Question:
Talk like this only hurt people, it will not bring good things, it will only bring bad things. Instead of talking like this and defaming people, why not you help them by yourself? Or maybe helping people is not your goal at all? However a quick search on Google suggests that either the allegations are true or the poor government of Burma is the victim of an incredibly well-organised and well-orchestrated campaign of misinformation involving almost every news organisation and human rights group in the world.
Considering the choices, I voted for the later. News organization and human rights groups belong to ‘them’. The same goes for Google. But frankly, I would later go on with my choice, so I will vote my own option. Here’s my option. Chances are, even if the allegations are indeed true or half true, then these things are also done by ‘them’, through ‘their’ pawns. Who do you think owned the government of Burma? ‘Them’! ‘They’ did these actions through ‘their’ pawns, ‘they’ use their other pawns to defame the previous pawns, then ‘they’ use the other OTHER pawns to do things by using the reason that these are done to prevent the actions that were previously done by ‘their’ pawns, actions that were ordered by ‘them’. Oh… When it’s about doing these through proxies, ‘they’ are the experts. It’s useless to join any freedom fighter group / terrorist group / human rights group / etc (created by ‘them’) to fight against oppression (created by ‘them’). Freedom fighters, terrorists, human rights activists, and so on are the same, they are nothing more but pawns used to fight each other. You will be treated as nothing more but a pawn to play with. The object is not resource, land, redevelopment, and so on. The object is your own misery, confusion, false action (thinking that you’re doing the thing you want when it’s actually the opposite), and so on. To quote someone, "Do not resist an evil person." But the news media and human rights group probably would have accuse him of human rights violation.
Response:
What’s different about Burma is the fact that the abuses are linked to the tourist industry. This is what the boycott groups claim and it is basically not true. Myanmar (not Burma) is a free market society where the "tourist" industry is mostly private.
What is your evidence for saying it’s not true. No one’s disputing that the tourist industry is largely privately owned when it comes to small hotels, restaurants, taxis, etc but are the places where the alleged incidents have taken place privately owned? The airports, the railways, the Royal Palace in Mandalay, the land surrounding Bagan? I very much doubt it. If you believe that these reports are lies then what do you believe are the motives of the people who invent them? "Clearing villages" happens in many SE Asian countries, from the Philippines to Indonesia to Thailand. Myanmar is no exception to that. This is of course no excuse, but one should know that the forced clearings of slums in Bangkok or Manila are not much better or different. And you feel perfectly well in Bangkok, I suppose?
Clearing slums occurs all over the world. Were these rural viillages in Bagan actually slums? I can well believe that powerful property developers in countries such as Thailand can buy the political influence to get land cleared. The issue is the degree of coercian, violence and threat used. If you know of an incident in Bangkok where this was done to create a haven for tourists then please send details. This newsgroup is about travelling in Asia and we are free to discuss this without interference from politically correct people. Please take your "morals" to the appropriate place where they belong.
Tourism and morality are inextricably linked and clearly you are not free to discuss your ‘cheap holidays in the sun’ without interference from ‘politically correct people’. This is what you might wish but alas ….. You just don’t want the rickshaw driver, hotel owner or waiter in a pub to benefit from it. You want them to live in greater poverty?
No, of course no one who advocates sanctions or boycotts actually wants that but in the short term it may well happen. You claim quite a nonsense here. Go to Myanmar instead of listening to these boycott people. This country is much more than forced labour and what the groups always claim here.
Most of the people who belong to these boycott groups are probably Burmese nationals in exile and I suspect they know alot more about the positive day-to-day aspects of life in Burma than you do. No one is claiming that all there is to Burma is forced labour and misery. If there was it wouldn’t attract tourists such as yourself who are looking for a good time and we wouldn’t be having this debate. It’s precisely because there is so much more to Burma that it is a highly attractive travel destination. You are free to think and act so. We are free to think different. There has never been a boycott which had any positive impact on the lives of the people. The opposite is true. Any boycott will harm the people first, not the government.
