AFP: Burma acts to eradicate the op

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Subject: AFP: Burma acts to eradicate the opium habit

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March 12, 1994
Bangkok Post

Agence France Presse

BURMA ACTS TO ERADICATE THE OPIUM HABIT

Rangoon-

Some 2,000 acres of land in northeast Burma's Kokang and Wa areas
have been earmarked for poppy substitution crops as part of the
government's opium eradication programme, the New Light of Myanmar
reported yesterday.

It is the first large-scale project to be mounted in regions where
tribal leaders have pledged to completely eradicate opium.

The Kokang and Wa regions once under the domination of Burmese
communists, are considered the country's biggest source of opium

Kokang and Wa leaders, former drug kingpins, were the first to
strike ceasefire deals with the military government in 1989.

The military government which set up a new ministry to deal
specifically with border area development, has spent more than one
billion kyats for projects intended to benefit some 5.4 million
people from 30 ethnic groups.