From the new frontiers, on Burma to

[brelief@xxxxxxx]

Subject: From the new frontiers, on Burma tourism/drug money/Australian  boycott

ne w frontiers

Monthly Briefing on Tourism, Development and Environment Issues
in the Mekong Subregion

Vol. 3, No.1
January 1997

TAT SETS UP OFFICE FOR MEKONG TOURISM 

(N: 27.12.96; BP: 9.1.97; GMS-CP: Aug. 96) - The Tourism Authority of
Thailand (TAT) has set up an Agency for the Coordination of Mekong Tourism
Activities (AMTA) at its Bangkok headquarter on 1 January. 

The new agency will become a secretariat for the working group on the
Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) tourism sector. This group comprises
Thailand, Laos, Burma, Cambodia, Vietnam and China, as well as international
agencies such as the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the
Pacific (ESCAP) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). 

Other international organizations, including the Pacific Asia Travel
Association (PATA) and the World Tourism Organization (WTO), are also
involved in the working group. 

For the last two years, the GMS working group has come up with several major
projects designed to speed up tourism development in the Mekong subregion.
It has identified 30 sites to be promoted as the region's tourism "jewels"
(see map, p.8). ESCAP, which prepared a proposal for a tourism marketing
strategy, submitted the same to the Government of France for funding
support. The WTO has offered its assistance in an undertaking that would
link the ~jewels" to travel circuits. As an initial step, the WTO announced
to carry out a survey on the saleability of the proposed tourism circuit
with major tour operators. The European Union (EU) was approached to finance
the region's participation in trade fairs and exhibitions. National carriers
and private sector tourism entities have also been invited to actively
participate in the promotion arid marketing activities. 

Since the convening of the first Mekong Tourism Forum in Thailand in April
1996, several joint projects have been underway, including the organization
of a travel mart for the Mekong region, training courses on tourism and the
environment as well as the development of "village-based tourism". 

The proposal to set up AMTA under the coordinatorship of the TAT received
the go-ahead at the last GMS meeting in Ho Chi Minh City in November 1996.
The establishment of the agency is considered as a key element in promoting
Thailand's own interests in regional tourism development. Tourists, who
spend several days in Thailand before visiting neighboring countries, are
expected to significantly increase. The TAT also sees tremendous potential
for a North South tourism corridor linking the GMS region with Thailand's
ASEAN neighbours to the south. It is expected that its role will assume
added importance as Burma, Laos and Cambodia may become ASEAN members in the
near future. 

AMTA will also have the responsibility of liaising with other groupings that
oversee the development of regional infrastructure schemes. The ADB has
plans for numerous road, rail, water and aviation development projects which
will need US$13.4 billion in financing over the next 10 years. The
establishment of transport facilities will play a crucial role in the
region's future tourism development. 

BURMA
 
SNAPSHOTS OF TEMPLES AND TANKS

(TN: 10.12.96; 20.12.96; 26.12.96) - On 18 November, Burma's military
leaders kicked off the country's first tourism campaign - Visit Myanmar Year
(VMY). Thirteen days later, students took to the streets to denounce the
regime. Tanks were brought in, and soldiers and riot police were deployed
throughout the city to prevent more protests. At the height of the protests,
some tourists were kept from returning to their hotels, and at least two
were accused of being "reporters" and deported. 
A tourist, who complained she could not go anywhere she wanted, was told by
a hotel manager that compared to the previous year, 1996 was "really bad"
for tourism. A waiter joked that the street demonstrations marked the end of
Visit Myanmar Year and the beginning of "Visit Malar Year."  Malar in
Burmese basically means "not coming". 

Indeed, the campaign looks like a flop, and the military government had to
revise the target goal of visitors downward several times, from about
700,000 to 300,000 for the combined years of 1996 and 1997. 

The ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) accused members
of the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League of Democracy
(NLD), underground communist activists and student exiles of instigating the
student protests. A government spokesman said the SLORC had expected unrest
after the launch of VMY to attract tourists to Burma. ~We are trying to
flush out these elements as they come out to the front of unrests," he
added. "We expect after a short period of time, things will return to normal." 

Meanwhile, holidaymakers bound for Burma during December high tourism season
stared at airport television screens and fretted over news of sit-ins and
marches being broken up with water cannon and charging riot police.
Sightseers at one of Rangoon's temples were training their cameras on
something else - the tanks deployed to quell the biggest street
demonstrations. Hotels reported cancellations and embassies fielded phone
calls from worried travellers. 

Burma's powerful military intelligence chief and SLORC secretary No.l, Lt
Gen Khin Nyunt, had officially opened the VMY campaign and declared that
foreigners visiting Burma would see the true situation and realize that all
the negative reports about the country were fabrications. What tourists have
actually seen in recent weeks, however, is certainly not the kind of
publicity, the SLORC had in mind when the tourism campaign began with
US$300,000 of fanfare and ceremonies. 
For Aung San Suu Kyi, the recent tensions add urgency to her earlier calls
for foreigners to boycott VMY. ~My reaction is to say to the tourists, 1
told you so,' ~ said the Nobel Peace Prize winner, who has still much less
freedom of movement in her country than any foreign visitor. 

