Thanks in large part to the efforts of UUSC human rights activists, planned tours to Burma by four major universities have been cancelled. The actions follow similar decisions over the past two months by other major U.S. institutions – also after concerns raised by activists about the relationship between tourism and the Burma military regime –  to scrap plans for group visits to the Asian country. 

People are starting to listen to Burma's democracy movement, led by the world's only incarcerated Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi, which has called for a boycott of tourism to the country until there is an irreversible transition to democracy.

The latest cancellations were announced by Stanford University in California, the Wright Institute of Chicago, the University of Washington and the University of Wisconsin. They came on the heels of similar reversals by the Smithsonian Institution, Asia Society, and the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

The Burma Democracy Movement led by Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi, has called for a boycott of all travel to Burma as a way of expressing their opposition to the military regime. The NLD says, "Burma is in economic, social and political crisis. The regime spends more than 50 per cent of its budget on the military, far more than it spends on health, so the people are now facing starvation. There is inflation of 400 percent.” The United Nations has linked forced labor to Burma's tourism industry and the government receives over 30 percent of the funds spent on tourism.  

In another front in the battle to restore democracy and human rights in Burma, the United States Senate has approved a resolution calling on the U.N. Security Council to address the situation in Burma.  The Senate resolution, which received broad support, was led by a bipartisan group that includes powerful Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.  A similar resolution introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Congressmen Elton Gallegly, R-Calif., and Tom Lantos, D-Calif., is expected to be voted on soon.   If you have not yet contacted your congressperson, we urge you to do so.  For a recent action alert, visit Help put Burma on agenda of U.N. Security Council.

For more information about Aung San Suu Kyi, including a Time Magazine poll in which she was voted the "living Asian hero," visit Aung San Suu Kyi wins "living Asian hero" award.