Frankly, it sucks--

Frankly speaking, it sucks.

Stupid place, the exile radio station where I threw 3 years of my life down the drain.
Still suffering from the after affects.
Ostensibly about "freedom of expression" but all about control and doing b junt's PR for them, or damage control, whatever.
Great waste of US taxpayer money.
Now the BBG Broadcasting Board of Governors, is rumored to be going to be dissolved, as it is "so corrupt."

This controls all broadcasting to foreign countries in the USA, both ASS-B and The Eagle's Voice (not their real names).

I still remember 2001 when I went to a presentation, at NED I think, on broadcasting to Afghanistan, and there, I heard a well known expert Barnett Rubin, talk to the woman from Pashto (Pastun section) who was almost fired, because she interviewed Mullah Ohmar, after 9/11.

The Lion was already dead, as of course he had been assassinated the night before 9/11 by someone posing as a journalist, with a bomb hidden in his camera.

BR expressed surprise that the woman was still there (at the Voice).

At the time renowned NYTS journalist William Safire wrote about it also.

Safire also wrote about the lax work atmosphere at the Voice.

I myself have seen a TEV correspondent from the Nigerian section harass and try to
"trap" Nobel Prize winning playwright Wole Soyinka with some fast talk at Pols and Prose bookstore in DC.

And it's impossible to count the # of times ASS-B has tried to ask hardball Qs of DASSK, or otherwise make her look bad on air, for instance by the womanizer talking to her as if she were his girlfriend.

I think they get away with it as no one cares about Burma, and there is the language and the cultural barrier, but it is high time people looked into it.

The former head of ASS-B bur even used "freedom of expression" as being listed above "promoting democracy" in their charter, and therefore as justifying attacking Daw Suu.

And they are all still around.

The rumor was before 2007, that they would be combined, the two stations, by their 10th year (10th year of ASS-B) but it managed to stay the axe by winning awards for its Saffron Revolution coverage, and thus throwing monk activist U Gambira to the dogs.

He was surrounded and arrested by signals located through his cell phone as "correspondents" tried to contact him for interviews, even after the crackdown when he was on the run.

He should have chucked the cell phone and fled to the Thai border, instead of keeping it and going back to Pakokku.

His entire family was arrested to get him to give himself in.

An ASS-B correspondent, no longer there, told me in 2007 shortly after the arrest, that the last time they called U Gambira, the MI (mlilitary intelligence) answered the phone and said, "We now have him under custody" and put the phone down.

I think this should remain on the consciences of ASS-B forever, as U Gambira is still suffering from brain damage due to the beatings.

And there are other things too, such as the death of a stringer in Burma in a motor-cycle accident.

This is all in contrast to my dear friend who is not rich, was suffering from kidney disease and finally had a transplant, and yet did activism for U Gambira's behalf from overseas, even sent someone to go and interview him on his release.

kmk
6-28-2014