I think that people in South Africa might disagree with you. If there are Burmese opposition groups who question the accuracy of these reports of tourism-related abuses then I’d very much be interested to hear about them. If any Burmese exile groups (who are therefore free to speak openly) do disagree with the official NLD position then please make them known to us. Nigel
Response:
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – says… You are free to think and act so. We are free to think different. There has never been a boycott which had any positive impact on the lives of the people. The opposite is true. Any boycott will harm the people first, not the government. What was your position on the South Africa boycott? Did you play Sun City? The difference is that South Africa is basically an industrialised society linked to world markets, so a boycott does hurt. But Myanmar is a relatively isolated society with a rural economy, considerably less sensitive to an economic boycott. The generals can more or less hang on for ever, regardless of US efforts to topple their government. But the simple people in Myanmar are badly hurt by the boycott.
As far as Asian countries consider the burden of Burmese folks an "internal affair" there is little tools around to oust the generals from outside Burma.
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says… You are free to think and act so. We are free to think different. There has never been a boycott which had any positive impact on the lives of the people. The opposite is true. Any boycott will harm the people first, not the government. What was your position on the South Africa boycott? Did you play Sun City?
The difference is that South Africa is basically an industrialised society linked to world markets, so a boycott does hurt. But Myanmar is a relatively isolated society with a rural economy, considerably less sensitive to an economic boycott. The generals can more or less hang on for ever, regardless of US efforts to topple their government. But the simple people in Myanmar are badly hurt by the boycott. In addition, tourism is not a big economic factor in Myanmar, but it helps the local people. Just to make an example, with the money we paid to our driver he finally had enough funds to marry his girlfriend. — Alfred Molon http://www.molon.de/Galleries.htm – Photos from Myanmar, Brunei, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Nepal, Egypt, Austria, Prague, Budapest and Portugal
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<< 4) Tourism projects are causing forced relocation. It is well known that 5,000 villagers from Pagan were forcibly relocated by SLORC a few years ago to keep them away from tourists. Many, including some of my friends, were evicted in the middle of the night at gunpoint, sent to the "myothit"("new city") some distance away, which was only a dusty patch in the middle of nowhere. Of course they were not compensated. Bagan, as the government now calls it, is a sterile "museum" like Ayutthaya in Thailand, with no inhabitants except the few militarily "connected". One aspect of emptying the town that is never mentioned: the rubble of ancient pagodas is excellent habitat for a number of highly venomous snakes such as the Russel’s viper. Their numbers could be increasing.
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<< A starting point is http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/reports/roadmap.htm and http://www.ibiblio.org/freeburma/humanrights/khrg/archive/khrg97/khrg… Add to the above: www.freeburmacoalition.org
Response:
You are free to think and act so. We are free to think different. There has never been a boycott which had any positive impact on the lives of the people. The opposite is true. Any boycott will harm the people first, not the government.
