By SIMON ROUGHNEEN / THE IRRAWADDY

RANGOON — Ko Ko Aung cannot forget the day six years ago when he spoke to his friend and colleague Kenji Nagai for the last time.

“It was around 11.30 Rangoon time when he called,” recalls the former Japan-based Burmese exile. It was Sept. 27, 2007. It was to be the last time the Japanese cameraman called his editors at the APF News office, where Ko Ko Aung was working at the time.

Later that afternoon, Kenji Nagai was shot dead in downtown Rangoon while filming an army crackdown on protests against military rule, demonstrations that were becoming known worldwide as “the Saffron Revolution.”