Your vote results
 Below are the results of our latest eZine survey. Your votes on whether or not we should travel to Burma are as follows:28% of you voted YES - we should travel to Burma 72% of you voted NO - we should not travel to Burma |
Below is a selection of comments, views and opinions we received in response to the vote: Please email us if you have any suggestions for our next Topic of the Month 
Dear Responsible Travel:
Thank you for providing a dialogue on the question of travel to Burma. It is important to bring these things into the open and provide forums for discussion.
I spent 3 months in Burma on business in 1996. I travelled and hiked all around the country and saw many ugly things, including starving, naked university students in chains quarrying rocks by hand in granite quarries and miles and miles of women squatting along the road to Mandalay breaking fist size rocks into pea size rocks by hand for road improvements. A local man told me every household had a duty to perform "work service"; a member of the household had to come when the police came to the door. The women "volunteered" so that their children might stay in school and make a better life.
Although I can understand your position to honour Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's wishes, I respectfully disagree with your position. I believe that the absence of witnesses is what has allowed the human rights abuses to flourish. Out of sight, out of mind has been the result of this policy to date.
Sincerely,
C. Torres
One of my ambitions is to go with my wife and stand in Mandalay and also to go to the war graves at Kohima and pay respects to men who served in WWII ("When You Go Home, Tell Them Of Us And Say, For Their Tomorrow, We Gave Our Today") My dad served in Burma (he was on the way to Mandalay until malaria got him) and survived the war and spoke of the lovely people. He was always sad that Burma withdrew from the Commonwealth. There are people working in Britain who are trying to help local communities. I strongly believe that we in our country can help. I respect the fact that we do not support dreadful regimes. I also believe good people should not be left out in the cold. Dilemma indeed.
A couple of weeks ago I visited Chongquig in China and went along to the Stilwell museum - where the American headquarters had been. It was great to show support and meet some of the locals - they appreciated that. After all China has its faults. How about looking into Burma in the not too distant future?
All the best and thanks for the email.
David Martin
Your notice says that Burma is “is a well preserved example of pristine South East Asian culture and scenery, due to its isolation it remains relatively untouched by Western influences.” Actually it is being violated massively by China and other neighbours – by immigration of huge number of Chinese people there to do business – including gems, timber and other natural resources. Huge swathes of the country are being clear felled. And now Thailand is paying the generals to build a hydro-dam on the Salween, displacing Karen people by the hundreds for energy that will come cheap to Thailand.
It’s depressing, but I don’t think the isolation policy is working or will work.
I have often thought how interesting it would be to get the Dalai lama and Aung San Su Kyi together to discuss this issue. Both wise people, worth listening to, but giving opposite advice for their respective countries.
Belinda Stewart-Cox 
In 1994 I went to Bo Mya's birthday party, a big hilltribe dance festival. Were it not for the teen-aged soldiers watching their girlfriends on stage I wouldn't even bother sending them, but many of the kids in the photos were killed the next year in firefights.
The next year Manarplaw was over-run when the Buddhist Karen defected for about US$50 each because they were discriminated by the Christian Karen, who had strings attached to their war grants from Christian churches, basically Adventists.
One of the strings was that Buddhists could not be promoted to officers - when the Burmese figured this out they bought off the Monk who brought the Buddhist soldiers to the Burma side. This cost the Karen Manarplaw because all their secret defenses were given away.
A few days later, the Karen were on the mountain overlooking the Saab Moei monastery, with the defecting Buddhists inside. The karen sent a group of six to negotiate a peace and reconciliation with the Buddhists, who took them down on the beach in front of the mountain, placed them in a line on their knees, and shot them all in the head. 
All hell broke loose and since the Karen were on the mountain they had the drop. As you can see, the monastery was leveled. That night there were firefights up and down the river we experienced.
the next day four mortar rounds were dropped into our bungalow and we were politely invited to leave, which we did. We then came around from the Thai side to take video and photos of the illegal logging camps in perils of Pauline photos. Both sides logged teak to support the war and the reason it dropped off until recently was there was no more teak to fund the war. 
