From blogs.guardian.co.uk

How new media bring Burma to the eyes of the world

The flow of communications raises hopes that the present crisis in Burma will turn out better than the last major showdown in 1988

September 27, 2007 2:46 PM

As this week's latest round of protests and violence erupts in Burma, there is a terrible sense of history repeating itself, writes Caitlin Fitzsimmons.

The images of Buddhist monks in their saffron robes pitted against the junta's brutal military police are upsetting - and sadly familiar to anyone who has followed recent Burmese history.

Yet there is one thing that makes this situation different - the advent of the internet and video-capable mobile phones means that the eyes of the world are on Burma more than ever before.

In 1988 monks, civilians and students poured on to the streets in the tens of thousands calling for human rights and democracy. The protests were brutally crushed, with the military rulers giving orders for shots to be fired directly into the crowd rather than in the air.

Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's party won free and fair elections in 1990 but she was never permitted to take power and has spent most of the intervening years under house arrest.

Now as I sit in the office watching the streaming news service on Sky and BBC, the situation seems very bad indeed - the most recent news is that soldiers have fired warning shots above the heads of 70,000 protesters in Rangoon. The death toll so far is at least eight and hundreds of monks have been arrested after monasteries were raided last night.

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