Formed in 1994 and disbanded in 1997, the BABR has reinvented itself with the showing of the 45-minute film and plans to hold monthly forums in San Francisco. Secrecy was a prerequisite for many interviews with students and citizens who, by describing their experiences, risked arrest for speaking publicly against the junta. Pilger documents not only the brutal repression that halted Burma's surging democracy movement in 1988, but also the continuing use of forced labor. He films workers bound in chains and shackles, breaking rocks or clearing roadways to prepare for the growth of the tourism trade. He reveals that an entire village was displaced by the arrival of a country club and golf course for use by Japanese businessmen.
Tourism is a major focus of the film.
Burmese government officials recognized the potential revenue to be gained by reconstructing many of Burma's crumbling national relics. According to Dr. Naw Angelem, Burma's Director of Tourism, the labor used was completely voluntary. However, Pilger captures a different story. He interviews an Australian lawyer traveling to Burma with his wife to investigate the destruction of Burma's forests who unexpectedly witnessed some 30 workers in chains and shackles breaking rocks near his hotel. Pilger captures children no older than nine packing mortar to make bricks.