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Calls for Dialogue wiht Burma
- Subject: Calls for Dialogue wiht Burma
- From: strider@xxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 03 May 1994 07:32:00
/* 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