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REUTERS(12/2/96): UNDCP HOPES CONTI



Subject: REUTERS(12/2/96): UNDCP HOPES CONTINUED REGIONAL COOPERATIONS

	ASIA: BURMA PLEDGES TO CUT KHUN SA OPIUM BY 70 PER CENT
BURMA DRUGS
   By Robert Birsel of Reuters
	   BANGKOK, Feb 12 Reuter - Burma says it will cut the production 
of opium from areas of the country previously under the control of 
drug warlord Khun Sa by 70 per cent, a UN narcotics suppression 
official said today.
	   Giorgio Giacomelli, executive director of the UN International 
Drug Control Program (UNDCP), said while Burma seemed determined to 
cut output in Khun Sa's former zones there was a danger opium 
growing would balloon elsewhere as a result.
	   Khun Sa and more than 12,000 members of his Mong Tai Army (MTA) 
guerrilla force surrendered to the government last month from their 
strongholds in north-eastern Burma.
	   "They say that this (Khun Sa's surrender) will have a 
significant impact because they do, and intend to, control the 
territory which was controlled by the Mong Tai Army," Giacomelli 
told reporters in Bangkok.
	   "I am convinced it will significantly decrease the local 
contribution to trafficking (but) we have to avoid that this has 
the balloon effect, and the drugs will be produced somewhere else 
nearby."
	   Giacomelli was speaking at the end of a regional visit to 
Cambodia, Vietnam, Burma and Thailand.
	   Narcotics suppression agencies estimate that Khun Sa was 
responsible for approximately half of Burma's annual crop of 2,000 
tonnes of opium, enough to produce 200 tonnes of heroin.
	   Giacomelli said Burmese authorities told him they would take 
direct control of Khun Sa's former areas and would not cede control 
to drug-producing ethnic minority militias as they have done in 
other parts of the country.
	   "There they intend to control it themselves, that should make a 
difference," he said.
	   Burmese leaders told him they would cut opium production by 70 
per cent but they did not give a time frame for the reduction nor 
explain how they intended to achieve the target.
	   Giacomelli said the Burmese leaders insisted they had made no 
deal with Khun Sa but said they would not extradite him to the 
United States where he has been indicted on drugs charges.
	   Burmese officials told him Khun Sa would be dealt with according 
to Burmese law and practice, but they declined to elaborate on what 
that meant.
	   "Are we more interested in scoring a major success in the 
reduction of drug trafficking or are we more interested in the way 
in which Khun Sa will be dealt with? This is the rhetorical 
question they have been putting," Giacomelli said.
	   Giacomelli, when asked about the possibility that Rangoon 
dealing leniently with Khun Sa might send the wrong message to 
other drug traffickers, said he hoped Khun Sa's treatment would not 
undermine regional efforts against narcotics.
	   "What I want is that drugs will be significantly decreased and 
that they will not do something which may break the confidence, or 
undercut regional and international cooperation," he said.
	   "I can only hope it will be, maybe not pleasing to everybody 100 
per cent, but it will be acceptable."
	   REUTER dm/de