TOURISM AND DRUG MONEY

(A-I: 4.12 96; TN: 4.1.97) - ACCORDING to drug experts, Burma has more than
doubled its illicit drug exports since the SLORC came to power in 1988. The
US embassy in Rangoon reported the area used for poppy cultivation in the
country increased by two-thirds between 1987 and 1990. The booming heroin
trade in recent years has sent a flood of narco-dollars into Burmese cities.
"All normal activities, if you can call anything in Burma normal, are
instruments of drug money laundering," said Francois Casanier, research
analyst with the Paris-based Geopolitical Drugwatch. 

The integration of drug money into the national economy is further
highlighted by an economic report released in July 1996 by the US embassy in
Rangoon. It stated that at least 50 per cent of Burma's economy was
unaccounted for and extralegal. It went on to say that investments in
infrastructure and hotels were coming from major opiate-growing and
opiate-exporting organizations as well as those with close ties to these
organizations. "Barriers between the opiates sector and the legal economy
appear to have weakened in recent years, a trend that may have accelerated
in the last few months,. said the 88 page document based on the SLORC's own
economic data. 

According to a report "People of the opiate: Burma's dictatorship of drugs"
by Dennis Bernstein and Leslie Kean, the SLORC's close relationship with
Burma's most powerful drug traffickers was revealed to the world in early
1996 at the wedding celebration of entrepreneur Stephen Law, son of
legendary drug lord Lo Hsein Hang, who as of 1994 controlled the most
heavily armed drug-trafficking organization in Southeast Asia. The family's
guest of honour was Hotels and Tourism Minister Lt Gen Kyaw Ba, whose
presence - along with three other SLORC ministers and four Cabinet
ministers, lent strong political overtones to the celebration. Other
well-known traffickers also attended. Several sources confirmed that Kyaw Ba
became rich from drug pay-offs, when he served as northern commander in
Kachin State prior to his promotion to the SLORC as minister in charge of
tourism. 

Beginning of January 1997, press reports revealed that notorious opium
warlord Khun Sa has built a fast-growing tourism-related business empire in
Burma a year after his deal with the SLORC regime. A former officer of the
now defunct Mong Tai Army (MTA), which under Khun Sa's leadership previously
sought autonomy for Burma's eastern Shan State, said: "He [Khun S]  is doing
well and busy making business trips between Rangoon, Mandalay, Taunggyi....
He has a hotel in Rangoon and on a beach. He also has won a transport
service concession serving Mogok and Mandalay and in the northern part of
the country." Burma expert Bertil Lintner had earlier commented: "Khun Sa's
'surrender' has brought the last warlord out of the jungles and into Rangoon
where he, like everybody else these days, can continue his business.
Millions of dollars have been transferred from bank accounts abroad to
Rangoon since Khun Sa settled there." 

Khun Sa's third son, Sam Seun, has meanwhile invested US$ 20 million in the
development of a 44 acre plot that was presented as a gift to Khun Sa by the
SLORC as part of their deal. The tourist facility, located in Tachilek on
the Burmese-Thai border, will include a large hotel, casino and "other forms
of entertainment~. Thai officials have already expressed grave concerns
about an expected increase in drug trafficking in the Golden Triangle area
and money laundering from Khun Sa's family enterprise (see new frontiers 2/10). 

AUSTRALIAN AID AGENCY CALLS FOR VMY BOYCOTT [TN: 20.12.961 - The
Melbourne-based Australian Council for Overseas Aid (AC FOA) has urged
people not to support the Burmese regime or "condone their abuses~ by
traveling to Burma during SLORC's tourism campaign. Janet Hunt, ACFOA's
executive director said: "Tens of thousands of Burmese people have been
rounded up by the army to slave on projects Like the dredging of the
Mandalay palace moat or building runways for the new airport at Bassein.
Forced labour is endemic in Burma." 

"In the longer term, we don't want to isolate the Burmese people,~ she
added. "But during Visit Myanmar Year, ACFOA is calling on all Australian
travelers and Australian travel companies to condemn this abuse of human
rights in Burma and to withhold their support for the SLORC's tourism
campaign. We WAnt it to be a big Qop for SLORC,- she said. 

In November, AC FOA released a new brochure on human rights and tourism tmd
notes the milit` - 's extensive holdings in the tourist industry such as
those of the family of former dictator Ne Win, which has half a share in
Burma's Myanmar Airways. The document says the SLORC has stakes in luxury
hotels such as the Strand, New World, and Inya Lake and that senior military
officers and their families run other tourist enterprises. The Nawarat Hotel
is partially owned by Sanda Win, Ne Win's daughter. Lt Gen Khin Nyunt
partially owns the Mya Yeik Nyo Hotel. His daughter and son-in-law own the
Rainbow Company which provides a range of tourism services, according to
ACFOA's brochure. 

Hunt said: "You would be aware of the recent allegations about Stephen Law,
the son of drug warlord Lo Hsein Hang, and his joint venture developments
with the Singaporean government whereby drug money is laundered in projects
Like the Traders Hotel in Rangoon". 


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