May 19, 2008
Burma supplement strikes fear in government.
Burma supplement strikes fear in government.
The Cambodian government on Monday confiscated the Cambodia Daily newspaper from newsstands over a supplement called The Burma Daily, the Information Ministry and the newspaper’s publisher said.
The official ministry explanation was that the confiscation was ordered because The Burma Daily, which had appeared since last week as a four-page insert with an identical masthead as its sister publication, was not licensed.
But publisher Bernard Krisher argued that the paper did not need a license because it was a supplement and the decision to confiscate the English- and Khmer-language daily, which has a circulation of about 5,000, reflected badly on the government.
He vowed to continue to print The Burma Daily for several more days as planned even if it were confiscated. After its printing is finished, it is to become an online and mail publication for distribution in Myanmar.
“The Burma Daily has no political agenda,” he said by telephone. “It is designed to introduce to the Myanmarese people what a free and responsible newspaper looks like.”
The speculation is that the government is worried that the Cambodia Daily will, if it hasn’t already, print embarrassing revelations about the Burmese government, thus causing a fast ally to lose face.
It’s hard to imagine a more wickedly craven betrayal of the Burmese people. Tens of thousands are dying needlessly in Burma. The ruling junta is stealing emergency aid meant for their dying citizens. And Hun Sen is afraid to let somebody say something about it? That’s reprehensible.
For Cambodians who sometimes wonder how the world could sit by and do nothing as Pot Pol killed millions, you now have an answer.
In a high-minded ‘Letter from the Publisher’ Krishner said he hopes the paper will be circulated in Myanmar, “as are other international media, like the International Herald Tribune and news weeklies.” [...]
It appears that Krishner perhaps doesn’t have a full grasp of the realities of distributing anything in Myanmar, and the international papers he refers to are often withheld if they contain contentious material about the pariah nation, or sometimes offending pages are simply torn out. Krishner reacted strongly to the emergence of the new Phnom Penh Post, and news of its intention to go head-to-head with the Cambodia daily by becoming daily itself in early July. [...]
Speculation n Phnom Penh is that part of the motivation behind The Burma Daily is simply revenge, a get-back at Ross Dunkley who is publisher of both the Phnom Penh Post and the Myanmar Times, by bating him to the punch to start up a daily on his own patch.
Oh, brother.
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