In reporting Bill Clinton’s visit to Vietnam, the BBC’s diplomatic correspondent declared that what the Vietnamese needed was “more economic growth”. The question begged: why send a reporter all the way to Hanoi when the British ambassador would have happily propagated this line?
Vietnam Now
John Pilger reported the Vietnam War for a decade, right up until the last day. Twenty years on he returns to find a country facing a new battle. This time there are no bombs and there is no napalm. But already the civilian casualties are mounting again.
US foreign policy has not changed since Vietnam and, potentially, it is more dangerous than ever
The other day, an Indonesian friend took me to his primary school where,in October 1965, his teacher was beaten to death, suspected of being a communist.
Torture is news but it’s not new
Writing in the Daily Mirror, John Pilger recalls the news coverage of the war in Vietnam and how American atrocities and torture were not considered newsworthy. The same was true of the brutality of British colonial adventures.
In a Land of Fear
For 34 years the people of Burma have been ruled by a military junta as tyrannical and secretive as any in the modern era. Now, desperate for hard currency, the country’s dictators are at pains to establish Burma as a holiday destination.
A cry for freedom
Arriving in Burma, the facades are almost normal: traffic in the streets of Rangoon, crowds in the markets and tea stalls, astrologers announcing the future at the great Shwedagon pagoda; families playfully dousing small ivory Buddhas in water.
John Pilger denounces EU appeasement of Burma
With an eye to its vast Asian market, Europe promotes human rights when the price is right. In Burma, crimes against humanity are allowed to continue without challenge.
Burma in the balance
A military junta and multinational corporations on one side, and Buddhist democratic forces led by Aung San Suu Kyi on the other, are engaged in battle for Burma.
My last conversation with Aung San Suu Kyi
In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger recalls his last conversation with Aung San Suu Kyi, under premanent house arrest in Rangoon. Filmed secretly by Pilger and David Munro, the legitimate leader of the Burmese people provides a glimpse of her aloneness and courage.
The hypocrites who say they back democracy in Burma
Addressing a London meeting, ‘Freedom Writ Large’, organised by PEN and the Writers Network of Burma, John Pilger pays tribute to Aung San Suu Kyi and the writers of Burma, ‘the bravest of the brave’, and describes the hypocrisy of Western leaders who claim to back their struggle for freedom.
