Fact: Independent travelers in Burma bring with them desperately needed funds for untold thousands of people who make their livings in tourism and whose lives would be devastated by a travel boycott.

Fact: Independent travelers that go to Burma can expose themselves to the people and life in Burma, and upon their return report on what they saw, more effectively exposing the human rights violations of the military junta.

Fact: Though Aung San Suu Kyi is the undisputed leader of the National League for Democracy and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, she is human and therefore fallible. Her long term confinement and her arguably extreme views on boycotting travel in Burma could be construed as out-dated and needlessly detrimental to the lives of everyday Burmese people fighting to survive. Also, it should be noted that Aung San Suu Kyi's plea for a travel boycott was not unanimously accepted by her fellow opposition party members. Many active members that still live in Burma, opposing the regime at their personal daily peril fervently disagree with a travel boycott.

Fact: Independent travelers that have visited Burma since the most recent protests and crackdowns report that not a single Burmese citizen they met, *not one*, supported a travel boycott. Indeed the Burmese they interviewed pled for people to do the opposite. Visit, observe, report.

Fact: 99% of the people behind this petition have never stepped foot in Burma and don't know what the fuck they're talking about.

Marginally-informed busy-bodies are the bane of this planet.

Reply