Burma Campaign – “It is impossible to visit Burma without funding the military dictatorship.
“Some people in the travel industry argue that tourists bring information from the outside world to the isolated local people, but what do we learn from the copies of Hello! magazine that they leave behind? If we talk about political things to tourists we risk being arrested. Only regime trained tourist guides are allowed to speak with tourists, and those tourist guides are told by the regime what to say to foreigners. As a Burmese citizen I personally didn’t experience the benefit of the tourism. The regime declared 1996 as ‘Visit Myanmar Year’ but in the same year there were some student protests in the Rangoon University and the universities were closed for several years. Even as the regime opened the doors to tourism they were still committing human rights abuses.
“Tourism helps fund the regime that oppresses us. A very small number of people make their living from tourism, and so of course they defend it, but all of us suffer from the regime that keeps us living in poverty and in fear. Three quarters of the population are farmers and these people are not benefiting from tourism industry. Luxury hotels import foreign goods for tourists instead of using local products. Tourists sit by swimming pools in hotels like those owned by Orient Express and pay five dollars for an imported can of coke. How do we benefit from that?
“The regime identified and promoted tourism as a source of foreign exchange, not as a way of providing jobs for the people. Front page articles in state owned newspapers talk about the importance of tourism to Burma, but they only mention foreign exchange, not employment for ordinary people. They need foreign dollars to buy the guns they use to rule over us. Not only does tourism fund the regime, tourist facilities have been built by forced labour. Ordinary Burmese people have been forcibly removed from their homes to clean-up areas for tourism.
“Some have tried to argue that the presence of tourists could help prevent human rights abuses, as the regime would not do certain things in front of tourists. But during the uprising last September, even before the crackdown, tourists were hiding in their hotels until they could get on the first flight out. Our people are struggling for freedom and democracy in our country.
“Tourists should think twice before they consider Burma as a tourist destination. How will their money be spent by the regime? Bear in mind that the regime spends around half its income on the military. This is the military that shoots at monks who are peacefully protesting. A military that uses rape as a weapon of war in its war of ethnic cleansing in the east of Burma, even raping girls as young as six. They torture, they assassinate, they mutilate and behead people. This is what your tourist dollars help pay for. By visiting Burma, tourists are not providing financial or moral support to us, instead they fund our oppressors. Stay away.”
