Is The BBC Indirectly Funding Burma’s Military Regime?

By promoting independent travel against the wishes of Burma’s democratic movement, a guide book may indirectly support its dictatorship.


Last week BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, entered Burma Campaign UK’s “Dirty List” of 154 companies they claim directly or indirectly finance Burma’s brutal military dictatorship.

The reason for the inclusion?

Thanks to their majority stake in Lonely Planet, BBC Worldwide are now responsible for the Lonely Planet guide to Burma, undermining the democracy movement’s calls for a tourist boycott.

But do the BBC, and the 30 other tourism groups listed, deserve to be thrown in alongside nefarious oil and gas companies?

London-based pressure group Burma Campaign UK, believes so, “Our reviews represent the views of the Burmese democracy movement,” says, Campaign Officer Johnny Chatterton. “By going to Burma on holiday tourists are paying for the military machine that keeps the regime in power.”


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