‘Internet can force change in Myanmar’
‘People power’ via the internet could help shame Myanmar into accepting foreign assistance for cyclone victims, UK PM Gorden Brown said on Monday.
Hailing the internet as the modern force for change, Brown said the web meant the tragedy - which is thought to have some 134,000 people dead or missing- could no longer be kept as a secret. “It is true in Myanmar we have not able to get as much food and supplies that we would like, but now a country like Myanmar cannot remain hidden,” he said at a conference. “Direct people power is not just going to be a force not just for individual countries but for foreign policies as well.”
Brown predicted that “weather it is famine, cyclones, or whatever, pressure from the people will force government interaction”. He suggested that internet could have helped give more details of Rwandan genocide in 1995 as it was developing.
Blogs were not forcing the government to act and be accountable, and could help force change, he added. “They could feel people coming to express their anger about certain events. The mood could have an impact that means governments would be forced to change their institutions,” he added. AFP