Letter to The Irrawaddy Donors-Aung Zaw

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Letter to The Irrawaddy DonorsDear Irrawaddy Donors,Firstly, thankyou to people within the various donor bodies for yourreplies, assurances and expressions of goodwill. We hope we haveanswered your questions satisfactorily.Somehow this email also ended up in the hands of three formerIrrawaddy employees, and we thank you too for your encouragement.We shall honor our pledge of confidentiality to all parties.For a long time The Irrawaddy has been unwilling or unable to tackleseriously what is taking place in regional Burma. In the country'sethnic 'horseshoe' there is an ongoing, deliberate attempt to destroyseveral entire cultures. That attempt is succeeding. Severalinternational jurists have opined that this is genocide in terms ofthe Rome Statute.One would not easily discern any of this from reading The Irrawaddy,where the catastrophe of regional Burma is downplayed. The differencein tone and content between the magazine and the written reports ofthose on−the−ground in eastern Burma − the Free Burma Rangers, theBorder Consortium, SWAN, et al − is considerable.These bodies, and many others, have taken on the role of exposing thehorrors inflicted on ethnic minorities, and on fellow Burmans, by theBurman−dominated armed forces. It sometimes appears that The Irrawaddysees its role as limiting the public relations damage to the Burmanmajority.Some of the most damning human rights reports for a generation havecentered on Burma. At the time when several of them made the frontpages of the world's newspapers, they typically drew a singleparagraph in The Irrawaddy, or were ignored entirely.Perhaps inevitably, the magazine's moral paralysis has now becomefunctional as well:· As a result of our previous circular, editing has been outsourced toBangkok − out of fear that the magazine's in−house staff are not loyalto the Editor, Aung Zaw.· The Irrawaddy's own editors now spend most of their day chatting andweb−surfing, in the absence of any work assignments.· The Editor has stated a belief that the Burmese junta is behind thepresent circulars. Notwithstanding that, a staff member presently inLondon has been instructed to look for culprits there. Another suspectis in Tokyo; yet another in Chiang Mai. In our judgment a siegementality has arisen.· The Editor has openly discussed which journalists will be fired fromthe magazine, in the presence of candidates. This is especiallyupsetting for the Burmese staff so named, as their means of support inThailand are slender.· Apparently no longer trusted, editorial staff have not been spokento by the Editor for some weeks.

· With the departure in the last two years of so many experiencedreporters and editors, and the sidelining of many of those remaining,the magazine and website now contain increasing 'filler' material:stories lifted from newspapers; two−page self−promos.· Many cover stories and major stories (in the current issue forexample) are written by outsiders, which raises the question of whythe magazine's 21 talented paid staff are not being given morechallenging assignments.We do not relish criticizing individuals, nor do we enjoy causingoffense. But The Irrawaddy's present condition may be distilled downto two items − incompetence and malfeasance − and they do in ourjudgment need to be addressed if the magazine is to have a future.This brings us again to the Editor's house in Chiang Mai. How thislavish home, worth many millions of baht, could have been built on amonthly salary of 32,000 baht is unclear. We make no claim to know.But the possibility that the home was built on funds intended tolighten the burden of some of the most oppressed people on Earth is,in our view, disturbing.Thus this substantial building project might merit investigation bythe donor bodies which may have unwittingly paid for it.There is a second reason for drawing attention once more to thisissue: justice needs to be seen to be done. Virtually every member ofThe Irrawaddy's staff has long−held suspicions as to the funding ofthe Editor's home. Those suspicions undermine their faith in theirleadership, and thus in the magazine's mission. Dissolving thosesuspicions would put to rest a long−standing and stubborn dampener onthe magazine's internal morale.In themselves, anonymous emails do not, and should not, have highcredibility. They can make wild claims which cannot be corroborated.But that is not the case here. With the exception of the above remarkson the Editor's home − which at this stage rest on circumstantialevidence − the accuracy of anything in these circulars may be gaged byspeaking to any past or current Irrawaddy employee(s), in private andin confidence.Our first circular led to extreme measures inside the magazine: entirepersonnel areas no longer communicated with; now a experienced andskillful editing staff which (unwillingly) reads magazines and websurfs on full pay, because they can no longer be trusted with theinformation which is the magazine's lifeblood.Defensiveness of this order is in our opinion more indicative thatsomething is wrong than the reverse.As nearly everyone associated with The Irrawaddy in recent years hasconcluded, the magazine sorely needs new leadership. However neitherits staff, its contributors nor its well−wishers have the power tofulfill that need.Only you are in a position to do that.

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Category:	School Work
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Upload Date:	03/16/2009
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