It was very spooky being inside Burma with my cameras - I didn't have a visa and if I were shot nobody would have even know which country I was in. At one point I was driving down a logging road shooting video over the doorsill of the truck of a Burmese army patrol paralleling us on the next row of logs. If they stopped us, I was dead.
Back in Thailand I interviewed a Karen platoon commander about how it felt in the Saab Moei firefights to have to shoot his way through his own women, which I observed. The Burmese kidnapped ethnic young women from their villages - mostly Karen - and used them as Ammo porters. That way they could gang rape them every night on the way to the battlefield, where they instantly became human shields for the Burmese soldiers.
With tears in his eyes and a shaky voice, the Karen platoon commander (who spoke excellent English) said, 'It's very difficult, but the women make it easier for us by begging us to shoot them first to put them out of their misery."
See you on the water,
John Gray
Original sea kayak explorer in Thailand and Vietnam
Well Done!!!! Responsible Travel
I fully support your views on travel to Burma. As much as I would love to see this amazing country it still isn't the right time to go. I hope the people of Burma will one day know what it is to live in a democracy.
Kay Collins
Dear editors,
Thank you for raising the issues once again on travelling Burma. It is a debate I have been following for more than 8 years.
Interestingly the resolution doesn't seem any nearer. The junta wanted tourists and advertised this in their Visit Burma promotion a few years ago. It failed and I guess many were relieved. Still nothing seems to really get better for the people of Burma. The boycott certainly has limited foreign funds entering the country and the junta members pockets but we know that it has also stopped the money getting to small operators who really do care for their families, friends and country. When we stopped going to Burma a few years ago, I spoke to some of these private ops. All were saddened, some cried. Some even claimed that their plight would be forgotten and their security would be in jeopardy. I don't know what has happened to them. I respect the decision that was made to join the boycott.
I meet people who want to go to Burma and some ask me what I think. I have no simple answer. Good sensitive and caring people are witnesses to what they see happening in Burma. Most of those whom I've met as independent travellers have spent some time with locals. Sometimes the meetings have been furtive and careful, others have only seen happy, happy people?
I respect ASSK request for the boycott as a voice of an alternative leadership. This voice seems to becoming dimmer, tragically. Her party seems to be wearing away. Is there anyone representative of the alternative thoughts and how do we witness this?
Independent travelling maybe a way for those in Burma to feel remembered. I think this rational may be different for the relatively luxurious group travel that still seems to occur. I have met only a few who have travelled Burma this way.
Peter C
My view is that there is nothing wrong, and probably a great deal right, in visiting these repressed regimes. After all, I went to Greece when it was under military rule, and Spain under the dictatorship of Franco. The more people that visit these countries the better the chance of ultimate democracy. As one of the correspondents says: 'the absence of witnesses is what allows rights abuses to flourish'. My own experience in Burma is that the people were very pleased to have the opportunity of speaking to a visitor from the west: this particularly applied to young people. My only caveat is that one should avoid staying or eating in any of the government-run establishments; and this is easy to do with a bit of homework beforehand.
Timothy MacDermot-Roe
Thank you for your news letter. The reason I contacted your company was because I read an article in the New York Times about Myanmar and your company stated that you did not promote travel to Myanmar due to the current regime.
I personally think this is wrong and a very short sighted view to take. I’ve been to Myanmar and fell in love with the place. The people are fantastic and deserve better in life. Sanctions do not work, they only hurt the people they are supposed to help. The media is a much more powerful voice than any Government, at the end of the day money talks and the only way for change is to embarrass Government’s into action and the only way this can happen is through reporting on personal experience and this is why people should go to Myanmar and see for them selves. Regards
Andrew Roberts
Go back to the article on travelling to Burma here 