British Prime Minister Tony Blair just backed a new campaign to discourage tourists willing to visit Burma (officially called Myanmar), because of its appalling human rights record. Freelance journalist Ludwin Fischer, based in Bangkok, who went to Burma last December, believes this will bring more harm than good.

Ludwin Fischer, Bangkok, February 2^nd, 2005.

Should Burmese farmers, hoteliers, restaurateurs, and other people struggling for their daily lives, be punished for living in a military ruled dictatorship? This is the question I would like to ask to well-intentioned human rights activists who oppose tourism in Burma.

The Burmese tourism industry consists chiefly of small privately owned businesses: small hotels, restaurants, taxis, and tour agencies, set up by a low-income population struggling to make for a living. They are not guilty of the human rights situation in Burma. Their life is difficult, and boycott initiatives only make things worse for them.

The NGO Burma Campaign UK just launched the “I'm Not Going” initiative. Tony Blair, British celebrities like actors Ian McKellen or Christopher Lee, fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, and US actress Susan Sarandon, signed it.

Aung San Suu Kyi, the well-known leader of the Burmese National League for Democracy (NLD), has always advocated boycott since the 1990 crackdown, when the Burmese junta refused to recognize NLD’s victory in the 1990 elections. Boycott advocates think that there is no other way to force the junta to step down and to let the way to a democratic government.

On the other hand, Joe Cummings, travel writer for Lonely Planet, who has traveled innumerable times to Burma, argues: “I haven't met a single person inside Burma who supported a tourism boycott, including many people I have met inside the pro-democracy movement.”

Neither did I. Some Burmese I met last December in the Shan state (neighboring Thailand, Laos, and China) dared to tell me their very negative opinion on the military government. But they never suggested that I should not have come to visit them.

Other forms of boycott are also questionable.

Burmese knitting factories were shut down as a result of boycott on Burmese textile industry. Many of their formers employees later moved to Thailand, to work clandestinely in illegal factories set up in the Tak province. They are paid 1000 Thai Baths (25 Euros) a month, and often mistreated, with no rights to education or health care. Is that what the boycott proponents wanted?

Burma is the world's second producer of narcotic drugs after Afghanistan. Heroin and amphetamines are produced in zones where the government has no authority at all. There are 32 armed insurgent groups in Burma, belonging to numerous ethnic minority groups: Karen, Shan, Wa, Kokang... 17 have reached peace agreements with the government, and 15 are still fighting (source: Bangkok Post, May 16 2004. Things haven't changed much since then).

Narcotics are the main source of revenue for these guerrillas. People living in zones controlled by the government might be tempted to move to the guerrilla-controlled zones if they can't make a living otherwise as a result of boycott – since drug smugglers certainly won't listen to the boycott advocates.

A sensitive alternative to boycott would be a code of conduct for companies investing in Burma, and tourists visiting the county. Foreign companies should pay decent wages, and tourist should try to avoid state-run hotels and travel agencies.

Tony Blair would never suggest boycotting China, whose human right record isn't much better than the Burmese. No western government would think of cutting economic ties with such a powerful partner. Why, then, boycott Burma? Because we can afford it?