U.S Seeking to find ways to curb dr

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Subject: U.S Seeking to find ways to curb drug from Burma

Mail*Link(r) SMTP               U.S. SEEKING TO FIND WAYS TO STOP HEROIN
SHIPMENTS...

95/02/11 12:56:33
  U.S. SEEKING TO FIND WAYS TO STOP HEROIN SHIPMENTS FROM MYANMAR
  (th)
  By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
  c.1995 N.Y. Times News Service
  
     WASHINGTON  Myanmar has become the largest supplier of heroin
  sold in the United States, Clinton administration officials have
  concluded, and diplomats and drug officials are struggling over how
  to respond to the sharply increased flow.
     Administration narcotics experts say heroin production in
  Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, has doubled since 1988 and now
  accounts for up to 70 percent of the American supply.
     Those experts are urging President Clinton to step up anti-drug
  cooperation with Myanmar's military junta. But human rights
  officials argue against cooperating with a government judged to be
  a serious abuser of human rights.
     In its latest human rights report, the State Department said
  Myanmar has ``a highly authoritarian regime'' that has killed and
  jailed its political opponents, squelched free speech and
  demonstrations and pressed thousands of people into forced labor to
  assist the military.
     Worried that heroin use is growing on urban streets, however,
  Lee P. Brown, director of the White House Office on Drug Control
  Policy, is leading a push for expanded cooperation with Myanmar's
  military to help eradicate poppy fields and arrest drug traffickers
  there.
     ``As the world's major producer of heroin, Burma is a very
  major, major, major problem,'' Brown said in an interview.
     The Drug Enforcement Administration's estimate that more than 60
  percent of the heroin sold in the United States comes from
  processing plants in Myanmar is up from 15 percent a decade ago.
     The administration also estimates that each year Myanmar
  harvests more than 2,400 tons of opium, from which heroin is
  derived, making it by far the world's largest grower.
     The surge in Myanmar's narcotics output has largely offset sharp
  drops in production in Thailand and Mexico. Some drug officials
  acknowledge that one reason Myanmar's heroin output has soared is
  that Washington cut off almost all anti-narcotics cooperation,
  including joint poppy eradication efforts, after the military coup
  in 1988.
     ``There's been a fairly dramatic increase in heroin since the
  military came to power,'' said Robert S. Gelbard, assistant
  secretary of State for international narcotics matters. ``There is
  a lot of concern about narcotics-related corruption, particularly
  in the mid-levels of the Burmese Army.''
     But human rights officials in the State Department argue that
  stepped-up cooperation with Myanmar would undercut the
  administration's human rights policy and lend legitimacy to a junta
  that has killed hundreds of supporters of the democratic opposition
  since it seized power.
     In particular, the debate in the administration pits concerns
  about heroin addiction in America against anxiety about the future
  of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition leader and Nobel peace
  laureate who has been under house arrest in Myanmar since 1988. Her
  party won a landslide victory in elections in 1990, but the
  military annulled the result.
     White House officials say they hope to complete a review of
  Myanmar policy over the next few weeks. ``It's a real tug of war,''
  a senior drug official said.
  
     (STORY CAN END HERE. OPTIONAL MATERIAL FOLLOWS)
  
     Government officials said the leading opponents of expanded
  cooperation are Sandy Berger, the deputy national security adviser,
  and John H.F. Shattuck, assistant secretary of State for human
  rights.
     A State Department official who insisted on anonymity said, ``We
  really don't think we can cooperate on much of anything with a
  regime that's as repressive as this one.''
     Backing Brown's call for increased cooperation are Thomas A.
  Constantine, director of the Drug Enforcement Administration;
  Timothy E. Wirth, the undersecretary of State for global affairs;
  and Assistant Secretary of State Gelbard, administration officials
  say.
     ``I'm very concerned about human rights violations in Burma,''
  Brown said. ``But I'm equally concerned about human rights in
  America and the poison being exported from Burma that ends up on
  the streets of our cities.'' He estimates that there are now
  600,000 heroin addicts in the United States.
     Brown said so much Burmese heroin is flooding in, often
  transported by ethnic Chinese and Nigerians, that the street price
  has fallen while purity has increased. As a result, he said, there
  has been a surge in overdoses, especially in the Northeast, where
  heroin use is concentrated.
     The stepped-up cooperation under consideration would include
  sharing intelligence with Myanmar officials, training the country's
  police and providing equipment to them like police radios,
  drug-detection kits and trucks.
     Much of Myanmar's opium cultivation and heroin processing takes
  place in areas controlled not by the military but by dissident
  minorities and rebel armies. The best-known drug lord, Khun Sa,
  controls a powerful army as well as poppy fields and processing
  plants in eastern Myanmar, near the Laotian border.
     Burmese military officials have told Washington that they can do
  little to suppress heroin production because so much is taking
  place in areas controlled by rebellious ethnic minorities.
     The military has asked the Clinton administration for guns and
  helicopters to help subdue those areas, but administration
  officials insist that any increased cooperation will not include
  weapons.