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Mainstream Media Profits Plunge

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

The bigger newspapers are, the harder their profits fell in the last five years, according to newly revised data provided Monday by the Inland Press Association.

Profits fell 100.1% since 2004 at newspapers with circulation greater than 80,000, said Tim Mather, the analyst at the trade association who collated financial date reported by 120 papers across the nation.

Compared with other industries, however, publishers on average still are doing remarkably well.

Notwithstanding the triple-digit profit plunge occasioned by a 28.09% drop in advertising sales, the largest newspapers reported profits averaging 12% of sales at the end of 2008, according to the Inland study.

A 12% profit margin is more than double that achieved last year by Wal-Mart Stores, the largest of the Fortune 1,000 companies. A 12% pre-tax profit is just about a percentage point light of the margins run by Exxon and Chevron, the second and third largest corporations behind Wal-Mart on the Fortune list.

The reason margins could fall 100% and profits could still average 12% is that some newspapers plunged from proftabiliy to steep losses but other pubications still generated healthy, double-digit margins, said Mather in response to queries (see comments below) as to the validity of the data.

If average profitability were calculated on a weighted basis, then it might be lower than 12%, he explained. But the association took a simple average of the profitability of each publication in each of several circulation brackets and “that’s the way the math works,” said Mather.

As you can see from the table below, sales in the last five years fell at all but the smallest papers. However, operating profits tumbled in each and every circulation category.

Papers with less than 15k circulation reported that they were able to lift revenues despite a slump in advertising that started in 2006 and has accelerated every quarter since.

Papers with circulation of 15k to 25k suffered the least damage to their bottom lines, according to data volunteered by publishers who were guaranteed anonymity by the industry association.

When the Inland survey originally was released last week, an error in computing the data indicated that papers in the 25k-50k bracket had suffered a 190% plunge in profitability. But Mather said the actual drop was 90%.

The results in the original report were counterintuitive, because the abundance of anecdotal evidence suggests metro papers have been most deeply affected by declines in readership and advertising revenues.

Combined with high and intractable cost structures, it stood to reason that their profits would be squeezed the most.

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The Obama justice system

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

Spencer Ackerman yesterday attended a Senate hearing at which the DOD’s General Counsel, Jeh Johnson, testified.  As Ackerman highlighted, Johnson actually said that even for those detainees to whom the Obama administration deigns to give a real trial in a real court, the President has the power to continue to imprison them indefinitely even if they are acquitted at their trial.  About this assertion of “presidential post-acquittal detention power” — an Orwellian term (and a Kafka-esque concept) that should send shivers down the spine of anyone who cares at all about the most basic liberties — Ackerman wrote, with some understatement, that it “moved the Obama administration into new territory from a civil liberties perspective.”  Law professor Jonathan Turley was more blunt:  ”The Obama Administration continues its retention and expansion of abusive Bush policies — now clearly Obama policies on indefinite detention.” 

In June, Robert Gibbs was repeatedly asked by ABC News‘ Jake Tapper whether accused Terrorists who were given a trial and were acquitted would be released as a result of the acquittal, but Gibbs — amazingly — refused to make that commitment.  But this is the first time an Obama official has affirmatively stated that they have the “post-acquittal detention” power (and, to my knowledge, the Bush administration never claimed the power to detain someone even if they were acquitted).

All of this underscores what has clearly emerged as the core “principle” of Obama justice when it comes to accused Terrorists — namely, “due process” is pure window dressing with only one goal:   to ensure that anyone the President wants to keep imprisoned will remain in prison.  They’ll create various procedures to prettify the process, but the outcome is always the same — ongoing detention for as long as the President dictates.   This is how I described it when Obama first unveiled his proposal of preventive detention:

If you really think about the argument Obama made yesterday — when he described the five categories of detainees and the procedures to which each will be subjected — it becomes manifest just how profound a violation of Western conceptions of justice this is. What Obama is saying is this: we’ll give real trials only to those detainees we know in advance we will convict. For those we don’t think we can convict in a real court, we’ll get convictions in the military commissions I’m creating. For those we can’t convict even in my military commissions, we’ll just imprison them anyway with no charges (”preventively detain” them).

