Landmines blocking tourists from Kayah State

Published on Friday, 15 August 2014 19:34

More areas of Kayah State will be opened to tourists once the landmines that contaminate swathes of the country’s smallest state, which is located opposite the Thai province of Mae Hong Song, are removed, according to the Tourism Entrepreneurs Association.

The association said the government would begin the demining effort in Demawso Township, and allow tourist into the area once it is safe.

Kayah State Chief Minister Khin Maung Oo told a recent tourism forum that most tourists to the state were restricted to its major towns. “The government doesn’t allow permission to tour other places in Kayah State because of landmines,” he said.

Zaw Htay Aung, a tourism industry executive, said visitors could visit the state capital, Loikaw, by boat or car, but are prohibited from Demawso Township because the government had yet to clear it of landmines.

He said the landmines were not being cleared for tourists, but that the government had already agreed to remove them. “We have learned that they are going to clear the landmines as soon as the nationwide ceasefire agreement is signed. After all the landmines are cleared, all areas of the state will be opened for tourists,” he said.  

Zaw Htay Aung said the state had a number of dramatic tourist attractions. These include two stalactite caves, one of which measures about a 1,000 feet high. It also has a lake, Htee Pwint, that includes a mud volcano that shoots sand up in the shape of an umbrella. He said plans to build hotels near one lake were already underway, in expectation of a surge in tourism once the landmines have been removed.

 According to International Campaign to Ban Landmines Myanmar has ranked third globally in the highest number of landmine casualties for the last 5 years, surpassed only by Afghanistan and Colombia. Minefields are scattered throughout the country in areas where there has been decades of fighting between armed ethnic groups and the government. These include: Kayah, Karen, Chin, Kachin, Chin, Mon, Rakhine and Shan states, but landmines can also be found in Bago and Tanintharyi regions. Numerous international non-governmental organisations are preparing to assist Myanmar in its demining efforts, which experts say could take decades.

According to a report in the UN news agency IRIN, landmine clearance in Kayah State has still not begun, although a ceasefire between the main armed groups and the government was reached in 2012.

“Currently, no group offering mine-risk education in Kayah State has done the necessary technical survey, or even a non-technical survey to determine if the community in which they are offering this is mine-affected,” Yeshua Moser-Puangsuwan, research coordinator with the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines told IRIN.

Source http://www.elevenmyanmar.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7222:landmines-blocking-tourists-from-kayah-state&catid=35:tourism&Itemid=358