Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons

Myanmar, 6-21 June, 07
(Fortunately I wasn't placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds!)

So Myanmar, you know, that place we used to call Burma and we Brits in the 19th & early 20th century would plunder for teak and in which we encouraged opium cultivation. In fact the British press (and government) still call it Burma refusing to recognise the name Myanmar as the renaming was the brain child of the officially unrecognised military dictatorship. So we call it Burma, the name we Brits gave the country because some plum choked, gin befuddled employee of the British East India Company decided it rolled off the fat tongue better than Myanmar, it's original name. Complicated huh?

[OK, the serious bit.] Going there isn't a straightforward decision. The military dictatorship is a brutal institution with a penchant for forced (that'll be slave) labour and imprisonment of political dissenters including Aung San Suu Kyi - the National League for Democracy candidate who won 82% of votes in the 1990 democratic election and who has never been given power, remaining under house arrest. Add to the mix oppression of ethnic minorities in its border lands, human rights abuses and other general despotic acts and you can see why it's a hot potato. If you go, there's no way you can stop some money going into the government's coffers. And a good portion of that money will invariably go on military spending to maintain the current regime. There are limited economic and political sanctions in place by the EU and UN. So, to go or no?

Depends on why you're going I guess. If it's a cheap holiday to a land stuck in a different time period, where you can get five star (government run) luxury at 1970s prices, see some wondrous sites and neatly ignore the poverty and oppression barely visible through the bubbles in your chilled 40p beer, then perhaps your motives are a little suspect. If it's to see the sites but do so with your eyes and mind open, talk to local people at grass roots level, limit your cash going to the government by choosing private guest houses/hotels/restaurants and come back with a sense of wanting to help change the political, economic and social climate for the better in whatever small way, then perhaps there is a more valid reason.

It's not cut and dried. The Burma Campaign UK calls for a total boycott of tourism in Burma quoting Aung San Suu Kyi herself as being opposed to it. And Tony Blair called for those thinking of visiting Burma for a holiday to 'consider carefully whether by their actions they are helping to support the regime and prolong such dreadful abuses.'

Burma has one of the biggest reserves of gas & oil in Asia and also gold, diamonds and jade seemingly in abundance. These have naturally caught the eye of the corporate magpies in the west. The flimsy economic sanctions that exist, or at least the simple veto by one country on more stringent EU or UN sanctions, plays into the hands of some western companies who are willing to get into bed with the Burmese government. The money that rolls in from these ventures outweighs by a factor of thousands the money from tourism. That said, any act that promotes or apparently legitimises human rights abuse should be avoided and perhaps that means all tourism. The debate rages.

Obviously it was the chilled 40p beer that swung it for me! (Joking.)

It's a personal decision and one of conscience. Heck, with this and my previous rant on global waste production it looks like I'm turning into some form of environmental/political warrior...even if a massively hypocritical one. It's not completely the case but the world isn't all candy floss and it's only right to publicise the pros and cons of going to Burma/Myanmar...even criticise my own decision to go. For more information see http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/ .

Oooh. I feel a bit depressed now.

In addition, an ex-work colleague of Dan's, Christina Archer, whom I met in Bangkok previously in May was going to be in Myanmar working on a project for Save the Children. She could take a week or so off after her work and we could travel about and see for ourselves some of the country. So off to Yangon (aka Rangoon) I went.

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