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On Human Rights and Tourism in Burm



Subject: On Human Rights and Tourism in Burma


ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND TOURISM IN BURMA
June 14, 1994

> Date: Fri, 10 Jun 1994 09:35:47 -0500 (CDT)
> From: Howard Marc Spector <hms@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Help Needed: Burma Info Needed
> 
> The following was posted to the Compuserve Asia Travel Forum by Joe 
> Cummings, editor of Lonely Planet's *Myanmar* (travel guide):
> >I've been responsible for the updating of the Lonely
> >Planet guide to Burma/Myanmar since the mid '80s andhave traveled there
> >yearly since the reopening. 
> >   Anyone interested in the human rights situation in Myanmar
> >should read the Amnesty International reports. China executed over 1800 
> >prisoners in 1993 alone and has executed over a thousand annually for 
> >many years now. In Myanmar there have been no public executions since 
> >1990. It's interesting to compare the AI reports for several countries, 
> >say for instance, Mexico, Vietnam, Thailand, China, India, and Myanmar. 
> >Myanmar doesn't come out the worst of the lot - not by far.
> 
> I would like to offer your contributions to the forum; specifically, do 
> you agree with Mr. Cumming's remarks and, if not, could you give specific 
> examples of why you disagree?  Many people on Compuserve are thinking 
> about travelling to Burma and would take your input seriously.
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> howard marc spector 
> hms@xxxxxxxxxxxx

Howard,

What follows presupposes that you have accurately cited Mr. Cummings views on
the human rights situation in Burma.  If you have characterized his position
correctly, he seriously misjudges the situation.

Burma's human rights record is extremely bad and is only exceeded in
brutality by such failed states as Rwanda, Burundi, Bosnia, the Sudan and a
few others.  I don't know why Mr. Cummings believes the situation to be
better than it is, but it may be a result of his having travelled in areas of
Burma which are relatively peaceful.  (Note: Lonely Planet's Burma guide is
half as long as their Vietnam guide even though Burma is twice as large as
Vietnam).  A trip through contested areas of Shan State, Karen State, Rakhine
State, Sagaing Division, Kayah State or Tenasserim Division would yield a
different picture.  Not only would the picture be different from what Mr.
Cummings has painted, but it is a picture that is deteriorating.  

At present there are 500,000 people in forced labor on any given day.  Many
of these forced laborers are army porters who must carry military supplies
into war zones.  The current scale of forced labor is unprecedented in
Burmese history.  Not in the worst days of the Ne Win regime were there this
many forced laborers.  What has changed is that the SLORC believes that there
will soon be a boom in tourism and international trade.  To prepare for this,
they are rapidly building roads, railroads and even airports; all using slave
labor.  For documentation on this, contact Amnesty International, Human
Rights Watch- Asia, the U.S. State Department (annual human rights reports),
the Karen Human Rights Group, the Committee for the Publicity of the People's
Struggle in Monland, or any of the multiple reports in the Bangkok Post, The
Nation or any of dozens of other publications that have carried the story.
Slave labor in Burma is no secret unless you people do not want to see
it.  In that case, no amount of documentation will change their minds.

As for the number of public executions--so what?  Virtually all executions in
Burma are a private affair between the soldiers carrying them out and the
victims.  

As an aside, I'll mention that it is odd to compare a nation of more than 1
billion (China) with Burma's 43 million given that the disparity in numbers
is likely to skew the results.  But even this is not truly relevant here. 
China is also a human rights disaster so I would hesitate to praise any
country simply because it executed fewer people than China either in real
numbers or on a per capita basis.  

The real flaw in Cummings argument is that Burma publishes NO reliable data
on executions.  If you count killings of unarmed civilians throughout the
country, the number of dead are likely to be fairly significant.  We can't
count those dead however because virtually no human rights monitoring is
possible in that country.  It simply is not allowed.  

If we were to apply Mr. Cummings reasoning to another recent human rights
disaster, we would come up with the odd conclusion that Cambodia was a great
respecter of human rights under the Khmer Rouge because Amnesty didn't tell
the world about the Killing Fields during the years 1975-79.  It was only
after the Khmer Rouge were chased out that the scale of the disaster was
known.  In Orwellian states like Burma and K.R.-Cambodia, you can't count the
casualties until you dig them up after the regime falls.


Here is the U.S. State Department's basic summation of Burma's human rights
situation.  Bear in mind that this document was written in the dry and
restrained language that government documents employ:

     ...On balance, because of the persistent abuses by the SLORC,
     including its use of forced labor, its wholesale denial of basic
     political rights, and blatant manipulation of the national
     convention, Burma must continue to be judged a serious violator or
     international human rights norms.

If you compare Mexico, Thailand and India, I strongly believe you will find
the situations there to be significantly better.  I've read the Vietnam
country report and while it is bad, it ain't as bad as Burma.  As for
comparing China and Burma, well I don't know for sure which band of murderous
generals is worse.

Hope this helps.  By the way, I'll be posting some recent material from the
Karen Human Rights Group that gives detailed examples of how bad things are. 
Generally, the KHRG material is more useful for groups like Amnesty because
it is detailed, long and not enjoyable reading.  But since Mr. Cummings has
made the claim that the human rights in Burma is not comparatively too awful,
maybe a closer look at the KHRG material by non-specialists is in order.

Finally, for those of you on Compuserve who are considering travel to Burma;
don't.  The Burmese regime is using slave labor to build railways and roads
in hopes that you will come.  If you reward that government's use of slave
labor, they are all too likely to continue the practice.  If you still want
to to to Burma, try reading the earlier posting "On the Ethics of Tourism in
Burma" which is also available on Compuserve.  If after reading that, you
still must go, avoid the Lonely Planet guide until it is rewritten.  Whatever
Mr. Cummings views of the human rights situation, the LP Burma is inferior to
its competition in basic travel information.  A better choice at present is
the "Thailand, Indochina & Burma Handbook" published by Prentice-Hall.


Regards,

   Reg Strider