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Networking Dissent
Cyber-Activists Use the Internet to Promote
Democracy in Burma
Tiffany Danitz and
Warren P. Strobel
Introduction
On Monday, January 27, 1997, the huge U.S. conglomerate PepsiCo announced to the world that it was terminating its last business operations in Burma. News of the decision, a decision that the company had long resisted, raced across financial and political newswires. But to denizens of the Internet who monitored events regarding Burma, it was already old news. A copy of Pepsi's statement, for which they had long labored and hoped, crisscrossed the Internet the day before, a Sunday.1 A battle by global, electronically savvy activists was finally over. With computer modems, keyboards, electronic mail, World Wide Web sites and long hours and organization, they had forced the soda-and-snack-food giant to leave a land ruled by a regime that the activists considered illegitimate and repressive. Stealing PepsiCo's thunder, spreading word of the decision before corporate officials had a chance to spin the news, was the coup de grace for the activists.
The case of Burma raises intriguing questions about the effect of modern computer communications on the balance of power between citizens and elected officials, and between local, national and international power structures, and ultimately, their effect on the conduct of diplomacy in the twenty-first century. Geographically dispersed but knitted together by the Internet, Burmese and non-Burmese activists from the United States as well as from Europe and Australia joined a long-standing effort to bring democracy to Burma (a small, and to many, obscure Southeast Asian nation). Their global campaign raised constitutional and national policy questions in the United States, as a state government and local councils passed foreign policy legislation without consulting Washington. Many of these decisions may violate international trade agreements between the U.S. federal government and foreign entities. Then, in April 1997, President Clinton signed federal legislation banning any new investment by U.S. companies in Burma. As this paper will show, these legislative decisions were made because of a global grassroots campaign run to a considerable degree on the Internet, and despite the presence of only a negligible Burmese constituency in the United States.
More recently, the Internet's power as an organizing tool lay behind the international headlines when, in October 1997, U.S. anti-land mine crusader Jody Williams was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her successful campaign to secure a treaty ban on land mines. The global grassroots campaign was coordinated largely via electronic mail.2
Yet, surprisingly little academic attention has been paid to the issue of the influence of new technologies on activism, particularly grassroots activism, and few case studies exist of such practices. This paper endeavors to begin filling that void, by examining the struggle of Burmese pro-democracy activists in exile and their allies in the United States, Europe and indeed around the globe.
We offer evidence that the Internet was crucially influential in enabling such a numerically insignificant and politically marginalized population to force the passage of a series of laws regarding business and political dealings with their homeland. The Internet was also used to sway international public opinion and pique the interest of more traditional news media.
In particular, we find that, among its many and still unfolding uses, the Internet-by its very nature-lends itself as a potent tool for advocates organizing for action on international issues.
Following the example of the Chinese student dissidents in Tiananmen Square in 1989, the Burmese activists and their allies added the advances of technology to their struggle. Burma remains in the grip of a powerful military junta, known until recently as the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). The representatives elected democratically in 1990 remain unseated. China's rulers found it difficult to stop the outside world from seeing what happened on Tiananmen Square or prevent student dissidents from communicating with the outside world in 1989. SLORC has found it even harder to clamp down on the surreptitious flow of information across borders in the Internet Age. Burma's rulers have tried, by passing harsh laws fixing criminal penalties for unlicensed fax machines and computer modems and insisting on state control over international Internet connections. Inside the country, the technological structure is woefully underdeveloped, which is one of the reasons the pro-democracy campaign has been led in the United States instead of Burma.
While we have found that the role of the Internet is important, it is not a replacement for other forms of interaction and communication, but a powerful supplement. Traditional face-to-face lobbying is still more effective than computers. In addition, using the Internet has inherent limitations for grassroots activists. Its use is limited to those who have access to the technology and its openness allows information to be manipulated by those holding opposing points of view.
Part One of this paper will examine briefly the crisis in Burma and review a short history of how the Internet came to play a role in that crisis.
Part Two provides two case studies to illustrate in detail how the new communication technologies helped activists move their agenda to center stage and ultimately write legislation in the United States. The first case concerns how the Internet was used to help gain passage of a "selective purchasing" law in Massachusetts banning state government contracts with firms doing business in Burma. The second case study examines the campaign to boycott PepsiCo, which was one of the largest remaining investors in Burma.
Part Three describes the advantages and disadvantages of using the Internet to engage in global campaigns that we identified during the study.
In Appendix A, we offer an unofficial survey of activists working on Burma on the Internet, giving a profile of this group.
Some notes on terminology are in order. In using Burma rather than Myanmar, we follow the practice of the U.S. government, which does not recognize the latter term, chosen by the regime. Washington has no ambassador posted in Rangoon. While the regime recently changed its name to the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), during the time the bulk of this research was conducted, it was known by the acronym SLORC, and that is the name we use. The fluidity of the Internet itself is such that definitions are constantly changing and being updated. We try to make it clear when we are referring to the Internet as a whole and when we are referring to specific tools for information exchange and retrieval, primarily electronic mail, the World Wide Web and the system of news discussion groups known as Usenet. Specific Internet sites or electronic mail addresses are given in italics.
In conclusion, we hope that this case study will contribute to understanding the growing body of literature regarding the use of the Internet by activists to conduct international grassroots campaigns, to complement traditional diplomacy, and sometimes even, to exercise their global leverage vis-à-vis traditional diplomatic bodies such as governments and international governmental organizations.
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