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..