Author

WELCOME TO BURMA

To purchase Welcome to Burma or for further information, please contact Timothy.

Welcome To Burma Author’s introduction.

In 1962 the Burmese military, led by General Ne Win, staged a military coup that rested power from a civilian government led by Prime Minister U Nu. For the first seven years of this regime the longest visa available for entry into Burma was seventy two hours. Visits were restricted to Rangoon. This was part of a policy imposed by General Ne Win intended to physically isolate Burma from the rest of the world. By 1988, the year in which hundreds of thousands of students, monks and democracy activists took to the streets to protest against continuing military rule, visas had been extended to seven days and visitors were allowed to travel to Rangoon, Mandalay, and the ruins of the ancient capital in Bagan.

Over the following decade the availability and duration of visas into Burma reflected a military dilemna. On one hand they wanted to bolster their flailing economy with tourist dollars and international investment. On the other they wanted to conceal the state of the Burmese nation. As such, visas fluctuated between not being available at all to being available for up to four weeks.

In the mid 1990s the military regime decided to launch Visit Myanmar Year in 1996. It was a bid to attract the tourist dollars which were benefitting other developing nations in the South East Asian region.

Visit Myanmar Year began in November 1996 and at the official launch a speech was made by Lieutenant General Khin Nyunt. At the time Lieutenant General Khin Nyunt was Secretary One of the ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). Today he is Secretary One of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). He is also the head of Burmese Military Intelligence, the Chairman of the Board of Education and the head of the Burmese Olympic Committee for Sydney 2000. Lieutenant General Khin Nyunt is also the god son of the former military dictator, General Ne Win. In an address concerning tourism, Lieutenant General Khin Nyunt said,

‘Fabrications and biased stories of some foreign news agencies have made false impressions of Myanmar (Burma) on those who have not been here. The main purpose of Visit Myanmar Year 1996 is to enable many tourists to visit Myanmar and see the facts. On their return they will explain the true situation they experienced and all the fabrication will be rebutted.’

I am a tourist who has come to Burma more likely than not because of an interest arising out of its colonial heritage. I know almost nothing of its status as a military dictatorship. I do not know who Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is. When I arrive obtain a one month visa and extend this for a further two months. Approximately 30% of the country is open to tourism.

Lieutenant General Khin Nyunt, what follows is an account of the situation that I have experienced in Burma.

In his first book, ‘Welcome to Burma and Enjoy the Totalitarian Experience’ Timothy Syrota ventures beyond Asia’s bamboo curtain into a country from a bygone era which, at the time, had only recently opened to foreign travel. With a goal of going from Rangoon to Putao in the far north, Syrota’s travels soon became much more about the people of Burma – and their predicament under the military regime – than about the places that he visits. In having ‘Welcome to Burma’ published, Syrota gained the best of support when Aung San Suu Kyi’s late husband, Dr Michael Aris, took a liking to the original manuscript; a manuscript at the time rough, raw, full of expletives and written by a self confessed beach-loving-back-packer of the Pulp Fiction and dance-scene generation. It was, nonetheless, a manuscript with an important place to fill in the body of literature concerning Burma under the military regime. The wise counsel and sunny optimism of Dr Aris is greatly missed. ‘Welcome to Burma’ is written with a sense of integrity, simplicity, humanity and with an almost beatnik rhythm to its narrative. It provides an accessible introduction to the machinations of totalitarian rule and an important insight into the realities of life under one of the world’s harshest and most enduring military regimes. In this context, ‘Welcome to Burma’ is a relevant piece of literature today, tomorrow, and, sadly, perhaps every day until the Burmese military finally release Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and genuinely respect the nation’s desire for human rights and democracy.
By Mr Garry Woodard
Former Australian Ambassador to Myanmar, China, and Malaysia.
Subtitled 'and Enjoy the Totalitarian Experience'. Penetrating and empathetic insights into the daily lives and trials of the Burmese people as they eke out an existence under the ever watchful gaze of their oppressive military government. Syrota, an Australian human rights activist, spent many months roaming the cities and countryside meeting and chatting with citizens from all walks of life, a trip eventually cut short when the authorities expelled him from the country for his inquisitiveness. Highly readable; a 'must' for all with interest in Burma and its current political situation. 
ABE Books Distribution www.abebooks.com
In his comprehensive review on literature on Myanmar: “As already noted, memoirs by tourists and temporary residents are often eminently forgettable, but there are some notable exceptions. Pico Lyer makes astute and often amusing observations about Myanmar during the Ne Win era in Video Night in Kathmandu. Rory MacLean’s Under the Dragon is worth reading, as is Timothy Syrota’s Welcome to Burma. David Eimer’s book A Savage Dreamland: Journeys in Burma rates as one of the better modern contributions to this genre. As an aside, it is interesting to compare Paul Theroux’s impressions of Myanmar, as brilliantly recorded in The Great Railway Bazaar in 1975, with those in his Ghost Train to the Eastern Star , written more than 30 years later.
Andrew Selth
respected author, former diplomat, strategic intelligence analyst and research scholar
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