Burma's Secret War

Evan Williams’ ‘Burma's Secret War’, just aired a few minutes ago as one of Channel 4's Dispatches programmes, is the most daring and revealing documentary on the politics of a non-democratic state that I've ever seen. I have seen journalists cross borders momentarily or pop in and out of state-controlled regions of land before in other programmes, but the sustained disregard Williams and his interview subjects show for the burmese junta's climate of secrecy is astonishing, and very moving to behold.

Williams joins people affected by the regime's cruelty and faces some of their ordeals by travelling with them to villages already being descended upon by the military. He leaves for the city before trouble arrives, only to immediately begin contacting revolutionaries and the families of victims of the clampdown on political prisoners, passing on his way the dilapidated fortress that is the location of captive former president Aung San Suu Kyi. One such man, clearly already ill, eagerly submits to interview without disguise and when asked about the danger of arrest he faces replies with a smile that "the next time they pick me up... I won't be coming back."

This is a fascinating insight into the state of affairs in the country, and in media terms, as television it allows us to see how, in a state that employs censorship and violence with impunity, the spirit of revolution is kindled against all the odds.