After yesterday, we have to add an even more extreme prong to this policy:  if by chance we miscalculate and deign to give a trial to a detainee who is then acquitted, we’ll still just keep them in prison anyway by presidential decree.  That added step renders my criticism of Obama’s conception of ”justice” even more applicable:

Giving trials to people only when you know for sure, in advance, that you’ll get convictions is not due process. Those are called “show trials.” In a healthy system of justice, the Government gives everyone it wants to imprison a trial and then imprisons only those whom it can convict. The process is constant (trials), and the outcome varies (convictions or acquittals).

Obama is saying the opposite: in his scheme, it is the outcome that is constant (everyone ends up imprisoned), while the process varies and is determined by the Government (trials for some; military commissions for others; indefinite detention for the rest). The Government picks and chooses which process you get in order to ensure that it always wins. A more warped “system of justice” is hard to imagine.

In today’s Wall St. Journal, which also reported that “the Obama administration said Tuesday it could continue to imprison non-U.S. citizens indefinitely even if they have been acquitted of terrorism charges,” Rep. Jerry Nadler was quoted as saying something quite similar about the Obama approach:

“What bothers me is that they seem to be saying, ‘Some people we have good enough evidence against, so we’ll give them a fair trial. Some people the evidence is not so good, so we’ll give them a less fair trial. We’ll give them just enough due process to ensure a conviction because we know they’re guilty. That’s not a fair trial, that’s a show trial,” Mr. Nadler said.

Exactly.  Show trials are exactly what the Obama administration is planning.  In its own twisted way, the Bush approach was actually more honest and transparent:  they made no secret of their belief that the President could imprison anyone he wanted without any process at all.  That’s clearly the Obama view as well, but he’s creating an elaborate, multi-layered, and purely discretionary “justice system” that accomplishes exactly the same thing while creating the false appearance that there is due process being accorded.   And for those who — to justify what Obama is doing — make the not unreasonable point that Bush left Obama with a difficult quandary at Guantanamo, how will that excuse apply when these new detention powers are applied not only to existing Guantanamo detainees but to future (i.e., not-yet-abducted) detainees as well?

Whatever else is true, even talking about imprisoning people based on accusations of which they have been exonerated is a truly grotesque perversion of everything that our justice system and Constitution are supposed to guarantee.  That’s one of those propositions that ought to be too self-evident to need stating.

* * * * *

Several related points:  Spencer also notes that Johnson testified yesterday about the possibility that Guantanamo might remain open beyond January, 2010 — the date Obama, to much fanfare, established as the deadline for closing that prison.  That decision is one of the very few to which Obama defenders can cling in order to claim there are significant differences between his approach to these issues and the Bush/Cheney approach. 

Meanwhile, former Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed is engaged in what The Guardian calls “an urgent legal attempt to prevent the US courts from destroying crucial evidence that he says proves he was abused while being held at the detention camp detainee.”  The photographs — which show Mohamed after he had been severely beaten and which he claims was posted on the door to his cage “because he had been beaten so badly that it was difficult for the guards to identify him” — is scheduled to be destroyed by the U.S. Government, an act The Washington Independent’s Alexandra Jaffe calls ”another black mark on the Obama administration’s promised transparency.”

Finally, I was on an NPR station yesterday in Seattle to discuss NPR’s ban on the use of the word “torture” to describe Bush administration interrogation tactics.  I originally understood that I would be on with NPR Ombudsman Alicia Shepard, but alas, it turns out that she agreed only to be on the show before me, so as not to engage or otherwise interact with me, so I was forced to listen to her for 15 minutes and wait until she hung up before being able to speak.  The segment can be heard here, beginning at the 14:00 mark (though the quality of the recording is poor in places).   

The most noteworthy point was her explicit statement (at 17:50) that “the role of a news organization is to lay out the debate”; rarely is the stenographic model of “journalism” – ”we just repeat what each side says and leave it at that” — so expressly advocated (and see Jon Stewart’s perfect mockery of that view).  She also said — when the host asked about the recent example I cited of NPR’s calling what was done to a reporter in Gambia “torture” (at the 20:20 mark) — that NPR will use the word “torture” to describe what other governments do because they do it merely to sadistically inflict pain on people while the U.S. did it for a noble reason:  to obtain information about Terrorist attacks.  That’s really what she said:  that when the U.S. did it (as opposed to Evil countries), it was for a good reason.  Leaving aside the factual falsity of her claim about American motives, Shepard actually thinks that “torture” is determined by the motive with which the suffering is inflicted.  The connection between the Government’s ability to get away with these things and the media’s warped view of its role really cannot be overstated.

