15 February 2008
Would-Be Tourists to Burma Must Decide Whether To Boycott
Groups opposed to junta disagree over benefit of foreign visitors
Washington -- Not surprisingly, tourism in Burma declined sharply after the military regime’s violent suppression of pro-democracy activists began in September 2007. The state-run media reported that the number of foreign visitors between September and December 2007 was down by nearly half compared to the same period in 2006. Official government statistics reported that a total of 349,877 tourists came in 2006.
But whether any tourists should be visiting Burma at all is a matter of debate among those who oppose the military government’s autocratic rule and human rights abuses.
National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who heads the pro-democracy opposition, repeatedly has called on tourists to stay away, lest their business puts money into the hands of the regime. She also has pointed out the government’s use of forced labor and its displacement of Burmese nationals for tourist development projects.
On January 16, and at the request of Burmese unions, British trade union leaders voiced their support for a general tourism boycott until democracy is restored to the country. Trades Union Congress General-Secretary Brendan Barber told Agence France Presse “it’s simply immoral to holiday in a country-wide prison camp.”
"We're urging the travel industry to drop Burma from their list of destinations because of the forced and child labor involved in Burmese tourist attractions and facilities, [and] because of the money and endorsement tourism offers the bloody dictatorship that runs Burma,” Barber said.
But despite Suu Kyi’s and the trade unions’ call for a tourism boycott, not everyone who shares the goal of a democratic Burma agrees.
The Free Burma Coalition (FBC) spent nearly 10 years after its founding in 1995 advocating boycotts and sanctions against the country, including urging tourists to stay away, as part of its goal of supporting Burma’s struggle for democracy and human rights.
However, according to the group’s Web site, the FBC now encourages travel, tourism and other exchanges to “support people's livelihoods, institutional and capacity building, and humanitarian assistance.”
“[A]fter having reviewed the effectiveness of our pro-sanctions campaigns against the objective of building an open society back home, we have categorically reversed our pro-isolation advocacy,” the site says.
Travel writer Adam Karlin, who is half-Burmese, wrote on his blog after visiting relatives in January his view that tourism is actually helpful to the Burmese people. One relative explained that the tourism decline since the September 2007 crackdown had forced many women employees out of the industry and into prostitution in order to provide for themselves.
One of Karlin’s relatives, he said, is a supporter of Aung San Suu Kyi, but “[l]ike every Burmese person I know, he wanted tourists in the country, and realized every foreign visitor here was a refutation of the government and the lie that it controls the world, a chink in the junta’s psychological prison of isolation.”
The travel writer added his own view that “if 100,000 monks can’t change the mind of this shameless government, neither can the absence of a few thousand tourists.”
Although the Bush administration has tightened sanctions three times against Burma’s junta since the crackdown began, American tourists have not been asked to stay away.
The State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs (CA) has advised potential tourists that they “must assume their actions are being closely monitored, particularly in hotel lobbies and rooms, when meeting Burmese citizens, and when using the telephone.”
The government also controls and monitors all Internet use and censors Web sites through software programs. “All e-mails are read by military intelligence,” according to CA’s country information sheet on Burma.
The bureau says hotels and guesthouses are required to provide the government with “the identities and activities of their foreign guests,” and any Burmese national who interacts with a foreigner “may be compelled to report” those interactions to the regime.
Tom Malinowski, director of Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) Washington office, weighed in on the debate, telling America.gov that the British trade unions' call for a tourism boycott is “very valuable” because it is adding publicity to the situation and helping to educate potential tourists about the situation in Burma.
“They should be aware that they are going to a dictatorship. They should be aware that the government does try to exploit all economic activity in the country, including tourism, for its own benefit. And if they do plan to go, they should try to conduct themselves in a way that will minimize benefit to the regime and maximize benefit to ordinary people,” Malinowski said.
However, while advocating sanctions that directly will affect the country’s military leadership, HRW is not calling for a tourism boycott. Malinowski said he believes individual tourists, “if they’re sensitive and thoughtful,” can find ways to benefit Burmese who are not affiliated with the regime.
Those advocating boycotts have a valid point on issues, he said, including the use of forced labor in building the tourism infrastructure. “At the same time, there may be a road that at some point in the past was worked on by forced labor and at the end of that road there is a community that still is desperate for contact with the outside world and you have to weigh both [views],” he said.
Many Burmese value ordinary human contact with foreigners, but Malinowski said they already are well aware that a better life than the status quo under the junta is possible. “[I]n a country where there is so much suffering and so many sources of pain and frustration for ordinary people, that kind of contact can be a source of happiness.”
Ultimately, Malinowski said he does not believe that either allowing or forbidding tourism in Burma will hasten the coming of democracy. “It’s just a matter of whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing in the daily lives of people to have those kinds of contact and I think that it’s on balance a good thing.”
For more information, see the Bureau of Consular Affairs’ country information sheet on Burma.
