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To: Bobby Yellin who wrote (10163)	4/18/1998 7:01:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 116811

>>OFF TOPIC>> Americans take a break in Long Kesh By James Langton in New York ------------------------------------------------------------------------ External Links Reality Tours - Global Exchange Global Exchange History Remembering the Famine [Northern Ireland Reality Tour telegraph.co.uk IT may not be the most exotic holiday destination in the world but Long Kesh prison in Northern Ireland is rapidly becoming one of the most fashionable. Belfast and the Irish Republic are two of the latest destinations for Americans anxious to experience "reality tourism". Other destinations include South American sweatshops, toxic waste dumps in Mexico and refugee camps in Palestine. The two-week Northern Ireland holiday includes a visit to IRA terrorists imprisoned in Long Kesh, a chance to take part in the annual famine walk and bed and breakfast with Roman Catholic families on the Falls Road. The trips are organised by a radical San Francisco company which now makes more than $1 million (œ600,000) a year transporting hundreds of concerned Americans to what must be some of the world's least desirable holiday spots. The "Remember the Famine" tour, which leaves for Ireland next month, boasts an opportunity "to learn what is behind the 800-year-old anti-colonial movement". A second trip is planned for July, with interest already running high after the news of Easter's peace settlement. For œ1,600, participants will travel to Belfast, Crossmaglen, Londonderry and Dublin and meet "grassroots progressive organisations" including Sinn Fein and loyalists and "political prisoners" in Long Kesh. The holiday also offers an opportunity to march on the annual famine walk in Louisberg in the Irish Republic and "dialogue with Irish people about how they are dealing with the conflict in the North". Flights, meals and all excursions are included in the price. "Reality Tours" are organised by Global Exchange, the highly-profitable off-shoot of a Californian human rights group which uses the profits to fund its campaigning. Susan Kench, a Londoner who works for the company, says that on the Irish trip "every opinion and every voice is heard. We do have our own point of view but we try to be non-judgmental". The brochure for the Irish tour, which "strongly urges people of colour to apply", also offers "a close look at the intense militarisation and sophisticated surveillance of whole communities". Global Exchange, is organising a human rights campaign aimed at Ireland. Ms Kench said: "In any situation we tend to support the rights of the underdog." She added that in the United States "people tend to be very isolated and inward looking. It's great to be able to offer something other than sitting around on the beach." This year's destinations include the West Bank and Gaza Strip - "where you will witness the reality of the occupation" - Haiti, Vietnam, the "new" South Africa and Cuba. Next year the company hopes to take tour groups to Hong Kong to examine changes under Chinese rule. Closer to home, the two-day, œ115 "Strawberry Fields Forever" tour in July, takes tourists to meet trade union organisers, growers and strawberry pickers in California and examine the hazards of pesticides and their effect on the ozone layer. Typical reality tourists are in their late thirties and older, and well-educated. Many are teachers, college professors and social workers with their roots in the Sixties radicalism of northern California, although the company says recently it has had more clients from the corporate world, anxious to play their part in the caring Nineties. Last month, a highly successful trip took 20 "reality tourists" to Mexico, where they saw toxic waste in an abandoned factory, heard accounts of life in a sweatshop factory with wages of œ2.50 a day and met would-be immigrants attempting to cross illegally into the United States. Many of the participants manage to combine guilt with a healthy bank balance. After seeing oil drums oozing toxic waste and exploited garment workers in Chinatown on a day trip of the less salubrious districts of San Francisco, Virginia Barker, a successful commercial estate agent pronounced that she was: "Here to see how much damage I have done as a capitalist." Reality tourists are issued with worksheets and discussion documents outlining the plight of Mexican field workers or Haitian peasants. On returning home they are encouraged to campaign on the issues that they have witnessed. While "reality tourists" see families living in houses made from cardboard boxes and plastic sheeting, they travel in air-conditioned buses, while munching on organic fruit and chocolate coated coffee beans. Some critics complain that those taking part are doing little more than expensively salving their guilt. Jaime Cota, a Tijuana bus driver for Reality Tours, complained that some groups visiting the Mexican border slums behaved "as if they were conducting a sociological experiment". Later groups have been reminded to be more sensitive to their surroundings.