 

UPDATE:  The ACLU’s Ben Wizner emails to correct one point I made:   the Bush administration, like Obama is doing now, did claim the power of post-acquittal detentions.  Ben writes:

Glenn – You’re right that this is disgraceful, but not that it’s new. The Bush gang claimed the same authority in connection with Gitmo military commissions, which is why, paradoxically, the only way to get out of Gitmo if you were charged in a military commission was to plead guilty and strike a deal that included repatriation (as David Hicks did).

This is from an LA Times op-ed I wrote in 4/07:

Last Friday night, after a jury of senior military officers sentenced Hicks to seven years in prison, we all learned the details of that agreement: Hicks will serve a mere nine months — a sentence more in keeping with a misdemeanor than with a grave terrorist offense.

This stunning turn of events highlights a cruelly ironic feature of detention at Guantanamo. In an ordinary justice system, the accused must be acquitted to be released.  In Guantanamo, the accused must plead guilty to be released — because even if he is acquitted, he remains an “enemy combatant” subject to indefinite detention. Only by striking a deal does a detainee stand a chance of getting out.

So this is (another) one of those cases where Obama is embracing a radical Bush theory of power rather than inventing one of his own.

 

UPDATE II:  The Weekly Standard’s Michael Goldfarb, a former McCain aide, is someone who believes that the President possesses what he calls “near dictatorial power” when it comes to national security.  He has repeatedly praised Obama for maintaining Bush Terrorism policies.  But even Goldfarb is uncomfortable with Obama’s assertion of “post-acquittal detention power”:

I understand and respect the president’s decision to disregard his left-wing critics and embrace the same policies of indefinite detention and denial of due process that made the Bush-Cheney administration so effective in preventing another terror attack. I support those policies because as illegal enemy combatants, terrorists have no right to due process. But, as Glenn Greenwald points out, there is something Orwellian about this administration’s attempt to have it both ways — to get the credit for putting detainees on trial only to disregard the outcome if they don’t like the verdict. Obviously the Bush administration would have done the same if they thought for a second that they could get away with it. But even the Bush OLC wouldn’t have dared suggest detaining individuals who had been acquitted on all charges.

As Ben Wizner’s email in the prior update reflects, it’s far from clear that “even the Bush OLC wouldn’t have dared suggest detaining individuals who had been acquitted on all charges.”  Still, if your assertions of executive power and denial of due process to Muslim detainees even make Michael ”near dictatorial power” Goldfarb uncomfortable, that’s a pretty compelling sign that you’re way, way out there.

 

UPDATE III:  When Kevin Drum read the above summary I wrote of how Alicia Shepard justified NPR’s using “torture” to describe the acts of Gambia but not the U.S., he said he assumed I was exaggerating, because nobody could actually believe the explanation I attributed to Shepard — that they do it for bad reasons and it’s therefore “torture,” while we do it for noble reasons and therefore it’s not.  But then he listened to the show and transcribed Shepard’s statement.  Kevin then wrote:

Wow. She really did say that, didn’t she? When other people do it for other reasons, it’s torture. When we do it for our reasons, it’s not.

You don’t usually find people willing to say this quite so baldly. Congratulations, Alicia Shepard.

Along those same lines, Jesse Levine, a long-time reader who is a government lawyer, emailed this to me today:

I just had the most bizarre conversation with Alicia Shepard. I called and told her I had been following the contretemps over NPR’s use of the word torture and wanted to confirm that she had said what you had reported about her view of sadism vs. intelligence gathering as defining torture. She said she did and that it was a political question because it is torture on one hand and “tactics” on the other. I said I understood there was a political debate about whether torture was justified in certain circumstances, but again asked if an act itself was torture; specifically asking, “if you cut off someone’s hand is it not torture whether motivated by sadism or intelligence gathering?” She said it was and then quickly shifted back to the torture vs. tactics meme. I gave up.

