Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Tourism chairman Khin Shwe calls Burmese media pessimistic

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Tuesday, 15 November 2011 20:37 Myo Thein

(Mizzima) – The Myanmar Tourism Board (MTB) chairman Khin Shwe says the Burmese media, which opposed his idea to transform the historic Ministers’ Office building where Burmese martyrs were assassinated into a hotel, displays a pessimistic attitude. The Ministers’ Office building is located in Kyauktada Township in Rangoon.

Khin Shwe made his remarks at a press conference about Burmese tourism held in the Yuzana Garden Hotel in Rangoon on Tuesday.

Tourism chairman Khin Shwe at his press conference on Tuesday. Photo: Mizzima

Khin Shwe, who owns of the Zaygabar Company, said local media covers news in a pessimistic way like the foreign media.

“Spiteful reports depress me very much,” he said. “They [the media] cannot see the good part. It seems that they cannot recognize that the path the country is taking is good.”

A member of the Upper House of Parliament and the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), he also made a verbal attack on people who said they would try to protect the building from being transformed into a hotel.

“I heard that some people said that they would sacrifice their lives to protect the building. They don’t need to sacrifice their lives. If those people cadged 100,000 kyat (about US $126) per person to protect the building, nobody would give it. They only want to sacrifice their lives,” Khin Shwe said.

“The local journals do not have enough experience,” he said. However, he praised an article, “Which ruler will be used to measure?” about expressing different views. He passed out the article that was published in the “Monitor Journal.”

  The article said, “The Ministers’ Office is just an inheritance from the English and National Hero General Aung San used the building as an office just for a few months, so instead of the Burmese people maintaining it as an inheritance, English people who colonized Burma should maintain it, and if the state maintains it, it will cost a lot of money.”

Khin Shwe said that he could afford to visit foreign countries such as Singapore and the U.S. and spend a lot of money. Although he could live as a millionaire in a foreign country, he said he was living and working in Burma.

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