The Lonely Planet Guide is probably the most widely used travel guide by backpackers from around the world. Personally I’ve always found it completely useless, but most people like it. Their latest addition is causing controversy in the UK. They want you to go to Burma, a country they sell with this headline: “Isolation and pride help sustain Myanmar’s myriad traditions.”
The British Trade Union Council (TUC) is encouraging a boycott of the Lonely Planet because of the new guide. A statement on the British Trade Union Council website says:
Given the appalling human rights situation in Burma, we don’t believe it is possible for any company, including BBC Worldwide, to adopt a neutral position on the issue of travel to the country, as it is apparently seeking to do with its Lonely Planet guidebook. The BBC should stop sitting on the fence and send a clear message of condemnation to the regime by withdrawing the Burma edition of its book.
You may have noticed that they mention BBC Worldwide, they bought the Lonely Planet last year. So what’s so wrong with the Lonely Planet, and its parent company, the BBC, taking a neutral stance on Burma (Myanmar)?
Here is Burma by the numbers:
100 million: US dollars earned annually by Burma through tourism.
56.7 million: current population of Burma (IMF 2007), 75 per cent of which earn a living through agriculture. Of the remaining 25 per cent, just a small proportion benefit from tourism.
8 million: number of men, women and children conscripted as forced labour, often for the development of tourism infrastructure, by the military regime since it seized power during a coup in 1962. This is often imposed under threat of beatings, torture, rape or murder.
1 million: number of people displaced under the current regime to make way for tourism developments, often with just a few hours notice and little or no compensation for the loss of their homes and businesses.
1,300: number of political prisoners thought to be currently held by the military regime. This may include people who have expressed dissent at being displaced to make way for, or conscripted to help build, tourism developments.
650: acres of rice paddy recently converted into a golf course for tourists by a western company.
60: percentage of Burmese people earning less than 60 pence a day.
40: percentage of national budget spent on the military. Just 19 pence is spent per person on health by the regime annually.
15: number of UK tour operators continuing to promote tourism to Burma.
12: percentage of income cited by Burma’s Minister of Hotels and Tourism in 2002 as being received by the Government from tourism services, including private businesses.
12: number of years democratically elected leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, had been under house arrest in Rangoon as of 24 October 2007. The Nobel Peace Prize winner and her National League for Democracy party won a landslide victory at the elections in 1990 but the military have always refused to relinquish power.
1: number of democratic elections held in Burma in over 42 years.
You can sign the petition here.