I’ve been going back and forth on whether Shepard’s deficiency is primarily one of intellect or whether she’s just a hard-core Cheneyite.  I’m now convinced — after her statements yesterday on that show I did with after her — that it’s both.  

Anyone who can say that what we do is not “torture” because we do it for the right reasons — whereas it’s “torture” when those other countries do it because they’re sadistic and bad — is someone who is devoid of both basic reasoning skills and good motives.  This Saturday, at 2:30 p.m., in Washington, DC, Shepard will be appearing at this event to talk about “the role of the Ombudsman.”  It’s open to the public.  I don’t know if there will be opportunity for questions, though one can always create that opportunity if one is so inclined.

 Glenn Greenwald

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BNP email shows party is ashamed of itself

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

In an email to members and supporters, party chairman Nick Griffin told them to “try and avoid” owning up to being BNP supporters when writing to complain about the treatment of two activists.

An emailed newsletter, entitled “Adam Walker needs our help”, seeks donations and calls for letters of complaint in support of teachers Adam and Mark Walker who have stood as BNP candidates in elections.

Adam Walker, described by the BNP as a ’super activist’, is accused of religious intolerance by the General Teaching Council (GTC) and could be struck off the teaching register if found guilty.

He left Houghton Kepier Sports College in Houghton-le-Spring, near Sunderland in 2007 after it was alleged he used a school laptop to contribute racist and religiously intolerant views to online discussions during lessons.

His brother Mark lost an appeal against his sacking from Sunnydale College, Shildon, County Durham after being accused of accessing the BNP’s website during school hours.

Mr Griffin, who was elected as MEP for the North West region in June, calls on BNP supporters to email or telephone the GTC to protest about “fascist harrasment” but without admitting their political affiliation.

“We need all our supporters to contact the General Teaching Council and protest in the most determined way,” he says.

“When complaining, please be articulate, polite and sensible and try and avoid stating that you are a BNP supporter.”

Former Education Secretary David Blunkett said Mr Griffin’s comments show that BNP members are ashamed of themselves.

“It’s not surprising that decent people are ashamed of the BNP when the BNP have demonstrated very clearly by this that they are ashamed of themselves,” he said.

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UN war crimes inquiry on Gaza winds up hearings

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

UN war crimes investigators yesterday wound up four days of public hearings about Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip after taking testimony from both Israelis and Palestinians.

Richard Goldstone, a former chief UN war crimes prosecutor heading the four-person inquiry team, said he expected to submit its report to the UN Human Rights Council next month.

Lieut Col Raymond Lane, chief instructor in the Irish Defence Forces School, reported to the inquiry about weapons used in the conflict. “Through our studies we found no actual proof a Dime round was used,” he said, referring to dense inert metal explosives.

But referring to samples containing heavy metals such as tungsten and cobalt, analysed in a forensics laboratory in Dublin, he added: “I am of the view that some weapons systems used in the conflict definitely had some Dime components.”

White phosphorous could provide cover for troops but also caused burns, he said. “It is horrible stuff.”

Gazan militants had used low-quality rockets, which lack a guidance system and take about 90 seconds to set up and fire, according to Lieut Col Lane. “They are basically fire and forget.”

According to a Palestinian rights group, 1,417 people including 926 civilians were killed during Israel’s December 27th to January 18th offensive in the Hamas-ruled territory of 1.5 million people. Israel lost 10 soldiers and three civilians in the fighting, which it launched with the declared aim of halting cross-border rocket fire by militants. It has estimated 1,166 Palestinians were killed, 295 of them civilians.

The expert team held twin sessions of hearings in Gaza and Geneva, where the UN Human Rights Council is based. – (Reuters)

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The increase of the surveillance society

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

Following the 9/11 and 7/7 terrorist attacks, there has been an exponential increase in Britain’s surveillance: currently, Britain has a quarter of the world’s security surveillance cameras with around four million cameras in use and we are currently the world’s most watched nation – something which is very unnerving and reflective of the surveillance dystopia envisaged by George Orwell in his fictional work “Nineteen Eighty Four”.

