Jeud - Octobre 2, 2003

Texts from Burma


The Golden Triangle: a text sent from Chiang Mai by Trevor on Novembre 27 before the trip to Burma
Trip update: a text sent from Bangkok on Decembre 29, 2002 after the trip to Burma
Not fit for Travel: a critical point of view from Trevor sent from Bangkok on Sun 29 Dec 2002 about the Burma situation

The Golden Triangle:
Mer, 27 Novembre 2002, 3:53

As we prepare to leave Chiang Mai and the north of Thailand, we might have one or two regrets but it's impossible to do everything. We would have loved to visit the Golden Triangle, famous as a drug production and trafficking region that includes the area where Thailand, Burma and Laos intersect. No, this wouldn't have been a shopping trip...but it is a scenic, remote and culturally interesting area. While everyone here, the tourists anyway, are blissfully enjoying themselves with the great Thai food, the hospitality, cheap prices, interesting crafts, elephant riding, bamboo rafting, trekking in the forests, there is a hard-to-believe horror taking place a short ride away.

According to the Bangkok Post, the drug trafficking and its accompanying violence and abuse is in full swing. In Burma, an ethnic militia (United Wa State Army!?!?!), in alliance with the military dictatorship has the mandate to produce and export methamphetamines and other drugs such as heroin. They are fully equiped and very well-armed. They have about 200 000 "soldiers" based along the Thai border. About three kilometers into Burma from one Thai border village are 3 drug "factories", each producing about 120 million tablets/year. There are also purported to be another 60 factories in Burma and 20 in Laos and Cambodia. Thai authorities seized 120 million tablets in 2002, only 1/60th the total estimated production. Obviously, a lot of these pills, never mind the heroin, is getting through. Canadian government officials say that Burma is the main source of heroin imports in Canada. The choice routes for trafficking are through Thailand and the area around the border is particularly affected. The militia regularly lobs
a morter shell or launches a grenade into a village. Deaths or injuries are not uncommon.



This is apparently to ensure that the Thai villagers refrain from cooperating with the Thai anti-drug squads and Army. On occasion, if the need is there, the militia will "invade" a village, stealing and looting. If porters are needed to pack drugs along the mountain paths, who better than young Thai men from the local area. They are occasionally kidnapped and taken back to Burma to become porters. Some are never seen again. The article didn't mention what was done to the women. Other border tensions exist because of the hundreds of thousands of Burmese refugees that are scattered along the border inside Thailand, thousands more displaced inside Burma and the ongoing military action of one of the opposition ethnic armies that still manages to carry on a war against the Burmese Army. The refugee situation is very difficult. Many, if not most of the refugees are not even officially recognized as such and have to manage as best they can, also living with the insecurity of being deported or harassed. Life inside Burma is full of poverty and repression. It is a sober situation to read about prior to beginning our travels to Burma. By the way, those of you who enjoy shopping at WalMart might like to know that some products sold in WalMarts are imported from Burma or falsely ticketted as products from neighboring countries.

Check out: www.ufcw.org (English); www.tuac.ca (Francais) or www.walmartyrs.com for news on this beacon of Corporate America.

As we were slurping our coconutmilk and ginger soup, we were wondering why the great leader of democracy and human rights and of the war on terrorism, George Bush of course, hasn't noticed this situation. He could easily send in a few bombers no? But then, he is apparently not too good at geography and he could easily be confused by more than one issue at a time. Oh, yes, I also forgot that there isn't any oil in
Burma and the natural resources that are there can easily be exploited by foreign companies under the current situation. Sigh!

