Freedom of the press – USA and Myanmar: No other choice

The new US President Donald Trump paralzes ministries, institutions and authorities like a berserk. One of the first victims of Trump’s furor was USAID. The development aid authority of the United States financed directly or indirectly through partner organizations in the poorer parts of the world, among other things, humanitarian aid, health services, human rights projects and media. For example exile media from Myanmar. For many of these media, the stop of the US financial aids from the USA’s financial aid overnight is threatening to exist.

For example, the news portal »Mizzima« is hard affected. “The stop of USAID affects 20 to 25 percent of our annual budget for 2025,” says Soe Myint, editor -in -chief of “Mizzima” to the “ND”. To make matters worse, the other other donor organizations and countries have not yet decided their financial contribution to our 2025 annual budget. Mizzima, according to Soe Myint, reach 30 million readers and spectators every day via his websites and other digital media platforms such as Facebook and YouTube. The broadcast DVB looks similarly dark. The financing stop not only affects the employees, “but also the programs,” says editor -in -chief Mon Mon Myat.

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Since February 1, 2021, Myanmar has become one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists. Media such as “Mizza”, DVB, “Frontier Myanmar” or “Irrawaddy”, which were only resolved from exile to Myanmar after the country was opened after 2012, had to pack their things again quickly and leave the country. The stop of USAID endangers the importance of exile media as an important source of information for myanmaric diaspora, the people of Myanmar and the international community.

In 2023, USAID financed the training and support of 6,200 journalists worldwide, supported 707 non -state news agencies and promoted 279 civil society organizations who were committed to strengthening independent media in more than 30 countries – from Iran to Russia and Myanmar. According to the reporter without borders (RSF), this emerged from USAID data before their website was switched off.

According to Amnesty International, Myanmar’s military junta has killed more than 6,000 people since the coup, arrested more than 20,000 arbitrarily and sold 3.5 million people into their own country. The military leads large -scale and systematic attacks on the civilian population and has schools, hospitals and religious buildings bomb.

Danny window knows from his own experience how dangerous the work of journalists in Myanmar is. “They can be arrested or killed at any time.” The editor of the “Frontier Myanmar” magazine was arrested in Yangon shortly after coup in 2021, spent eight months under inhumane conditions in the notorious Insure Prison in Yangon. A few days after his conviction of eleven years in prison for sedition in November 2021, the 40-year-old was released through the intervention of the former UN ambassador Bill Richardson. “Frontier Myanmar” also works in exile in Chiang Mai and is not affected by the USAID financing stop, as editor -in -chief Ben Dunant said.

Despite the danger to life and life, journalists repeatedly go across the green border to Myanmar and report on the civil war, the atrocities of the Junta, the bombing of villages, the many ten thousand internal refugees. One of these journalists is the photo reporter Mar Maw, who documents the struggle of his compatriots against the Junta and the military for (exile) media with his camera. During the conversation in a café in Chiang Mai a few months ago, Mar Naw was just back from Myanmar. “I was traveling with units of the revolutionary forces,” says the 29-year-old, who worked as a photo reporter for the “Myanmar Times” to the coup. “When the editors accepted the command of the Junta to name them only in their self -elected name” State Council “, I terminated with 30 colleagues on the same day,” says Mar Naw.

The Junta wages a cyber war against the exile media. “We always experience cyber attacks. They have increased since October 2023, ”says Aung ZAW, editor -in -chief and founder of the oldest exile medium” Irrawaddy “, whose budget was 35 percent dependent on the USA.

In October 2023, armed resistance started an offensive against the Junta, which has since brought the military on the defensive. “The cybert attacks come over thousands of Chinese IP addresses,” says Aung ZAW, but adds with a smile: “We have a very good IT team for defense.”

Virtual private networks (VPN) are indispensable in myanmar to circumvent censorship and internet shutdowns, both to get information, and to send information, photos and videos of the many citizens’ journalists to the (exile) media outside the country. This is a thorn in the side. With internet blocks, police and prohibitions, it is massive against VPNs. “We have lost many of our users,” complains Mon Mon Myat. What the 20 editors in the Spacigen editorial office in a warehouse on the outskirts of Chiang Mai has not yet prevented from continuing to report on the website, Facebook and in daily YouTube messages. “We have already trained around 200 compatriots in Myanmar as citizens’ journalists,” says Mon Mon Myat.

Even for Soe Myint of »Mizzima«, despite the stop of the USAID, giving up is not an option. “We have no choice but to continue our daily media reporting on the situation in Myanmar about our multimedia platforms,” ​​emphasizes Soe Myint and adds: “It is our duty to report and do our journalistic work, regardless of the situation And wherever we are. “

In Myanmar, resistance militias, helpers and exile media, meanwhile, are used to avoid censorship and internet blocks on the Starlink satellites of the billionaire Elon Musk. Starlink is prohibited in Myanmar, but in the areas freed from resistance, cafés advertise “here Starlink,” says David Mathieson. The independent Myanmar Analyst living in Chiang Mai has the greatest respect for the exile media and their (citizen) journalists in Myanmar: “You are the eyes and ears of resistance.”