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Thirteen years ago this August, on the auspicious eighth day of the eighth month of 1988, the Burmese rose up against their military government. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets, day after day, in a national strike that paralysed the country. Over the following six weeks the uprising was crushed. More than 5,000 protesters were killed. Unarmed demonstrators were cut down by troops, monks bayoneted, prisoners burnt alive in civic crematoria.

At the height of the uprising, in a gesture at once callous and surreal, the government announced a number of co-operative ventures with Western firms to build tourist hotels. The dictators who had for so many years isolated Burma, or Myanmar as the regime chooses to call it, wanted tourism to make them rich.

‘The towers are built of fine stone and one of them has been covered with gold a good finger in thickness,’ wrote Marco Polo of Pagan, ‘...really they do form one of the finest sights in the world.’ Two years ago, in the course of researching a book on the 1988 uprising, I returned to Burma and visited the ruined city of Pagan, climbing the narrow steps of Thatbyinnyu, one of over 2,000 temples that remain on the arid plain. From the upper terrace, I tried to imagine the bustling, ancient capital two hundred feet below. As I watched the sun set beyond the Irrawaddy’s great arc, I wanted to conjour up trading barques from Ceylon and Siam swaying in swells. But my imagination failed me as I became aware of an absence.

On the ride back to the guesthouse I asked the young driver of my horse cart what had happened to the old village.

“Kublai Khan destroy,” he replied. “Rape and pillage all of old Pagan. Very bad man.”

“No, more recently than that,’ I said. “Maybe last year? Two years ago?” The driver turned to stare at me and I thought for a moment that he hadn’t understood. “There was a town here when I last visited.”

“No town, no sir,” he replied, fidgeting with the reigns. A furtiveness had crept into his behaviour. “A few farmers, maybe, but no town.”

“Twelve years ago I stayed at a place called the Mother Hotel. And I remember a sign at a restaurant which said, ‘Be kind to animals by not eating them’.”

The cart turned off the track and on to a new tarmac carriageway. A gust of wind from a passing tour bus filled with Taiwanese holiday makers almost blew us off the road. For a moment the only sound was the clip-clop of hooves on the tarmac.

“Today is my first day as horsecart driver,” he said.

“I wish you success.”

“It must be success,” he insisted. “You see I hoping many tourists come to Pagan so one day I can buy a cart for myself.” He took a breath. “That is why it is important not to talk about some things.”

In 1989 Pagan - along with Rangoon and Mandalay - were chosen as the three destinations to be opened to tourists. A frenzy of hotel building razed old neighbourhoods and transformed city centres. In the capital one million civilians were relocated, according to the International Confederation of Free Trade. Over the next seven years the number of hotel rooms in Burma rose from 978 to an estimated 20,000.

In Pagan the expulsions were small in comparison with elsewhere in the country, but the method employed was similar. The army simply announced through loudspeakers that the village was to be resettled. The 5,200 residents, many of whom had lived beside the ancient temples for generations, were told to pack their belongings. Compensation of only 250 kyats - then about two dollars - was to be paid per property. No money was given for the buildings themselves. Two weeks later the lorries and bulldozers arrived. The people were taken away and their homes destroyed. The old village was replaced by a tourist enclave of modern hotels catering for dollar-bearing foreigners.

But great influx of wallet-waving holidaymakers has not materialised. Western tourists have been deterred by international boycott campaigns and the Asian economic crisis has delayed the visits of nationals from neighbouring countries. As for the thousands of new hotel rooms, most are empty - while the evicted residents of the old neighbourhoods try to rebuild their lives in suburban shantytowns. Aung San Suu Kyi has asked tourists not to come to her country until it is again a democratic nation, until forced labour, arbitrary rape and extra-judicial killing are no longer common place. Travellers who disregard Suu Kyi’s request and visit Burma while it remains under the rule of the same iniquitous junta, must go there with the express intention of bearing witness to the tragedy and suffering of the betrayed, golden land.

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