Until next time,
us

________________________________________
Trip update
Dim, 29 Décembre 2002
Well, some people seem to think I'm too serious in my writings about our travels. SIGH! Well, I did previously write about Pierre getting bitten by a dog!
Anyway, we survived Burma and are about to leave (Monday morning, Dec 30) for Cambodia. So I'll try to give a more personal account of recent events if only YAHOO doesn't thwart my efforts by limiting the number of group messages sent per hour. GRRRRRR!
Burma was not too bad. On the plus side were the gentle, kind and fun people (good-looking too), the beautiful countryside, lack of pollution (except behind heavy vehicles on the road), general lack of traffic availability of ecological bicycle taxis, horse-drawn buggies, rental bicycles and sidewalks, cheap food and crafts, good fruits and vegetables, parks and flowers everywhere, some spectacular sites, gentle relaxing boat rides on the rivers and lakes.
On the not so wonderful side was the food (pretty ho-hum, strangely when it is found between the delicious foods of Thailand and India), the roads (long, difficult, often following a heavily polluting truck or bus), general tendancy to throw away garbage on the streets, overuse of plastic bags, rip-off artists, child sellers/beggars, having to pay to enter a pagoda (I'm not even Buddhist and they should pay me to go there), more expensive accomodation when compared to Thailand...up to $15 US/night and no TV even, no BBC to get the news (for some reason German TV was available everywhere!), lots of raw, scuzzy vegetables served at a meal, government officials especially the crowd at the airport who wouldn't refund my Myanmar dollars...wait til I get home and go to the Embassy in Ottawa....

We had all kinds of problems to leave the capital on our trip. Trains and buses were booked for days and planes were too expensive, even for Pierre. So we were finally talked into renting a car and driver, actually a minivan but only took it for half of the trip ie. to Mandalay in the centre of the country. It cost bloody $36 per day for 11 days and to boot the driver/guide was the son of a retired army officer and as friendly as your typical Al-Qaeda operative. Well, at least we didn't have to think about where to stop for the night, how to get to X or Y, where to go to eat etc. And we had the added bonus of being able to stop anywhere, like when we drove by a village Nat festival, where they celebrate the pagan spirits that are supposed to protect them, or give them headaches if they don't get enough attention.
We were ceremoniously ushered into the box seatsie. we sat on flattened cardboard boxes with the kids and the old women at the front of the crowd. Now this festival is celebrated by performances by theatrical groups of women and... transvestites. Well, we felt immediately at home, especially when we were drag(queen)ed onto the dance floor. Apparently we were funny as the crowd roared at the lascivious gestures of the transvestites...so after Pierre fell exhausted into the arms of three cigar-smoking great-grannies, I decided that the best way to fight fire was with fire so I rolled up my sleeves and rolled down my socks and really got to twisting and swirling with the number one transvestite.



There were hoots and hollers especially when he/she/it snuck up when I wasn't looking and planted a bright red pair of lips on my forehead. Meanwhile Pierre was being shot at with elastics by kids who thought that was just a scream. But we missed filming most of the star-studded performances as the camera battery went dead. SIGH, no promo to send to Hollywood. In truth, this type of informal and direct contact with the people was clearly the most enjoyable and the most rewarding compared to the regular program. Hey, you see one pagoda....
Though, I must admit that seeing the Golden Rock pagoda resting precariously on the edge of a cliff at the top of a mountain was quite an adventure too, especially since I had a sprained ankle that was made extremely painful by my pirouettes and thrusting of hips with the transvestites the day before. At the top of the mountain was an hour and a half walk. Ha Ha. Well, I was fortunate to have porters to carry me in the style of old colonial governors in Africa but I was impressed by the 4 guys, about the size of your average 6th grader but did they ever whip me up the pathway in no time at all. I had to wait over a half an hour before the huffing and puffing Pierre caught up. But luckily I had my Burmese phrase book so I could engage the porters with "heavy white man, no?", "smoking, bad, yes", "how many childred? 2, very good", "how do you see the democratic process in your country?" They were stars, even carrying me all around the top of the mountain on their shoulders (the magnificanent chair mounted on bamboo poles wasn't allowed). But were my chest and shoulders sore for the next three days.

