statements raising objections to the presentations and proceeding to the extent of barring me from future forums and invitations in Timor.
As Martin Luther King said, ‘The arch of the moral universe is long, but in the end, it bends towards justice’. Now with time passed by, history has been written. Cheating in the 2020 elections is undeniable. The corrupt officials of the previous administration are now in jail. Terrorist activities supported by fake news agencies above and exile groups are now at rock bottom. I just hope that in five- or ten-years’ time, those who supported these groups and rejected the present Myanmar government’s facts, would be courageous enough to stand up and said, they supported these specific exiled terrorist groups and did as they were told.
Final Analysis
One famous Chinese philosopher (Xun Zi) during the late Warring States Period has said, “One should not be seduced by praise, nor should one fear opprobrium”. By speaking out the truth, I believed I have given my country the honour it deserved. To be able to stand tall and speak with our fear or favour. The international community deserved to know the truth about Myanmar, regardless of the impact on me. I can cower by talking about covid and the training that we have been giving to Myanmar journalists and avoid all the hammering, or I can choose to honour and prioritize the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. (The former contents were still presented in the last slide of my presentation)
Democracy is the right of the people of all countries, not the prerogative of a few nations. Whether a country is democratic should be judged by its own people, not by a handful of meddlesome outsiders. There is no uniform or single model of democracy; it comes in many forms. It is undemocratic itself to measure the world’s diverse political systems against a single criterion or to view the colourful political civilizations of humanity from a single perspective. (Xi Jinping)
The video recording of the presentation and PowerPoint slides at the forum, as well as the presentation slides at the subsequent press conference, can be found at https:// drive.google.com/drive/folders/1WRBEYw0iHsYEmfE4vplMPmMNBIUaKjkN?usp=sharing
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