A couple of months ago, I was sitting in a little open-air restaurant near
Sandoway, not far from the sea, enjoying a prawn curry and an avocado salad.
I had been at the same restaurant when it first opened a few years back and
was happy to see it doing well. The customers were almost all Westerners,
the tables were full, and the prices (in dollars) had been gently increased.
The young owner had put on a few pounds and had outgrown his earlier
nervousness around foreigners, eagerly suggesting dishes and speaking more
confidently in English.
He was looking after a large extended family and now thought of expanding his
business in new directions. Friends had made some money offering boat rides
and snorkelling trips around the picture-perfect islands near by. Perhaps,
he said, he could do the same.
I wished him good luck and quietly hoped that his success could be repeated as
many times as possible across the country. But would the tourists come? For
more than 40 years, Burma has been ruled by a repressive, mendacious and
somewhat whimsical army Government. There is next to no political freedom
and Aung
San Suu Kyi, the country’s best-known dissident, is under her third spell of
house arrest. The Americans have imposed tough sanctions and activists in
London have pushed for a boycott of tourism. Many in the UK have heeded this
call and in 2005 even Tony Blair signed a pledge not to travel to Burma. But
I think this is wrong.
There are essentially two arguments against visiting Burma. One is simply that
the Burmese suffer under a repressive regime and that people shouldn’t visit
countries with so bad a human rights record. The other argument is a
strategic one, that visiting Burma and spending money there will only
prolong the life of the present dictatorship.
The first is a perfectly defensible position and the only possible
counter-argument would be to say that Burma is no less free than some other
tourist
destinations. But taking a moral stand is different from helping to change
things for the better. And staying away won’t change things in Burma.
About 300,000 tourists visit Burma now every year, up from almost nothing 15
years ago, but still a minuscule number compared with about 15 million
people who visit Thailand, or the 1.5 million who travel every year to
Cam-bodia, another less-than-demo-cratic country. About half are Asian and
the rest mainly continental Europeans.
Most spend their time in leafy Raj-era Rangoon, visiting the magnificent
Shwedagon pagoda complex, before heading up to the old royal capital of
Mandalay, with its massive teak ramparts – designed to withstand a British
siege – or along the Irrawaddy to the sprawling medieval ruins at Pagan, one
of the most striking and least visited archaeological wonders of the world.
But off this slightly beaten track there is much more to see and do, from
trekking in the remote Himalayan villages in the north to sailing off sandy
white beaches in the south.
Earlier this year I wrote a book about Burma, The River of Lost Footsteps, in
part to introduce people to Burma’s incredibly colourful and often violent
history. But I also wrote the book to give an historical context to today’s
problems and show the futility of further isolating what is already one of
the most isolated societies in the world.
Isolation has been Burma’s curse. In the early 1960s, the military regime,
having just come to power, shut off the country from the outside world,
ending nearly all foreign aid and investment, and banning tourism. The
regime evolved and entrenched itself in this self-made cocoon. Then in the
early 1990s, with a dec-ades-long civil war nearly over, Burma’s generals,
while still shunning democratic change, decided to liberalise the economy
and encourage foreign visitors. Rangoon was transformed. Dozens of hotels
were built, together with hundreds of new restaurants, from sushi bars to
French bistros, all privately owned.
But the army leadership has opened up only tentatively and this openness is
something to make use of, not reject. Isolation is the regime’s default
condition. It is what fuels the present system. Burma might not become a
democracy overnight, but it will certainly improve with more outside
interaction. Would Indonesia be better off if no one had visited during its
30 years of military rule?
Responsible tourism can help to lift many ordinary people from poverty and an
influx of outsiders will hasten the possibility of political change. And
it’s just not true that tourist money props up the Government. Nearly all
hotels are privately or foreign owned (including all the big ones). It’s
easy to avoid the few Government-owned hotels if you want – the Lonely
Planet guide spells it out. None of the big hotels has made any money, at
least not yet, and none has paid significant taxes. It’s true that the state
receives money from airport taxes and other small tourist fees, but all this
is a negligible amount, perhaps a few tens of millions of dollars a year, a
figure which must be compared with the billion dollars a year the treasury
now receives from natural gas exports – a figure which will grow rapidly.
