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Calls for Dialogue wiht Burma



/* Written  6:25 pm  May  2, 1994 by mtaylor@xxxxxxxxx in igc:soc.cult.burma */
/* ---------- "Calls for Dialogue wiht Burma" ---------- */
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BC-Burma-USA  05-02  0526

US Official Calls for More Dialogue with Burma
By Alan Elsner
Washington, May 2 (Reuter) - A Senior U.S. official called Monday for 
more dialogue with the military government of Burma in an effort to slow 
a flood of heroin into the United States. 
State Department Counsellor Tim Wirth told Reuters it was in U.S> 
national interests to engage the Burmese government, despite its record 
of repression of political opponents.
"We have a national interest to become more engaged in Burma, engaged in 
terms of dealing with that government and dealing with the narcotics 
issue," Wirth said.
The call by Wirth, a former Colorado Democratic Senator whose 
responsibilities include narcotics, was likely to be controversial in the 
light of current U.S> policy to hold relations with Burma at a relatively 
low level.
The United States cut off all aid to Burma in 1988 when the military 
crushed a pro-democracy movement.  For almost the past five years, the 
military have been holding opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner 
Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest.
Asked how the United States could balance its human rights policies with 
the need to stem the flow of drugs, Wirth said there was not contest as 
far as he was concerned.
"Here we have narcotics coming in, heroin coming in.  We're on the edge 
of an epidemic of cheap and very pure heroin and that's going to demand 
more aggressive action by us because that directly impinges on our 
national interest," he said.
"I'm thinking of young people on the streets of the United States of 
America who are directly impacted by that.  That should be our priority.
"First of all start to deal with them.  It seems to me you have to do 
that.  We are starting to see it (heroin) in New York and Los Angeles.  
What is our first and primary interest?  It is heroin and the streets of 
the United States," he said.
The United States, Wirth added, needed to send Drug Enforcement Agency 
personnel to Burma and also step up cooperation with China and Thailand, 
which say they are also extremely worried about the flow of heroin from 
Burma.
Another State Department official, who asked not to be named, said there 
was unlikely to be much enthusiasm for Wirth's call.
The Burmese military recently allowed a U.S. delegation headed by a 
member of Congress and including a New York Times reporter to visit Aung 
San Suu Kyi for the first time.
She said she remained determined to continue her struggle for a 
democratic Burma.
A recent State Department report on global drugs trafficking siad that in 
the past five years there had been a steady increase in the flow and 
purity of heroin to the United States.  It listed Burma as 
non-cooperative with U.S. anti-narcotics efforts--a determination which 
makes Burma ineligible for most forms of U.S. aid.
The report said Burma accounted for 60 percent of worldwide opium 
production and its government made little effort to combat or control 
cultivation of the drug.
Opium poppies are mainly grown in the rugged, remote hills of northeast 
Burma under the control of rebels.  They refine the opium into heroin and 
ship it out through Thailand, Indochina or China.
Reuter
16:47  05-02