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Why we shouldn’t
holiday in Burma
by Glenys Kinnock, MEP
Some people are asking tourists not to go to Burma at present. They’re
not extremists but a democratically elected party that won a general
election for a parliament that has never been allowed to convene.
These people – the National League for Democracy, led by the
Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi- specifically ask visitors
to stay away until the brutal military junta which rules the country
allows them to take up their rightful place in government.
About 8 million men, women and children have been forced to labour
on construction projects, including those linked to tourism, according
to estimates given to the UN International Labour Organisation.
And hundreds and thousands of Burmese people have been forcibly
relocated from their homes in order to develop the country’s
infrastructure, much of it created to boost tourism.
And what is the response in Britain to these horrors? Many individuals,
some tour operators and the UK government have respected the call
not to visit Burma… But amazingly, many in the media and the
travel industry have argued vociferously for tourism to Burma to
continue… reacting to a campaign asking people not to buy Lonely
Planet books until they withdraw their new Burma guide [by saying]
“It’s censorship!”…
Lonely Planet insist that publishing their guide, given the current
low visitor numbers is financially disastrous. But it is of course
astute business sense in the long-run. When tourism to Burma does
increase, their up-to-date guide to the country will be ready and
waiting to drop into millions of backpacks.
I have been lucky enough to meet Aung San Suu Kyi. Her courage and
heroism is breathtaking. She is a remarkable woman, with a fierce
determination to bring about freedom in Burma, and a phenomenal
sense of calm given the personal suffering she endures. The Burmese
people want freedom from a regime of killings, rape, genocide and
the perpetration of relentless misery. We must respond to this terrible
human suffering.
Aung San Suu Kyi asks a simple thing. She hasn’t asked for
us to be courageous, she hasn’t asked for military help. She’s
asked for sanctions so that the junta will be starved out of existence.
We can impose our own sanctions and not go on holiday to Burma.
And we should certainly not buy from publishers that suggest we
should.
This is an edited extract from an
article which first appeared in The Guardian on 28 June 2000..
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