We also had close up visits with some water buffalo. Pierre was hoisted up on the back of one and we have the picture to prove it. He didn't even get bitten.

There was also a lot of exposure to craft production...maybe a small kickback to the drivers for bringing us along. Paper and umbrella making were particularly fun and there was also silk and cotton weaving, blacksmithing, gold and silversmithing, lacquerware, bamboo hat making and we even got taken to a cigar making workshop. HA! We stayed about 3.7 seconds. There were huge hoards of European tourists sucking and hacking and wheezing all over the place....no thanks.
We did meet some nice tourists from places like Sweden, Switzerland, even Germany but there were almost no Americans or maybe those Swiss with the southern drawl were trying to hide something. Well, we finally dumped our driver and resorted to a wonderfully relaxing 8 hour boat trip down the Irrawaddy and then a tortuous 16 hour bus ride to the capital. We only got sick with fever and chills one day each and have only had the occasional spat, though why did Pierre decide to get cranky on Christmas day?
Well, Cambodia is next with the famous Anghor Wat, then Pnom Penh and then some beach. Our visa for Vietnam is good from the 19th January when we'll pitch up for the Tet new year. Looking forward to it.
Thanks for all your messages and greetings. I'm not sure if we can send messages from Cambodia but our travel guide books say no so maybe it will be end of January before we're in touch again.
Have a fabulous new year,
Love
Trev



For more pictures and video on Burma, please visit: : http://homepage.mac.com/simardcook/Menu35.html
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Not fit for Travel
Sun, 29 Dec 2002 16:58:32 +0100 (CET) If anyone wants to copy, print, distribute or otherwise share this blurb, feel free.    Trevor

Not fit for travel?

It is an unfortunate title for this article as the country of Burma with its 50 million multi-ethnic inhabitants and beautiful, varied countryside could easily be an enjoyable tourist hotspot.  After spending 4 weeks in December, 2002, I leave the country with mixed feelings.  Many of the people met during the trip were particularly friendly, accomodating and fun to be with, despite language limitations on my part and theirs.  The country boasts spectacular mountain ranges, multicolored fields on the rolling hillsides, vast, flat plains of strikingly beautiful lime-green rice paddies, lazy, quiet, creamy-brown rivers and impressive historical and cultural sites.  Travellers get an impression of urban life that is safe, relatively comfortable and not yet damaged by rampant commercialism, industrial pollution and stress.  Rural scenes are characterized by a closeness to the land; hard, basic but profitable agricultural production based on manual labor or use of animals on a limited scale.  A peaceful life of community and family sharing. 

But the Burmese government, which arbitrarily renamed the country "Myanmar",  staged a coup to prevent a legitimately elected democratic government from coming to power in 1990.  The military hide a great deal about the reality of the country.  The control of the government and the country rests with a small clique of generals, their puppets and their often corrupt and heartless business associates from a variety of countries.  They are anti-democracy and anti-human rights.  Despite widespread global condemnation, they survive through trade of the rich resources of the country and through the stated objective of profiting from...TOURISM.

It doesn't take much imagination to see how the tourist industry is organized around the principles of taking as many dollars as possible from tourists while ensuring that they see little outside the circle of renowned and well-identified tourist sites: the capital Rangoon (renamed Yangon), the spiritual and awe-inspiring Golden Rock, the beautiful and ingenious Inle Lake (floating gardens built by the inhabitants), historic Mandalay, the magnificent and numerous temples of Bagan and back to the starting point.  Visas are limited to 28 days so not much else is possible.  The poorly developed and unreliable transport infrastructure makes travel outside this circle tour difficult if not impossible and for good measure, the military regime prohibits travel to many areas, especially border areas where their control is challenged and their repression more difficult to hide.  Booking a trip is very difficult as buses and trains are fully booked in advance.  The roads are absolutely appalling, mostly rough-surfaced, single lanes shared by large buses, semi-trailer trucks, cars, motorcycles, bicycles, horse and oxen pulled carts, going in both directions.  It was an ordeal to travel by road and I was often more than exhausted after a day's travel.   The 668 km trip from Rangoon to Mandalay takes about 20 hours and this in one of the best roads in the country.  The trip is done mostly with private buses however and it cheap so the military regime profits little from it, if at all. Few serious efforts to make improvements in the roads are seen.  The only possible conclusion is that this is a deliberate tactic of the military regime to discourage people from meeting, sharing information and collaborating, for example towards building democracy in their country.

