Road to Mandalay?: travel

Monday is the start of Visit Myanmar Year, Myanmar being the official name given to Burma by the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), the ruling military junta. Although they wanted to encourage tourists to visit earlier, lack of facilities meant delaying until now. Better late than never. Or is it?

The Nobel Peace Prize Winner and Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has asked tourists not to support Visit Myanmar Year. She cites human rights abuses connected to tourism development. But many people in the industry say that tourism does a country good. In a recent Tourism Concern survey about taking tours to Burma, the most frequent argument was that human rights abuses happen everywhere, so why highlight Burma?

Burma is exceptional with regard to tourism. Not only is it run by a military regime "guilty of extrajudicial killing, torture, forced unpaid labour on construction projects and forced relocation of villages", according to Amnesty International, but many of these abuses have occurred in order to develop the country for the 250,000 tourists the SLORC hopes to attract.

Such facts have prompted four British tour operators not to go to Burma. However, big operators, such as Kuoni and Orient Express, insist that it is up to individuals to decide whether they want to go or not. Yet even the most well-meaning tourists trying to put their money into local hands still fund the junta. Take sightseeing. It costs around $60 to visit all the official sites in Rangoon. Multiply that by 250,000 visitors, and that's $15m. And it's worth bearing in mind that SLORC spends about 41 per cent of its budget on arms.

As Suu Kyi has pointed out, "There are times when breadth of vision dictates that travel be curbed in the interest of justice and humanity."

The Burma Action Group is organising a 'Don't Visit Burma Yet' evening on 19 November, to include a screening of John Pilger's interview with Aung San Suu Kyi. Call 0171-359 7679.