The steady expansion and the overuse of the surveillance in Britain risks undermining the right to privacy; it poses a huge risk to individual liberty; and one more step towards a police state in the United Kingdom. Currently, there are few laws in place to limit the use of CCTV, brought about to “protect national security”: this has lead to a “mission creep” in the use and abuse of surveillance. Local councils have been accused of severely abusing the surveillance in the United Kingdom by using CCTV to prevent fly tipping, dog fouling and, recently, CCTV was used by Poole Borough Council to monitor the actions and whereabouts of a family who were wrongly accused of lying about where they live on a school application form.

Britain’s surveillance society can be closely linked to the works of Jeremy Bentham and Michel Foucault. In 1785, Jeremy Bentham proposed the idea of the Panopticon: the Panopticon is a conceptual prison design that allows the prison guard to watch the prisoners without the prisoners being able to tell when they are being watched, in order to gain significant psychological control. Bentham described the Panopticon as “a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example”. The French philosopher, Michel Foucault, took up this theme in his 1975 work “Discipline and Punish”, where he pursued the link between surveillance and social control. Thus, comparing the effects of surveillance to the effects of the Panopticon.

Although the use of surveillance clearly has its advantages in terms of fighting crime, its overuse can prove counter-productive and can ultimately be viewed as a challenge to Britain’s liberal democratic status.

 Daniel Button

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NO2ID: ID Cards are not ‘voluntary’

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

Readers may be aware that the Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, has announced that the planned ID cards will be “voluntary”, and that no-one will have to carry one.

However, the Government is still pressing ahead with its plan to make everyone who needs to update certain “designated documents” have to register personal details on the database behind the national ID card, the National Identity Register. In other words, when a reader of this paper renews their passport or driving licence after 2011 they will have to supply information which will go onto the National Identity Register and pay for an ID card whether they want one or not.

Moreover there will then be a fine of up to £1,000 for failing to inform the authorities of any alteration to the information you have been compelled to give, such as a change of address or name.

It is simply dishonest of the Government to describe the ID card scheme as now “voluntary” when you won’t be able to leave your own country or drive a vehicle unless you submit your personal details to the authorities to be included on the ID card register. I challenge our local MPs, Margaret Beckett, Bob Laxton and Mark Todd, all of whom have supported the ID card legislation, to explain in your columns to your readers what they understand by the word “voluntary”.

MPs are going to be voting in Parliament soon on the regulations underlying the ID card legislation and the “designated documents” in particular. Concerned readers have the opportunity to contact their MP and demand MPs do not support ID card legislation.

I would also urge concerned citizens to get involved with Derby no2id, the local branch of the campaign against compulsory ID cards and the database state. The next meeting of Derby no2id is on Tuesday, July 21, at the Friends Meeting House, St Helen’s Street, Derby DE1 3GY at 7.30pm. All are welcome. People can also contact me on derby@no2id.net.

Nick Wray
Local co-ordinator,
Derby no2id,
Highfield Road,
Derby.

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Government burying ID card costs in passports

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

The Conservatives have accused the government of burying the cost of ID cards in a hike in the price of passports.

Yesterday the government announced an increase in the price of a 10-year adult passport from £72 to £77.50 in the first passport fee rise for passport services in the UK since 2007. There will also be a rise of £3 to the cost of a child’s passport to £49.

The Home Office said the price hike was needed because demand for passports had fallen, but Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Grayling said the move appeared to bury part of the cost of the ID scheme in the price of a passport.

“The Government admits that it has no idea how many people will have to volunteer for ID cards before they cover their costs, so it looks like the cost is being lumped onto our passports,” he said.

Both passports and identity cards are funded from the same agency, the Identity and Passport Service, which is part of the Home Office.

The government has always maintained that many of the technology systems used for identity cards would also be used for biometric passports – including the biometrics national identity register.

In April IBM was awarded a £265m deal to build this biometrics database to support ID cards and passports, while CSC has been given a £385m deal to upgrade the application and enrolment system, which is intended to be used for both passports and ID cards.

Earlier this week home secretary Alan Johnson insisted the government was still committed to the ID card scheme despite plans to issue the second batch of cards to airside workers at Machester and London City airports being abandoned.

