Word: burma
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...them, green rice paddies stretch to distant mountains illuminated by a splash of sunshine off the gilded dome of a Buddhist temple. It is hard to imagine how this scene could be the latest weapon of a despotic military regime which continues to rule the Southeast Asian nation of Burma. But the scene is as dangerous as it is irresistible...
...dangerous because the military regime which rules Burma has discovered a new source of money: selling the beauty of the Burmese people and their land to foreign tourists. So far, the editors of the Harvard travel series Let's Go! have been unseduced and have refused to feature a Let's Go! guide to Burma. Next year, however, they plan to write one. A Let's Go Myanmar! guidebook would play directly into the hands of Burma's despots. The guide would help the regime exploit Burma's charm for its own ends...
This scene and others like it are the product of a new offensive by Burma's military government, which began with a "Visit Myanmar Year" in late 1996. The military junta of Burma--now officially known as Myanmar--hit upon a way to exploit further the country it has controlled since 1962: Western tourism. This government rules despite a popular election in 1990 in which the National League for Democracy, headed by Nobel Peace Laureate Aung Sun Suu Kyi, won 82 percent of the seats in the national assembly...
What the current government needs to stay in illegitimate power is money--money that is increasingly coming from tourism. Marketing Burma as the hot new destination for foreign travel, the military government hopes visitors will not recall less attractive scenes like that of student demonstrators being mowed down by government soldiers--a relatively unpublicized massacre on a greater scale than the Tiananmen Square protests a year later, but without the latter's visibility. To this end, the junta has enlisted high-powered American public relations and publicity firms...
...real coup for Burma's military rulers would be to garner independent interest in travel to Burma. Burma's military government would like nothing better than for a Let's Go Myanmar! guidebook to help them dress their country up for excited tourists...