BANGKOK: A handwritten letter to a military dictator may sound like an ineffective and risky way of conveying defiance especially in this Internet age, where e-mails, blogs and websites have combined to threaten political authority in a number of countries.

But in Burma, where a strict censorship regime is in force, and where access to information technology is limited, the good, old-fashioned letter is taken recourse to by the country’s long-suffering people to express growing dissatisfaction with Rangoon’s junta.

A letter-writing campaign, launched in the first week of the new year, saw tens of thousands of people in and around Rangoon seeking the special envelopes and sheets of paper meant for this drive, say the organisers, a highly respected group of former university students, known as the ‘88-Generation Students’.

“This is an effort to break the silence. To get people to openly write about their grievances to the military government,” adds Naing Aung, secretary-general of the Forum for Democracy in Burma, a group of Burmese political exiles who work closely with the 88-Generation. “It is not enough to just complain. This is to get people to show their courage by standing up and openly identifying themselves as critics.”

The month-long letter-writing drive, known as the ‘Open Heart’ campaign, is the latest effort by the 88-Generation to “raise the people’s voices,” Naing Aung explained in an interview. “It is a peaceful way of expressing the public’s views, because protests are banned, the media is censored, and there are no elections.”

Such a rare sign of public dissent in a climate of increasing oppression was followed by an equally impressive show of public support when the 88-Generation resorted to two more creative ways to register discontent. Burmese political activists are welcoming this shift in the public mood as a further indicator of the deepening frustration across the South-East Asian nation that is run by a regime that is seen as incompetent, corrupt and oppressive.—Dawn/The IPS News Service