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How to Trap a Torture Judge

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

It’s a problem that Jay Bybee is a judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. How can he serve as a judge when he seriously violated the laws against inhumane treatment of detainees and gave legal approval to interrogation techniques that amount to torture. We agree with Patrick Leahy, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, that if Bybee’s a decent human being, he’ll resign. We agree with MoveOn and People for the American Way, who’ve submitted 140,000 petition signatures to John Conyers, Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, asking him to impeach Bybee. And we agree with the New York Times, which called for his impeachment twice in April.

As part of the June 25 national Torture Accountability Day, Cynthia wrote and filed a formal judicial misconduct complaint against him. The Court Executive let her know that Bybee has a copy of her complaint.

Last Wednesday, July 1, Cynthia discovered that Bybee would be hearing a case in Pasadena on Monday, July 6. We quickly organized Code Pink, Progressive Democrats of America, and World Can’t Wait to do an inside-outside action: protesters outside the court starting at 8:30 to greet him on his arrival, and incognito protesters inside the hearing room at 11:00 to stand up and speak out at the right moment. Caught up in the moment, we both decided we had to be there. We flew to Los Angeles from San Francisco at 7:00 a.m. (ugh!), were picked up at Union Station in LA by Tobi Dragert, and arrived at the Ninth Circuit Courthouse in Pasadena at 10:00.

Dianne Wright and others were picketing in front of the courthouse, some in orange jumpsuits and hoods. Although there’s a fair amount of car traffic there in suburban Pasadena, there are no pedestrians. Several cars stopped to talk with us.

Dianne decided to come inside with us. We had no problem getting inside, except for Cynthia having to surrender her camera. Had they looked at the photos on the camera they would have seen Sunday’s SHAME ON YOO protest at John Yoo’s house in Berkeley and Saturday’s CODEPINK float at the Alameda 4th of July Parade, but they just put the camera in a drawer for her to pick up on our way out.

It was a very small courtroom, holding only about 25 spectators. A reporter and photographer from the Pasadena Star-News were already there. One of the 3-judge panel was teleconferencing from somewhere else, so there was one young, blond woman, and Bybee. We had decided not to interrupt the oral arguments in the case, which went on for over an hour. Bybee was surprisingly aggressive in his questioning of the two lawyers; we thought he would be meeker. The lawyers finished their presentations, and the woman judge suddenly said court was adjourned, banged the gavel, and she and Bybee started out the door to their chambers. Oh no —- would we be able to speak to Bybee?

Susan seized her chance and said, “Mr. Bybee, we are wondering when you will resign.” Bybee turned when he heard his name. “Every Senator I’ve talk with said he wouldn’t have confirmed you if he’d known about the torture memos,” she continued. Then Cynthia said, “Judge Bybee, you are responsible for authorizing the torture of human beings. You call yourself a good Morman, but you are unfit to be a judge on the Ninth Circuit.” Finally Dianne said something linking Bybee to torture.

The security people and marshalls, who’d been sitting in the back row (we were never incognito), were next to each of us in a flash, telling us to leave immediately. They walked right on our heels all the way to the front door and down the long walkway to the sidewalk. It was all over in less than a minute, but Bybee heard us. He looked right at us and heard every word. Today we reached him.

We joined the outside protest, and waited outside for quite a while to catch Bybee again as he left. At one point a big black SUV with blacked-out windows drove by, and we assumed he was in it and left soon after. Cynthia wondered aloud what he said when he stepped out of the room with the other judge, and if he’ll tell his wife about what happened in court today.

We’d like to see Bybee met with citizen protest wherever he goes to hear cases. If you live in a city where there’s a Ninth Circuit Court, check the calendar on Thursday to see the next week’s schedule:
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/calendar/view_calendars.php

If you’re nimble you can catch Bybee and have your own showdown with him. It felt really good to tell him to resign. Let’s keep up the pressure—it has to be getting to him. Contact us if you want information and suggestions.

http://impeachbybee.org

Cynthia Papermaster and Susan Harman

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UN Chief Speaks Out Against Lack of Human Rights

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

Using the power of his office, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon achieved a rare diplomatic feat during his recent visit to military-ruled Burma. He broke a taboo by delivering a public speech about the lack of democracy and human rights in the country.

So far, the notoriously prickly regime, which controls the South-east Asian nation with an iron grip, has accepted Ban’s verbal thrust without an outburst. But Burma watchers wonder how long that silence will last, given the regime is known to lash out at U.N. officials who have made public statements in the country about the debilitating effects of ignoring political and civil liberties.

