Yesterday the Burma Campaign Australia released a statement calling for Jetstar to stop flying into Myanmar, and named and shamed another seven Australian companies for doing business in the troubled country, and subsequently funding the current dictatorship.

Australian Greens leader Bob Brown is also urging Jetstar to reassess its services to Burma, saying the airline should realise it’s helping the military leaders who have ruled the southern Asian nation since 1962.

“Jetstar should be seeing that it keeps its schedules in Australia and that it treats all its passengers well in Australia, including families, rather than serving a dictatorship like the Burmese military,” he told reporters.

Jetstar Asia runs four flights a week into Yangon, formerly known as Rangoon, and the report claims that Aussie companies are filling the evil military junta government’s coffers with up to US $2.8 billion every year.

According to Zetty Brake of the Burma Campaign Australia, “As Jetstar lands planes in Burma, the military regime lands helicopters in eastern Burma in military offences targeting innocent civilians.”

It may surprise consumers to even learn that Jetstar flew in and out of Yangon; if you try and book a flight on their website, there is no availability from Australia and no destination information on Myanmar. And a ring to the call centre yielded a terse: “You won’t find any information online because we don’t fly there. Goodbye!”

But if you change your departure city on the site to Singapore, those four weekly flights in question magically appear. So Aussies are able to purchase a flight to Myanmar online with a multi-leg ticket, and the budget branch of the flying ‘roo seems to be left blushing with embarrassment (Qantas owns 49% of Jetstar Asia).

I’ve spent several months travelling in Burma, and can personally attest to the brutal, insufferable way in which the local people are treated by the government — the dictatorship has violated 35 resolutions by the United Nations on human rights since the junta gained control in 1962. It was the first time in my travelling career that I had to factor ‘bribe money’ into my budget, and I felt horrible every time I handed a well-heeled khaki-clad soldier/officer/customs official a greenback.

But by being there, by experiencing the place first-hand, and through conversations with monks and shopkeepers and street hustlers and teachers, I like to think I was able to contribute more to the people suffering at the hands of the criminal government than I was to their oppression.

Tourism, though beneficial to the powers-that-be, allows for interaction (I spoke with people who were curious as to what had happened in the news … for the last ten years, who had no idea what the Internet was or who had been elected as the President of the United States), trickle-down support (the government-run hotels may attract the businessman’s buck, but I stayed at local and sometimes unregistered guest houses, and am sure that at least part of the pittance I paid for accommodation reached families, not just officials) and the real-life experience required to bring attention to brutal governments in our home countries. I feel as though by travelling in a place such as Burma, you are able to do more good than bad if you travel responsibly.

The tack that Burma Campaign Australia and Senator Brown are taking, however, dismisses grassroots travel altogether as they call for a boycott. According to BCA’s Ms Brake Australians should not travel to Myanmar because of “the fact that 12% of all (tourism) dollars spent (in Burma) go to the regime, and the (fact that the) regime uses that money to brutally oppress the people of Burma. No business in Burma is doing good. The money funds human rights abuses”.

I beg to differ. Five-star business travel most certainly fuels the fire by depositing large sums of cash into corrupt pockets. But by spending locally, giving generously to those who need it and sharing your stories when you get home, responsible travel can be a force of positive change. And a helluva lot of people won’t be able to feed their families if they miss out on the other 88% of the money that tourism brings in.

Senator Brown: do you really think isolationism is the way forward?

I hope that Qantas and Jetstar take ownership of their decision to offer Myanmar as a destination, and contribute some of their profits to organisations that fight for human rights in countries like Burma. But should they buckle to the backlash, responsible travellers (and corporate douchebags, for that matter) can still access Yangon on Thai Airways, Air Asia, Malaysia Airlines, China Airlines, Bangkok Airways and a dozen other carriers.

Source