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HBO Documentary 'Burma Soldier' Reveals Life Under Junta (Time.com)

Burma has been rendered in journalism, activism and art as a country of plain dichotomies: good vs. evil, liberty vs. suppression, the saintly Aung San Suu Kyi vs. the brutal monolith of the military junta. By its very premise, Burma Soldier, which airs this evening on HBO, muddies this picture. The documentary's subject, Myo Myint, is a former soldier who gave his adolescent years to the regime but came in adulthood to join the democratic opposition against it. Says Nic Dunlop, writer-photographer and a co-director of the film with Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern: "Myo Myint's story is extraordinary because it incorporates victim and perpetrator in a single narrative." Extraordinary, yes, and yet this project's greatest strength is its willingness to consider that the lowest ranks of the Burmese army are rife with men as petrified and cynical of the regime as the people they terrorize in its name.

Much of Burma Soldier consists of an unsettling monologue, filmed almost entirely at a refugee camp of grassy huts on the Thai-Burma border. From there, Myo Myint waits to be granted asylum, like his siblings were a decade ago, in the U.S. He came to the army, he tells us, as most Burmese soldiers: teenaged, apolitical and looking for employment and esteem. "Then I didn't know the difference between people showing respect and people acting out of fear," he says. He revisits the details of atrocities committed by fellow servicemen and to which he was a reluctant witness - the raping of ethnic-minority women, the torching of their villages - in quiet and deliberate tones. The interviews were shot in the less than two weeks before Myo Myint boarded a plane for America, but his narrative has nothing of this urgency. (Is Burma's strongman really retiring?)

Myo Myint worked as a military engineer, laying and clearing minefields, until an enemy mortar shell set off a mine and blew away a leg, an arm and a few of his fingers. Recalling his subsequent time in hospital, he sheds tears so suddenly that he seems to startle himself. As a crippled civilian, he would retreat first into drink and later, with a yen for peace, into the pro-democracy movement. He established a youth library of banned books, met with democracy leader Suu Kyi and, as protests rocked the country in 1988, addressed a rally of 8,000 antiregime demonstrators from his crutches. More than 200 men in uniform, emboldened by his example, joined the uprising. For defying the dictatorship, Myo Myint was tortured and sentenced to first seven years, then almost immediately after his release, 10 years in prison. He served close to 15.

Burma's generals came to control what had been a newly independent nation in a bloody coup in 1962, one year before Myo Myint was born. In the decades since, the junta has waged an endless civil war against ethnic groups, formed an economic oligarchy, defied international pressure and gunned down pro-democracy demonstrations. "The lower ranks, most of them are illiterate and uneducated," Myo Myint tells TIME, "and they're brainwashed into thinking that all dissidents are enemies of the army, of the state, of the people." In 1990, the regime nullified an election that would have brought Suu Kyi's now banned National League for Democracy party to power. For 15 of the past 21 years they kept her locked up. Last November, Suu Kyi was released from her most recent term of house arrest and in March, a new military-backed government was sworn in, but seemingly little has changed.

Burma Soldier punctuates Myo Myint's grim chronicle with scenes of this junta rule, footage of troops battling protesters or parading in shows of malevolent force. Much of it was smuggled out of the country by dissidents, the rest taken from the BBC, a Burmese humanitarian-service movement, the Web and even a spate of foreigners on gap year. "Begged, borrowed, stolen and in some cases actually paid for," says Dunlop of the images. But for all its impact - there is something uniquely horrifying in watching an army fire on its own people - the material is rarely as effective as Myo Myint's defeated but still handsome face. (See how Burmese activists have launched an antidictatorship Facebook group.)

Months before that face was set to speak to a foreign audience in its HBO debut, the team behind the movie focused their attentions on Myo Myint's countrymen. In an act of what producer Julie LeBrocquy has christened "reverse piracy," Burmese-language copies of the movie are being smuggled back into Burma. Activists are taking great risks to leave DVDs behind in Rangoon's Internet cafEs, to be discovered by future cyberusers. By a recent count, the Burmese-language version had been viewed online close to 33,000 times.

