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Yomiuri flamed for pro-SLORC articl



Subject: Yomiuri flamed for pro-SLORC articles

Mainichi Daily News, Sunday, July 7, 1996

SCORING BROWNIE POINTS WITH BURMA'S FASCIST JUNTA?
=======================
With Respect by Peter Hadfield
=======================
	NHK is not the only media organization to start sucking up to the military
government in Burma.  For some reason, the English-language Daily Yomiuri
has also decided it is time to gain some brownie points with the generals.
	The Daily Yomiuri kicked things off with a full page article in its 'Style'
section of June 8 headed 'Yangon spruces up.'
	There was no advisory at the top of the page marked 'advertisement,' so
presumably this story was not paid for by the State Law and Order Council
(SLORC) which rules Burma.  Why, then, did the story go to such lengths to
pain a rosy picture of one of the world's slimiest dictatorships?
	"The country of 43 million is opening up," writes Daily Yomiuri hack Martin
Robinson.  "Shortages of everyday items are a thing of the past,
international brand-name goods are everywhere, and Yangon's first shopping
malls and luxury hotels will open soon.
	"The genuine helpfulness and friendliness of the people ensure that every
visitor returns home with plenty of good memories."
	And possibly a few not-so-good ones if the visitor dares to look a bit
further than the shopping malls, the temples and the hotel swimming pool.
At the time the article appeared, hundreds of delegates from Burma's elected
parliament were languishing in jail, and Burma's 43 million people were
being denied a government that the overwhelming majority had voted for in 1990.
	Tourists are whisked along new roads and through new airports thanks
largely to a mass army of forced labor (it doesn't take much effort to stop
anywhere along Highway One from Rangoon to the ancient capital at Pegu, as I
did, and talk to some of the 10- or 12-year-old children who are hauling
stones for a government road-widening project.)  Robinson's only complaint
was that Burmese television was boring.  Gee, I hope that didn't spoil the trip.
	The full-page travelogue might have been a one-off oddity if it hadn't been
for another sympathetic article that appeared just a few weeks later.  On
July 3, business columnist Ikuo Anai published a half-page interview with
Burmese tycoon Thein Tun, who owns the giant trading company Myanma Golden Star.
	One of the few references to repression came in a softball question that
was not even a question.  "People outside Myanmar (sic) almost always hear
only bad news about your government's negative attitude toward opposition
leader Aung San Suu Kyi and PepsiCo's withdrawal," laments Anai.
	Tun agrees.
	Burma, he says, is a place where "people can go anywhere and do business
anywhere.  This is a very good opportunity for businessmen."
	When Thein Tun turns the tables on his interviewer and asks "What is your
opinion of our country?" Anai suggests that Burma's military government
should immediately do something about the appalling traffic jams in Rangoon.
	Presumably with all that freedom to do business there are not many other
pressing issues to worry about.
	Anai tells me that he has no political agenda, and despite the softball
questions in the interview I am sure that is true.
	But the same may not be said for the Yomiuri Shimbun, which approved and
paid for his trip -- the only one of Anai's weekly interviews to be
conducted abroad.
	The interview was not reprinted in the Japanese-language Yomiuri Shimbun,
which means that its readership was limited to the relatively
small-circulation Daily Yomiuri.
	Hardly cost-effective -- unless, of course, a flattering article in the
English-language Daily Yomiuri serves to please the SLORC and to help
Yomiuri journalists get visas to Burma more easily, thus gaining an
advantage over competitors in reporting events there.  Surely that is far
too sleazy a motive to contemplate.

* * *

Letters To The Editor, Daily Yomiuri, Monday, July 8, 1996

A SHACKLED LAND

	Though undoubtedly one of the greatest sights in Asia, Myanmar remains a
boundless prison: a land shackled (often literally) under the oppressive
shadow of the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) -- a military
government whose sound policies include torture, kidnaping and forced
child-labor.
	How, then, can The Daily Yomiuri justify full-page publicity on tourism in
Myanmar (June 8, Page 7), with no mention of the SLORC regime, its record on
human rights or exactly what "tourism" means to the nation's people?
	There is documented evidence from groups such as Amnesty International of
massive-scale forced labor and relocation of entire communities, to "clean
up" Myanmar for the tourists and to make way for hotels, shopping arcades
and golf courses.
	With no choice or compensation, relocated peoples become little more than
performers in a human zoo -- a quaint, "native" attraction to entice the
tourists ... and their money.
	I implore The Daily Yomiuri not to print such "context-free" articles.  It
is, naturally, impossible to "prevent" people from going to Myanmar, but it
is possible to educate them and let them know exactly what's going on.  The
British-based Burma Action Group produces an alternative guide to Myanmar.
The latest Lonely Planet travel handbook is also an invaluable source on how
to avoid giving money to the government.
	Tourism and increasing foreign investment from companies interested in the
immediate profits of an untapped market, not in basic human rights, are
directly fueling a national budget of which 40 percent goes to the military
 ... so that they can fight their own people.
	Surely everyone should be aware of this kind of thing, before heading to
the local travel agent.  For as we mull over holiday brochures and decide
where to go this year, the SLORC generals announce 1996 as "Visit Myanmar
Year," enslave more children, uproot more villages, and welcome us with open
arms and a smile ...

Steve Kirk
Kumamoto Prefecture