Of course, the option exists to take the more expensive, equally long but more comfortable train or, the chosen option, to fly.  The military regime collects much larger amounts from this mode of travel.  And for those with lots of money, there are very costly organized tours and the possibility of special, personalized trips.

Another money grabbing trick is the obligatory exchange of at least $200 US into Foreign Exchange Certificates (1$ = 1 FEC), which become a kind of Myanmar dollar.  These are needed for hotel, most transport and tourist sites.  This ensures that most of the tourists spend money at official sites and use official services where the generals take their share.  The Certificates state clearly on the bottom that any unspent amount over 200 FEC can be refunded for US dollars upon departure from the country.  But the banking officials at the airport refuse to do so if, for example, the FEC's were purchased with Traveller's Cheques or credit cards.  I discovered this while departing.  After converting $800 US to travel in the country, I was refused a re-conversion of 12 FEC's into 12 $.  Despite my strenuous protests and appeals to 5 levels of banking authority at the airport and one phone call to a perfectly unmoveable bureaucratic official in the head office, I was stuck with my unspent FEC's. This refusal to refund policy is not indicated anywhere and is contrary to what travellers see on their receipts and are told, even by Bank managers, when they purchase extra FEC's. And how many tourists foolishly carry thousands of dollars in cash with them?

Tourists also have to pay fees for just about everything.  Entering a new state or division requires payment of a tourist fee to have the privilege of visiting there.  This can vary and is $10 US where tourism is more common.  In addition fees are charged at individual sites. In the case of many sites such as Buddhist pagodas, only the tourists have to pay.  Imagine charging entry into a Cathedral in Montreal, up the CN tower or into the Calgary Stampede but only making tourists pay. 



And while sending postcards is cheap, don't think of sending internet messages to family and friends while in the country.  Communication is very ineffective internally making independant travel difficult.  And internet is effectively impossible as I found out myself.  I finally found a lone internet office, in Rangoon but was not allowed to operate the computer myself.  I had to tell the staff person what to do and finally, upon reaching my Yahoo e-mail page a message appeared across the screen " ACCES DENIED".  Access to hotmail accounts is prohibited by the military regime. 

Information is almost impossible to obtain.  Most foreign publications are nowhere to be found and the only English-language paper is the military regime's propaganda piece, the "New Light of Myanmar", outlines on a daily basis what good works the various generals are up to: making numerous "donations" to pagodas, visiting development projects, promoting cooperation and assistance from foreign governments and clamping down on drugs (Burma is identified as the largest supplier of certain illegal drugs such as heroin and speed to Canada).   But their lack of commitment to human rights and democracy is blatantly demonstrated.  Their printed objectives for the country (in the "New Light of Myanmar") refer instead to ... "stability"... and "prevalence of law and order..."  Economic objectives omit any reference to reducing or eliminating poverty, tp a fair distribution of wealth and income or to respecting and preserving the natural beauty and enrironment.

