Title – Supporting Burma
Source – Tourism Infocus
Date – Autumn 2008
Burma and it’s deep seated problems feature regularly in this blog, we try and do our bit to raise the profile of the terrible problems the country faces; problems which can almost all be laid directly at the door of the illegal and brutal military regime which has ruled the country for over 60 years. A regime who will do anything to cling on to power and who don’t think twice about using torture, extra judicial killing, threats against women and children, imprisonment and depraved violence including rape as a weapon of war, to keep control. Control over a country they have turned from a beacon of light in South East Asia; from the a country rich in resources; from a country with an industrious people who once made it the ‘rice bowl’ of South East Asia; to a basket case; to a country that spends less then 50p per capita per year on health care and education combined; to a country that can’t feed itself; to a country that desperately needs foreign aid but refuses to accept it; to a country where an already devastating cyclone is turned into a tragedy of such magnitude that most still don’t comprehend it; to a country rated as one of the world poorest.
We have written to many companies and individuals over the years giving our opinion on Burma and trying to convince them that investment in and tourism to Burma, just exasperates the problems, by providing funding to the military regime to allow them to continue their oppression. We have had some success; in one notable case persuading a well known travel company to remove Burma from their brochure and website and in its place put a link to the Burma Campaign UK website. We have received many letters in response, some have been positive, people offering to support the various campaigns, some negative generally from companies using the age old excuse of ‘freedom of choice’ as an argument for them selling trips to Burma.
We believe in freedom of choice and we agree that travellers should be able to make up their own mind where they travel to. But freedom of choice is only ‘freedom’ if you have all the information to make an educated ‘choice’. Travel companies that promote Burma use words and phrases like; ‘Shangri-La’, ‘unspoilt paradise’, ‘peaceful, spiritual Burma’. Have any of these people been to Burma and spoken to real Burmese? Do the Burmese describe Burma as ‘Shangri-La’ or is it closer to ‘hell on earth’?
Burma is undoubtedly one of the world’s most beautiful countries, the various ethnic groups in Burma are undoubtedly some of the world’s friendliest, gentlest and most spiritual people, but they are prevented from being themselves by these dictators. When people tell you that you can travel to Burma and use ‘local’ facilities that fund ‘local’ people and not the ‘government’, they show their abject ignorance of Burma. The ‘government’ control everything and areas they don’t have complete control over, they will simply not allow you to travel to. Any money you spend in Burma will provide the government with funding and almost anything you spend will be on hotels, guesthouses, transport etc that is sanctioned by the government for tourist to use. For a Burmese person to get this sanction to provide services to tourist, they need a licence which involves paying off the local ‘government’ or being in their pocket.
I am a strong advocate that tourism to Burma indirectly funds the brutal oppression. If the tour operators put that in their glossy brochures would anyone go? Probably not if rather than a picture of the serene Pagan temples, they showed the forced labour building the roads to allow tourists to visit them or pictures of one of the world’s largest child armies that helps to prop up the military junta…
There are many organisations which support the struggle for a free Burma. We recently wrote to Tourism Concern to offer our support of their excellent campaign and they chose to publish an extract of our letter, posted here for your attention. At Beyond The Blue (Safe Gap Year) we will not dictate where you should go and where you should not go. We choose to educate rather than dictate. We have yet to meet anyone who has decided to travel to Burma once they have all the facts made available to them.
For further information, please visit The Burma Campaign UK and Tourism Concern websites.
Please visit our website at www.safegapyear.com or join us on Facebook. For a complete list of Blog entries visit our National Press Archive page.
Source – Tourism Infocus
Date – Autumn 2008
Burma and it’s deep seated problems feature regularly in this blog, we try and do our bit to raise the profile of the terrible problems the country faces; problems which can almost all be laid directly at the door of the illegal and brutal military regime which has ruled the country for over 60 years. A regime who will do anything to cling on to power and who don’t think twice about using torture, extra judicial killing, threats against women and children, imprisonment and depraved violence including rape as a weapon of war, to keep control. Control over a country they have turned from a beacon of light in South East Asia; from the a country rich in resources; from a country with an industrious people who once made it the ‘rice bowl’ of South East Asia; to a basket case; to a country that spends less then 50p per capita per year on health care and education combined; to a country that can’t feed itself; to a country that desperately needs foreign aid but refuses to accept it; to a country where an already devastating cyclone is turned into a tragedy of such magnitude that most still don’t comprehend it; to a country rated as one of the world poorest.
We have written to many companies and individuals over the years giving our opinion on Burma and trying to convince them that investment in and tourism to Burma, just exasperates the problems, by providing funding to the military regime to allow them to continue their oppression. We have had some success; in one notable case persuading a well known travel company to remove Burma from their brochure and website and in its place put a link to the Burma Campaign UK website. We have received many letters in response, some have been positive, people offering to support the various campaigns, some negative generally from companies using the age old excuse of ‘freedom of choice’ as an argument for them selling trips to Burma.
We believe in freedom of choice and we agree that travellers should be able to make up their own mind where they travel to. But freedom of choice is only ‘freedom’ if you have all the information to make an educated ‘choice’. Travel companies that promote Burma use words and phrases like; ‘Shangri-La’, ‘unspoilt paradise’, ‘peaceful, spiritual Burma’. Have any of these people been to Burma and spoken to real Burmese? Do the Burmese describe Burma as ‘Shangri-La’ or is it closer to ‘hell on earth’?
Burma is undoubtedly one of the world’s most beautiful countries, the various ethnic groups in Burma are undoubtedly some of the world’s friendliest, gentlest and most spiritual people, but they are prevented from being themselves by these dictators. When people tell you that you can travel to Burma and use ‘local’ facilities that fund ‘local’ people and not the ‘government’, they show their abject ignorance of Burma. The ‘government’ control everything and areas they don’t have complete control over, they will simply not allow you to travel to. Any money you spend in Burma will provide the government with funding and almost anything you spend will be on hotels, guesthouses, transport etc that is sanctioned by the government for tourist to use. For a Burmese person to get this sanction to provide services to tourist, they need a licence which involves paying off the local ‘government’ or being in their pocket.
I am a strong advocate that tourism to Burma indirectly funds the brutal oppression. If the tour operators put that in their glossy brochures would anyone go? Probably not if rather than a picture of the serene Pagan temples, they showed the forced labour building the roads to allow tourists to visit them or pictures of one of the world’s largest child armies that helps to prop up the military junta…
There are many organisations which support the struggle for a free Burma. We recently wrote to Tourism Concern to offer our support of their excellent campaign and they chose to publish an extract of our letter, posted here for your attention. At Beyond The Blue (Safe Gap Year) we will not dictate where you should go and where you should not go. We choose to educate rather than dictate. We have yet to meet anyone who has decided to travel to Burma once they have all the facts made available to them.
For further information, please visit The Burma Campaign UK and Tourism Concern websites.
Please visit our website at www.safegapyear.com or join us on Facebook. For a complete list of Blog entries visit our National Press Archive page.
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