Maesot: The Thailand-based AASYC’s Research & Documentation Department launched distribution of a monthly chronology in Burmese starting in June, 2009, featuring published news stories from several agencies based both inside Burma and in exile.
Ko Aung Mram Oo, secretary of the AASYC, said that most people are unable to know the situation inArakan State in a short period. “We would like to give information, what happened in Arakan in that month, to the people who are interested in Arakan. So we are publishing the chronology,” he said.
The chronology has two sections – one related to Arakan State and another for news from all of Burma. The chronology will be published in Burmese.
“We collect important stories in our chronology which are not only from exile media, but also inside media. Every Burmese can read all short news stories from a month within a short period. This is our target for readers,” he said.
In the June issue, many news stories were picked up from exiled Arakanese news agency Narinjara, but there were also many news stories from other agencies such as bi-weekly Eleven, 7-days news journal, and the Yangon Times.
Ko Tun Kyaw, from Bangladesh, who accesses the internet regularly, said that it is great work and a good idea because it is impossible to some stories published inside Burma from Bangladesh. “Now we can easily get the stories from the AASYC monthly chronology. I really appreciate them launching this publication,” he added.
The chronology is currently targeted at a Burmese audience at present, but AASYC has plans to publish in the English language to reach out to international readers.
The AASYC, or All Arakan Students and Youths Congress, is a political organization based on the Thai-Burma border that is struggling for democracy and self-determination for all ethnic nationalities in Burma. The organization was formed by some Arakanese students and youth in exile in Bangkok, Thailand, in 1996.
Narinjara
democracy for burma 