It's unlikely that "T" knows he is being honoured and celebrated around the word these days. "T", along with his colleague "Z", shot video images that were made into "Orphans of Burma's Cyclone", a documentary film that won the prestigious Rory Peck Trust Feature Award on November 19. Hopefully, one day "T" and "Z" will celebrate this victory together.
Today, however, "T" languishes in the notorious Insein prison in Rangoon, and "Z" has gone into hiding.
"T" and "Z" both work for Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), an Oslo-based media organisation with a large underground network inside Burma. DVB produces and broadcasts short-wave radio and satellite television targeted at an audience of approximately 15 million people throughout Burma.
The searing images of the 2007 Saffron Revolution made it to television screens around the world thanks to the courage of these underground video-journalists who risked their lives to document the inspiring and tragic events of the protest. The DVB was able to distribute the images across the world.
The murder of a Japanese journalist by Burmese troops on September 27, 2007, at the height of the Saffron Revolution, was caught on tape and made headlines around the world. As a result of the continuous, rapid dissemination of images, the Burmese military regime realised that the world was watching. This was a key factor in ensuring that the death toll of the 2007 protests was closer to 100 than 3,000, the number brutally murdered by the regime when it put down the 1988 nationwide uprising.
Just months after the violent repression of the Saffron Revolution, "T" and "Z" along with other video-journalists, played a key role in filming the worst natural disaster in Burmese history, Cyclone Nargis, which hit Burma on May 2, 2008. The disaster left 140,000 dead and 2.5 million homeless, in the face of inaction and indifference by the military regime. The regime denied access to international humanitarian and rescue workers, as well as foreign journalists.
Official media in the country reported nothing of the impact the disaster had, but images of the scale and extent of the damage captured by courageous video-journalists appeared in mainstream media around the world. The images rendered indisputable the desperate need for humanitarian aid.
The United States, Britain and France invoked the "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine, and sent their naval ships into Burmese waters. Finally, the regime agreed to accept international humanitarian aid, which resulted in countless lives being saved.
For six months after the cyclone hit, knowing the significant risks involved, "Z" and "T" followed a group of children orphaned by the cyclone. It is that footage, edited into a documentary, which won them the award.
The journalists have paid a high price for this award, which honours Rory Peck, who was killed while filming the 1993 siege of the Russian parliament. Peck's wife, Juliet, and friends created the Rory Peck Trust, which has shone a light this year on the role of journalists working for DVB. That role is compellingly drawn in "Burma VJ", the extraordinary, award-winning film that has been short-listed for the 2009 Oscars. The film engages the protests through the eyes of DVB video-journalists, from the high of protesters amassing by the 1,000s, to the low of life-threatening raids by the Burmese troops.
In addition to the honour of this the award and the spotlight on Burmese journalists, DVB has received the highest compliment from the Burmese regime, which publicly denounced DVB as the worst media. It claims that DVB widely disseminates false news and information about the country. Less benignly, the regime conducted a comprehensive crackdown on the DVB journalists' network in the aftermath of the Saffron Revolution. At present, more than a dozen DVB journalists are serving prison terms, some as long as 65 years.
The cost incurred by these video-reporters raises ethical questions about underground assignments by DVB, a question the organisation asks itself daily. But the answer to those questions lies in the stories of the cameramen themselves.
One of the journalists working for the network inside Burma is a former political prisoner from Myinchan prison in central Burma. He assumed that Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch would have publicised the torture and death of several dozens of political prisoners, with many going insane or mentally ill as a result of extreme torture in the mid 1990s. Yet, upon release he realised that the information blackout imposed by the regime blocked even these cases from coming to light. His choice to become a pioneer in helping to establish the DVB network across the country is based on this experience.
As a key member of the video-journalists' network says, young Burmese starving for freedom believe that the absence of a free media prolongs military rule and the suffering of the people.
These young people played a major role in filming and reporting the Saffron Revolution. Their work has not only diminished the death toll, but also ensured timely responses from the international community - a rarity in the past.
This international response to the images has resulted in an ongoing hunt by the regime for DVB journalists. "T" was arrested four months ago and charged under the "Electronic Act", which allows for prison terms of up to 15 years for filming and sending information out of the country.
Aung San Suu Kyi has said "there are two prisons in Burma - one with walls and another without".
DVB journalists have chosen to risk imprisonment within the walls of terrifying places like Insein in order to battle against the nefarious prison without walls that Burma has become for its people. "T", "Z" and their fellow video-journalists have become the country's, even the world's, most important and courageous freedom fighters.
For that alone, the Rory Peck award is well deserved.