In Fort Wayne, Ind., where he now lives among the largest community of Burmese Americans (and where the film's end captures his fateful reunion with his family), Myo Myint is working still to give Burmese an account of their own history that hasn't been written by the ruling elite. And that includes his current neighbors. While he has gladly found the plentiful and uncensored stacks of an American library, many of the Burmese in Fort Wayne cannot read English. He acts, among other things, as a translator and interpreter for incoming refugees and has his hands in both a local Burmese-language magazine and weekly Burmese-language TV program. "I have no right to directly participate in Burma's politics," says Myo Myint, who took with him to the U.S. a plastic bag of Burmese soil. "So this is my politics: struggling to help my people, my nation." It is a striking patriotism for a man who is not allowed to go home.

See pictures of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Read "Was Burma's Opening of Parliament Significant?"

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Spy agency reveals invisible ink formula

The papers date as far back as 1917, and they were among the United States' oldest classified documents. STORY HIGHLIGHTSThe newly declassified documents provide the formulas for invisible inkThe information was released because it's no longer considered sensitiveThere are also instructions for opening a sealed letter without detectionRELATED TOPICSCentral Intelligence AgencyEspionage and Intelligence Washington (CNN) -- The pages read like a modern-day Harry Potter novel.

But the writing does not denote the characters Ron Weasley saying, "There's nothing written in this diary," and Hermione Granger responding, "It must be invisible ink!"

These are newly-declassified, nearly century-old CIA documents, typed and hand-written with titles like "Secret Writing" that, among other things, divulge formulas for making and uncovering invisible ink.

The six papers date as far back as 1917, and until their release on Tuesday were among the United States' oldest classified documents.

One of them lists ingredients used in German secret ink.

Whereas the Harry Potter character Hermione can simply command "Aparecium!" to make the words appear on the page, these documents indicate early 20th century spies had to employ much more elaborate methods.

The CIA released the documents to the public because the information contained in them is no longer considered to be sensitive. They are believed to be the only remaining classified documents from the World War I era, according to the spy agency.

"These documents remained classified for nearly a century until recent advancements in technology made it possible to release them," CIA Director Leon Panetta said in a statement. "When historical information is no longer sensitive, we take seriously our responsibility to share it with the American people."

The document listing formulas used to make German secret ink is written in French and dated June 14, 1918.

A related document in English tells spies how to expose the German correspondence, starting with the instruction, "examine through powerful beam of light directed on surface at different angles."

The instructions continue with spy novel-type techniques, including dusting a little powdered charcoal over the paper's surface.

"Run a hot iron over the surface being careful not to scorch the paper," the instructions say. "Wet with water."

The directions resemble a mix of the scientific and simple, calling for chemicals such as hydrogen sulphide and ammonia, with instructions to "rinse with water and dry in the air."

A few other steps include wetting the paper with iron sulphate and a "little solution of potassium ferrocyanide," all of which, according to the document, collectively expose a host of other substances like iron and copper used to conceal writing, thus revealing the words and making the pages readable.

The "secret writing" document instructs spies how to disguise their correspondence.

The directions call for a nitrate and starch solution, which, according to the document, "may be carried for example in handkerchiefs or starched collars."

"A tumbler of water is boiled together with a table spoon of starch, allow to cool, and add ten gramms (sic) of nitrite of soda," the instructions say.

One of the CIA documents outlines detailed instructions on how to open a sealed letter without detection, largely by using chemicals including acetone and amyl alcohol.

"Heat in water bath -- Steam rising will dissolve the sealing material of its mucilage, wax, or oil," the instructions read. "Do not inhale." Mucilage is a type of glue.

Another document is a memorandum evaluating different samples of ink. Some samples were found to be "very corrosive" on steel pens, and deemed more suitable for a quill pen.

The original papers are housed at the National Archives and copies are now available on the CIA's website and at http://www.foia.cia.gov/.

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