A colleague in Rangoon told me recently that Burma’s regime leaders are aware of the need for a “free press” in Burma and have been cultivating and talking to the local press. So I got excited and asked: “Will there be a revival of a free press soon in Burma?”

My colleague chuckled and urged me to rein in my hopes. “It’s like the chicken in the basket,” he said, citing the Burmese metaphor of chickens held by market traders in rattan baskets. Noting my puzzlement, he gave a lengthy explanation.

Recently, the press in Burma has been given some limited freedom to publish names that were strictly banned in the past.

The names include Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, the late rebellious poet laureate Tin Moe, who died in the US a few years ago, and the famous satirist Maung Thaw Ka, who died from maltreatment in Insein prison in 1991.

Some publications have recently carried articles and interviews on the planned 2010 general election and have begun debating the issue in very cautious language.

Among them, The Voice Weekly has lately been quite controversial in its editorials and articles, while hailing the election, welcoming the arrival of the 5,000 kyat banknote, the visit of US Senator Jim Webb in August and full of optimism about the chances of improved US-Burmese ties.

The publication’s pro-junta stance has no doubt backfired. Predictably, anti-junta groups inside Burma and exiled activist groups were enraged.

More interestingly, some rival publications in Rangoon, including the best-selling weekly First Eleven Journal, have come out in opposition to the editorial line of The Voice Weekly. The usual suspect, the regime, has even played a role in creating conflict and jealousy among editors.

So the war in the chicken basket began, mused my colleague. Welcome to Burma’s fight for a “free press.”

Burma currently has five leading publishing groups: Living Color Media, Eleven Media Group, the Myanmar Consolidated Media Ltd, Yangon Media Group and Modern Journal Group. Burma’s media moguls—Dr Nay Win Maung, Dr Than Htut Aung, Dr Tin Htun Oo, Ko Ko (Yangon Institute of Technology) and U William—have been running the groups’ publications for years.

All five groups have registered steady growth and the publishers don’t hide their ambition to publish daily newspapers in the near future. Unfortunately for them, however, the generals in Naypyidaw still call the shots.

In military-ruled Burma it is common that editors and publishers, if they are not outright apologists of the regime, compromise and toe the official line so their publications can survive. They have established close ties either to powerful generals or to cronies of the top leaders.

Interestingly, Maj Tint Swe, head of Burma’s notorious censorship board, the Press Scrutiny and Registration Division, is not as powerful as many may have thought.

Even Tint Swe’s boss, Information Minister Kyaw Hsan—once dubbed Burma’s comical Ali because of his blunders (a reference to former Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf)—hasn’t been able to exercise his influence over these local media empires. Although recently sidelined, Kyaw Hsan retains his post for now because of the patronage of Gen Thura Shwe Mann, the regime’s No 3.

Knowing the country needs a “free press” in the post-election period, Snr-Gen Than Shwe, a former psychological warfare officer, and his close associates seem to have direct management and control over publications in Burma.

Informed sources close to the Press Scrutiny and Registration Division say Than Shwe and other top leaders deliberately “relaxed” their control of the local press recently so that some major publications could enter into political debate and mention once banned names. Few dared to question the election and publish critical analysis of the political process in Burma, however, and all publications are required to carry the regime’s propaganda articles.

My colleague predicted that in the near future even privately-run daily newspapers will be permitted, although the generals want to make sure they will remain loyal to the military and the new government.

“Gen Than Shwe is not stupid and he wants to have a colorful mouthpiece, so he is now carefully observing all major publications in Rangoon to see which the future regime could ally with,” he said.  

This would mean that the regime has no intention to restore the spirit of Burma’s once formidable press freedom. The regime has muzzled press freedom and thrown journalists into Burma’s gulag, and it continues to do so.