“Neither peace nor development can thrive without democracy and respect for human rights,” the world body’s top diplomat said over the weekend to an audience of diplomats, U.N. officials and staff from aid agencies in Rangoon, the former capital. “Peace, development and human rights are closely inter-related.”

“Myanmar’s human rights record remains a matter of grave concern,” Ban added, using the name of the country that the junta opts for, instead of Burma. “Myanmar’s way forward must be rooted in respect for human rights.”

Ban’s speech, on the last of his two-day stay in Burma, also touched on the plight of Aung San Suu Kyi, the pro-democracy leader who has spent over 14 years either under house arrest or in Rangoon’s Insein Prison. He called for the release of the Nobel Peace laureate and the over 2,100 political prisoners languishing in Burmese jails.

“Aung San Suu Kyi must be allowed to participate in the political process without further delay,” Ban said after being denied a chance to meet the 64-year-old Suu Kyi, currently being held in the Insein Prison as part of a bizarre trial after a U.S. citizen showed up as an uninvited guest in her home in early May after he swam there across a lake.

Little wonder why Ban’s critical comments - which shatter the illusion being created by the regime that it is on the right track as part of its “roadmap to democracy,” including a planned general election in 2010 - is being welcomed in some quarters.

In the past, the junta has not been kind to the far less provocative and milder comments about the shortcomings of the regime’s model for democracy and the humanitarian situation made by Ibrahim Gambari, the U.N. special envoy to Burma, and Charles Petrie, the former U.N. humanitarian coordinator in the country.

Gambari was given a dressing down by Information Minister Brig-Gen Kyaw Hsan in March last year for comments the Nigerian diplomat made about flaws in the “democratic” political process being pushed by the junta. Gambari said that the U.N. wanted this push, including the new constitution, to be inclusive, accommodating the opposition.

Petrie paid a different price for speaking his mind in a press release issued in October 2007. The junta refused to renew his visa, prompting an early departure from his post, after the head of the United Nations Development Programme deplored the “deteriorating humanitarian situation” in the country

The regime described that statement as “unprecedented” and “very negative.”

But by going many steps further, Ban’s speech is being described as “encouraging” by the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB), the democratically elected government forced into exile after the regime refused to recognised the results of the 1990 general elections.

“This is the first time that someone has been so openly critical about the reality in Burma,” says Bo Hla Tint, the foreign minister of the NCGUB. “It was important for Mr. Ban to tell the regime how the U.N. sees the problem in Burma.”

“The U.N. secretary-general’s role is important to bring change in Burma,” the minister in the exile government told IPS. “It has to be part of a long serious political process, and not just a one-time event.”

The personal commitment shown by Ban to usher in an open and inclusive democratic culture in Burma is being well received by the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN), a 10-member regional bloc of which Burma is a member.

“The prime minister, as the chair of ASEAN, supports the U.N. secretary-general’s trip to Myanmar and he wants to ensure that the U.N. keeps engaging the Myanmar government,” said Panitan Wattanayagorn, the acting spokesman for the Thai government. “We will see from this point onwards what more can be done now that the U.N. secretary-general has delivered his message.”

Such a regional response marks a departure from the harsh comments by Western governments that saw Ban’s trip as a failure, achieving barely any concessions from the junta. A key to this dismissive stance was Ban being denied access to meet Suu Kyi.

“Although we know that expectations among some in the international community was very high and they wanted the secretary-general to meet Aung San Suu Kyi, it is not fair to say the mission was a failure because the meeting did not take place,” added Panitan in an interview. “The issues are much more complex and beyond this single issue.”

But for the current U.N. engagement to achieve political reform in Burma more is required, say human rights groups that have continued to expose the litany of abuse in a country that has been under the grip of successive military regimes since a 1962 coup.

“Setting the standards through a speech is the easiest thing to do; achieving the standards is the difficult part,” says David Scott Mathieson, Burma consultant for Human Rights Watch, a New York-based global rights watchdog. “That is where the hard work and effort is going to be.” “The average person in Burma will find Ban’s speech patronising,” Mathieson told IPS. “They expect more from the U.N.”

Marwaan Macan-Markar

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