Oct. 4, 2007
While the Burmese state media controlled and limited the amount of news it gives to the people about the protests, many blogs in Vietnamese helped spread the news.
As of today, many blogs in Vietnam and from abroad have called for widespread support of the people of Burma.
Moreover, bloggers and journalists have freely expressed their viewpoints on the way Burmese military junta have been cracking down on the monks and protesters.
The level of interest and viewpoints on this issue also varied greatly among the population, especially among the different levels of class in society and the locality of where people work.
In a BBC radio interview over the phone on 04.10.2007, Mr. Gia Kiet, a member of the Society of Independent Journalists in Vietnam, said that people like him care about the events in Burma.
And it’s not just during the most intense moments in the past week but even now, when the situation is much calmer.
Blogger Gia Kiet also informed us of the general sentiments and debate among Vietnamese youths: I have not met a person who is not sympathetic with the struggle in Burma.“This morning, when I had coffee with my friends, they asked me about the situation in Burma.”
Gia Kiet’s blog offers readers a forum to post their commentaries on the situation in Burma.
When asked if he had encountered anyone who supported the Burmese military junta, he said: “I have not met anyone who doesn’t agree with the people’s struggle in Burma. My goal is to put as much news on the blog and a few website so people knows what’s going on in Burma.”
Also according to Gia Kiet, “Vietnam’s state media is very cautious in running the news about Burma but this doesn’t surprise me at all.” Gia Kiet also said, “In my opinion, the press in Vietnam failed to fully carry out its main responsibility because 600 newspapers are state-owned and mainly serves as the mouthpiece of the Party and the government.”
When asked to comment on the difficulty of getting information from the Vietnamese media, Gia Kiet said: “When the land protesters went to Ha Noi and Sai Gon, there were no mentions of them in the news.” The media only “participates” when they needed to denounce the Venerable Thich Quang Do (of the outlawed Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam) when he came to visit the land protesters in TPHCM and only then, “readers learned of the land protests.”
