AMID the dusty streets and decaying buildings of downtown Rangoon, hoardings bearing the names of regional hotel chains or developers have sprung up around prime lots of cleared land.
Over the next two years, a rash of new hotels will rise from the rubble, adding a modern dimension of concrete, steel and glass to the skyline of the Burmese capital, which is now dominated by the golden spires of millenniums-old pagodas.
The hotel development is a testimony to the Burmese government's success in attracting foreign investment, despite criticism of its human rights record from the United States and other Western countries, which has mounted recently following the government offensive against the rebel Karen National Union (KNU).
On the same day that Burmese government troops stormed their way into the KNU headquarters in the town of Manerplaw, prompting Western protests, senior officials and foreign diplomats were drinking champagne and working their way through a four-course lunch at the recently refurbished Strand Hotel in Rangoon.
They were there to witness the signing of an agreement for two tourism projects, in which Sea Containers, the London-based shipping and hotels group, has a major interest.
Although the fall of Manerplaw was not reported until later, Western diplomats who were aware that an attack was in progress against the base expressed their disapproval privately in lunch table conversation.