Money from tourism is in no way essential to the regime’s survival. Even if
the present number of tourists increased several-fold, it would not be an
important income-earner for the state. But tourism is the one sector in
which a good degree of private enterprise is possible, free from government
control. There is little to stop a businessman from setting up a hotel or a
guide service and hundreds of thousands of people already make a living from
the tourist trade that does exist. Very little is taxed. A real expansion
will do much more to help ordinary Burmese than to supplement the government
coffers.
Most important, tourism can help to bring in the fresh air so desperately
needed. Together with the satellite dishes now mushrooming across Rangoon
and Mandalay, it is this greater interaction with the outside world that
will unravel the status quo. If the Government one day bans tourism again,
it will be because it understands its subversive potential.
So, if you want to avoid spending money in a military dictatorship, then stay
at home. But if you really want to help to change things for the better,
then go and see Burma for yourself. The River of Lost Footsteps by Thant
Myint-U (Faber, £20). Available from BooksFirst (0870 1608080, timesonline.co.uk/books)
for £18, including p&p.
Blood money
Visitors are funding a brutal regime, says Mark Farmaner
The moment the wheels of your aircraft touch the runway in Rangoon, you are
putting money in the pockets of one of the world's most brutal
dictatorships.
How will that money be spent? Not on hospitals or schools. Burma now spends
less on health than any other country in the world. Your money will help to
pay for guns, and the soldiers who wield them. You won’t see many, if any,
of those soldiers you'll help to pay for. They are mainly in the mountains
and jungles of Burma, engaged in a war against ethnic minority civilians,
which the UN says breaches the Geneva Convention. On average a village a
week is attacked and destroyed. Those unable to flee can face torture,
mutilation or execution. Women and children are raped, even girls as young
as five. Travel supplements like this don’t publish the pictures of bodies
and burnt villages alongside those of golden pagodas and smiling children.
Some people, usually those who make money from tourism, say it is all right to
go to Burma, as local people will benefit. Yes, a small number of people do
benefit from tourism, but millions suffer from the regime it helps to fund.
Others argue that it is good to go and see for yourself, and that tourists
bring news and information from the outside world.
But travel journalists and tourists never get to see the real Burma. They
don’t see prisoners tortured in Burma’s jails, the people used as slave
labour, or the luxury homes of the generals. Nor do they see the
intelligence officers interrogating or arresting people after they’ve spoken
to tourists, demanding to know what was discussed.
Burmese people do see this. That is why Aung San Suu Kyi and the democracy
movement have asked tourists to stay away. It is not a lot to ask. Please
respect their wishes. Mark Farmaner is acting director of Burma Campaign UK (www.burmacampaign.org.uk).
Need to know
Thant Myint-U is a former fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. He was born in
New York – when his grandfather U Thant was the UN Secretary-General – and
has lived most of his life in the US and UK. He still has many relatives in
Rangoon and Mandalay.
Burma Campaign UK (020-7324 4710, www.burma
campaign.org.uk) and Tourism Concern (020-7133 3330, www.tourismconcern.
org.uk) both call for a boycott of the country. Lonely Planet’s (www.lonelyplanet.com)
guidebook to Burma provides the arguments for and against and, if you do go,
extensive information on how to avoid spending money that will ultimately
find its way to the military regime.
Getting there: Andrew Brock Travel (01572 821330, www.coromandelabt.com),
Bales (0845 0571819, www.balesworldwide.com)
and TransIndus (020-8566 2729, www.transindus.co.uk)
are among the operators which offer tours and address the issues in their
brochures and websites.
Red tape: Visas must be obtained in advance; they cost £14 and you need
at least six months’ validity on your passport. The Myanmar Embassy in
London (020-7499 4340) will normally process a visa within a working week.
