Re: Help Needed: Burma Info Needed

[strider@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Howard,

Sorry about not responding earlier but I was away for awhile.  My first 
reaction to Mr. Cumming's claim is that he should be spend some time in 
Rangoon's Insein prison.  Not for 
his warped view of human rights in Burma (and warped it is), but for the 
factual inaccuracies he put in his guide to Burma.  He should not compound 
his apparent ignorance of Burmese history by making further mistakes on 
the human rights situation.  If he were comparing the human rights 
situation in Burma to Rwanda or Bosnia, I would admit that those places 
are worse (in Rwanda by far and somewhat worse in Bosnia).
I would add that at present, buying the Lonely Planet guideto Burma would 
be a mistake until someone thoroughly reworks it.  

I am not trying to make personal attacks alone.  The current LP on Burma 
is just not up to speed in comparison to the other books on Burma 
(compare it to the "Thailand, Indochina & Burma Handbook" that is 
published in the US by Prentice-Hall (or at least used to be)).  It is 
also not as good as LP's books on Vietnam or Thailand.

I don't have time right now to lay out all of the stinkers in LP's 
Myanmar(Burma)" guidebook but as an example of what is wrong with it, 
I'll point to one serious mistake right at the beginning.  In the "Facts 
about the country" section (page 12), LP asserts that "the people [of 
Burma] can be divided into three groups: the Burmese, the Mons and the 
Thais."  The facts just don't bear this out.  LP is apparently grouping 
the Karens, the Shans, the Kachins and 130+ other ethnic groupings into 
these three major groupings.  Worse, I think LP is implying that these 
other groups are "Thais."  It just ain't so.  Cummings, et. al. seem to 
know Thailand fairly well and appear to have made the flawed induction 
that if the Karens and other hilltribes found in Thailand are also found 
in Burma, they should be called Thais.

I won't lay into Cummings (yet) for the Myanmar (Burma) title but at the 
least, it should be inverted as Burma (Myanmar).

Give me a bit of time and I'll be happy to join this conversation.  One 
other thing.  I saw somewhere an advertisement for some kind of trekking 
tour that either Cummings or Wheeler were organizing in Burma.  If they 
are part of this conversation (or someone can contact them), could we 
have some details about what they are doing there.

One more thing.  Although I don't think the current LP on Burma is very 
good, I don't think it is worth the time to bash the book if Wheeler 
and/or Cummings aren't listening.  It would be far more constructive if 
we could engage the people at LP in a substantive conversation about 
their guide rather than just trash it.  If they are willing to improve it 
(or at least talk about it), I'm willing to spend the time telling them 
where I think they got it wrong (and right).

Yours,

 Strider