Madam, - In her review of the book The River of Lost Footsteps(Weekend Review, February 24th), Lucy Trench writes of Burma: "Yet although all dictatorships are unequal, some are more unequal than others. There may be over 1,000 political prisoners in Burma, but there don't appear to be vats of boiling water awaiting dissidents".
The fact is that Burma has one of the worst dictatorships in the world, one charged by the UN with "crimes against humanity". The report Threat to the Peace, commissioned by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former Czech president Vaclav Havel, to assess the determining factors that have resulted in UN Security Council intervention in areas of conflict, found that Burma is unique in that all such actors are present - and some to a considerably worse extent than in other countries. Systematic and widespread human rights abuses are committed by the Burmese military regime, including forced labour, forced relocations and rape of ethnic minorities.
There is no freedom of speech, movement or association and any form of protest is punishable by imprisonment, torture and even death. Last year, the Irish Government funded two reports on torture and death of democracy activists in prison.
As for Ms Trench's encouragement of tourism and her comment that "recent visitors describe the atmosphere as calm, certainly better than Tibet", it should be remembered that foreigners do not have unlimited access to tour Burma; travel is restricted to those areas deemed suitable by the military. As to whether to go or not to Burma, the Nobel laureate and icon of democracy Aung San Suu Kyi has asked people not to visit. If tourists do decide to visit Burma, they should be mindful of how they spend their money and avoid using government services where possible. - Yours, etc,
EILEEN SEYMOUR, Chairperson, Burma Action Ireland, PO Box 6786, Dublin 1.