While tourism can provide some limited benefit to the population through jobs, small businesses, commerce, it is clear that most of the benefit goes to a combination of the wealthy, the foreign investor or the military.  Even those with jobs barely survive.  The staff of my guesthouse earn $4 - $6 US per month, often for working from 6 or 7 am to 11 or 12 at night, seven days per week.  Much of the souvenir and service sector of tourism profits the same wealthy segment of the population or the military.  Small-scale sellers of trinkets, souvenirs, fruit, plastic bags are often so desperate that they aggressively harass tourists.  Children are commonly used as sellers as they are so cute and appealing.  At the spectacular Shwedagon pagoda in Rangoon, children stuffed plastic bags for shoes (prohibited inside the pagoda) into my pockets, under my arms and onto my back pack, so desperate they were for a few coins.  It eventually got to the point where anyone asking me "Where do you come from" was immediately suspected of some kind of scam.  Tourists are often not intelligent in their relations with the people.  One tourist actually gave a 500 kyat (pronounced chat, the local currency) note, equal to about $1, to one little girl, telling her to take the money and go to school instead of selling her bead bags!  Consider how much she would make at school in comparison to a day with such well-meaning but naive tourists).

Despite the attempts at keeping tourists ignorant, there are cracks in the military regime's tight control.  Road, bridge and other public works are often conducted by what the military calls volunteerism but which is more accurately described as "forced labor" or "temporary slavery".  This has been documented by many sources.  I frequently saw teams of villagers including the elderly, women and children, constructing roads astonishingly by hand!  Sections of the road are swept with a broom, tar is melted in barrels beside the road and spread through watering cans, stones are placed (often by hand) in a tidy layer before smaller gravel is strewn over top.  The only sign of any mechanisation is when a steamroller finally comes to pack the surface down.  It is reported and I was told that village or neighborhood leaders are compelled to supply this "volunteer" labor and severe sanctions are imposed on those who fail to comply.  No one seems to even try to deny that this practice exists but tourists are often discouraged from taking photos.

Some people do talk and are brave enough to risk imprisonment or worse to let the world know what the situation is.  One puppeteer told some travellers I met that he had been imprisonned for 7 years for making a joke of the military in one of his plays. Many have died in prison.  And the military's spies are purported to be everywhere.  On a few occasions, I spotted someone leaning in to try to overhear a conversation I was having with other tourists or with local people.

Information does get to the outside and is verified from some unusual sources.  A well-documented report of systematic use of rape of ethnic women by the Burmese military has always been denied by the Burmese military, which nevertheless agreed to "look into it".  However, according to the Bangkok Post of Dec. 27, a recent US State Department investigation has confirmed and validated 625 cases of rape of Shan minority women by the Burmese military, including rape of girls and gang rape.

The international community seems uninterested in the difficulties of the Burmese people, perhaps because economic interests are more important and doing business with the Burmese military regime is relatively easy, simple and profitable.  Japan, Singapore, China, France, the UK and the USA effectively support the military regime and thwart moves to democracy despite occasional statements of condemnation. Corporations such at the French oil company TOTAL and WalMart actively take advantage of the exploitative conditions to make huge profits.  Constructive engagement is usually the excuse for not dealing seriously with the situation.  This argument says that by dealing with the military regime and trading with them, they will somehow absorb feelings of justice and a commitment to democracy.  Even Thailand, which has often been at odds with the Burmese military over the massive exportation of illegal drugs to and through Thailand, is backing down.  A Bangkok Post article (Dec. 27) reported that the Thai government has decided to relieve its much-touted and effective anti-drug unit (Task Force 399) of its role in combatting the illegal drug trade in a bid to buy favor from the Burmese generals, who directly or indirectly through their allied Wa State militia, are heavily involved in the production and export of illegal drugs.  The Thai government is also putting the squeeze on many of the refugees who have fled the brutality of the Burmese military over many years.

12 years of constructive engagement while the people endure brutal repression has not born fruit. The Burmese military regime will not even talk to those who were massively elected by the people (88%).  It is clear that they are only buying time while they continue to amass wealth and consolidate their power.  What is wrong with our governments?  

Perhaps it might help to wait until there is a change of government before travelling to Burma and seeing its beauty and meeting its pleasant people.  Unless, or course, the goal is to make a personal connection with the country and the people and commit oneself to working to help bring democracy and justice to the country.

Trevor Cook
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
December, 2002


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