What was your position on the South Africa boycott? Did you play Sun City? miguel — Hit The Road! Photos from 32 countries on 5 continents: http://travel.u.nu
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Thomas please read what I have said in my postings carefully. 1. I have been to Burma and went there BEFORE I knew about the abuses. I am only trying to encourage other people not to make what I now regard as the same mistake I did. Knowing what I know now I would not choose to go again. 2. I never said that you shouldn’t travel to any country with a poor human rights record. I agree that in some cases it is possibly beneficial to encourage contact with the outside world. What’s different about Burma is the fact that the abuses are linked to the tourist industry. If the Laotian government were clearing villages around Luang Prabang in order to pretify it for my eyes I wouldn’t go there either. 3. What also distingushes Burma from other countries is that the legitimate government of Burma (the NLD) offically asks foreign tourists not to travel to their country. I checked before going to Tibet and the Dalai Lama and the ‘Tibetan Government in Exile’ postively encourages tourists to visit Tibet. 4. It is nonsense to say that everybody who reads this newsgroup knows about the situation in Burma. I read it because I frequently travel to S.E. Asia but some just dip into it because they are thinking of travelling there for the first time. Clearly you don’t know what goes on there, or you don’t believe the allegations, or you do believe the allegations but just don’t care. In your postings you speak of ‘boycot’ groups, ’sympathizers’ and ‘idelogical pamphlets’ as if there’s a conspiracy. I’m posting as an individual who by-and-large sits back and ignores alot of the evil that’s going on in the world but when I see people posting questions about Burma as if they’re planning a trip to Disneyland I feel compelled to speak out. 5. To say that the Burmese people you have met want tourists to visit is perhaps true. This could however be for two reasons. One is that whether you’re a 5* hotel tourist or an impoverished backpacker it’s still true that nearly everyone you come into contact with while travelling is some how involved in the tourist industry – directly or indirectly. Of course they want you to come. Secondly, do you think a Burmese person would dare tell you that you shouldn’t have come to Burma as it is helping the military regime stay in power. 6. How can you say that this is a travel newsgroup and not for discussing politics? How can the two possibly be seperated? Are you so cynical about human nature that you think people who write in to ask where they can get a hotel room for $10US a night might not also be interested in what happened to the villagers who used to live on the land where the hotel currently is. Like most of the people who read this newsgroup I am a weathly, middle-class, educated westerner who enjoys spending my disposable income on exotic travel. I jet in for a few weeks and then jet out. I don’t regard this as a particularly laudable activity. I do it for myself and apart from the money I spend it’s not really helping anyone out there. I am selfish and I will turn a blind eye to some of the unpleasant aspects of a country and allow myself to enjoy the nicer aspects. BUT there are limits and Burma is one of them. 7. As for the suggestion that boycotts don’t benefit the people I think that those people who cleared out the moat around the Royal Palace in Mandalay, the forced labourers who built the regional airports and the villagers who used to live around Bagan might disagree with you. If the Burmese government didn’t have the confidence that selfish Westerners would flock in to see it all regardless of the cost in human lives they wouldn’t have bothered doing what they did. Nigel – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – human rights abuses that they are not happening. I’ve just come back from Tibet but I didn’t see any nuns being tortured. In Laos I didn’t see any Hmong tribe people being killed. That doesn’t mean that it’s not happening. Ah I see. You are travelling to Tibet and Laos, not boycotting the human rights abuse there. That clearly shows your moral point. I don’t see why you think it helps your argument to just categorise people as being from a boycott group, You call for a boycott, you post the links. Enough evidence to think that you are a member or sympathizer. those who have joined have done so precisely because they have been to Burma and like me feel some affinity for the country and the people. I see. You permit yourself to travel there, but others should refrain from it. Rather than just repeat what is well-documented elsewhere people can research for themselves using the web. Probably everybody here knows what is going on there. We even know what is going on in countries with comparable human rights abuse, like Indonesia or the Philippines. But we still travel to those countries because the whole boycott issue is a nonsense and hurts the local population more than the goverment. Ask the people of Myanmar if they want to have tourists or not. I assure you, you will get only one answer.
Response:
Below is an extract from http://www.ibiblio.org/freeburma/humanrights/khrg/archive/khrg95/1095… These notes go back to 1995 but it’s worth thinking about the suffering that’s been inflicted on the local people to make Burma beautiful and more accessible to tourists. It would have been better if the author had cited the sources of some of this information. However a quick search on Google suggests that either the allegations are true or the poor government of Burma is the victim of an incredibly well-organised and well-orchestrated campaign of misinformation involving almost every news organisation and human rights group in the world. "Tourism causes forced labour in Burma. The forced labour to clear the muck out of the bottom of the Mandalay Palace moat for the viewing pleasure of tourists has been well-documented. At least 20,000 civilians and close to as many convicts in shackles have been used for this. When commenting on the use of convicts, don