Yangon out to prove there's smoke w

[dohrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Reply-To: "W. Kesavatana-Dohrs" <dohrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Yangon out to prove there's smoke without fire in the heroin trade


This half-hearted, under-researched article might help explain why Asia
Times can't get more than a couple thousand paid subscribers despite
spending millions of dollars.

On Tue, 3 Jun 1997, Myanmar. wrote:

> Yangon out to prove there's smoke without fire in the heroin trade
> 
> Stephen Brookes, Yangon, 3rd June 1997
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Rising out of the dust like a pink and gold hallucination, Myanmar's
> new Museum of Narcotic Drugs loomed above the crowd of soldiers,
> politicians, ambassadors and journalists as Khin Nyunt - one of the
> top leaders of the ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council -
> took the podium. 
> 
> "It is a well known fact," he said, "that in Myanmar, the government
> and the whole populace residing in the border areas have
> wholeheartedly committed themselves to eradicate the narcotics drugs
> problem. However, some Western countries who turn a blind eye to our
> successful efforts in this regard are still unfairly accusing Myanmar
> by disseminating untrue reports and exaggerated news." 
> 
> The April 22 museum opening in northeastern Shan state was part of a
> broad counterattack by SLORC against charges that it was not
> cooperating in the fight against drugs - and, according to some United
> States officials, is even involved in the trade itself, from
> trafficking to money-laundering. 
> 
> "Burmese authorities have made no discernible efforts to improve their
> performance," senior US narcotics official Robert Gelbard stated last
> November. "From a hardheaded, drug-control point of view, I have to
> conclude that SLORC has been part of the problem, not the solution." 
> 
> In May, US Secretary of State Madelaine Albright took up the fight,
> saying drug money had penetrated all reaches of society and
> traffickers were becoming "leading lights" in Myanmar. "Drug money is
> so pervasive in the Burmese economy that it taints legitimate
> investment," she warned. 
> 
> And in April, journalists Leslie Kean and Dennis Bernstein wrote in
> the Boston Globe: "Burma is swiftly becoming a full-fledged
> narco-dictatorship, with all aspects of the government either heavily
> influenced by or directly incorporated into the burgeoning drug
> trade." 
> 
> Is there really a "narco-dictatorship" in Myanmar, reaping riches on
> the backs of American junkies? Drug experts in Myanmar have said that
> was nonsense - and argued that SLORC was being made the scapegoat for
> America's failed war on drugs. 
> 
> "The State Department says that opium production has doubled since
> SLORC came to power in 1988, therefore SLORC is responsible," one
> Western official in Yangon said. 
> 
> "But that's a phony argument. The key factor in 1988 was that the US
> decertified Burma and stopped its drug assistance. The US was
> providing about 80 percent of the funding for fighting drugs, so
> naturally when that money dried up, opium production increased. But
> rather than admit their error, the US is blaming SLORC. It's a witch
> hunt." 
> 
> Other drug enforcement officials agree. "The Burmese were extremely
> cooperative with US law enforcement during the time I was there," said
> Barry Broman, who spent two years at the US embassy before retiring
> last year. "They provided major assistance. The problem was the
> limited amount of assistance we could give the Burmese." 

Broman is not a drug enforcement official.  He is now a "consultant"
trying to put together business deals in Burma, through his company
Raintree Consulting.  As such he is dependent, as are all business people
in SLORC's Burma,on the good will of the generals.  Are his SLORC-friendly
comments a coincidence?

> 
> Broman, who spent several decades investigating the narcotics trade in
> Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam before being posted to Myanmar in
> 1994, is one of America's most knowledgeable experts on the complex
> world of Asian drug trafficking. 
> 
> "There are a lot of accusations that SLORC is involved in narcotics,
> but no one's produced any evidence

Broman might read the reports put out by the State Department for
starters.  He might note the satellite survey evidence that areas under
SLORC control, in Kachin State for instance, show a dramatic rise in opium
production.  If he wants to wait until we get a video tape of Khun Sa
handing cash to Maung Aye, feel free.  But the current evidence is enough
for US and Australian governments, Janes Intelligence, the Wall Street
Journal, Far Eastern Economic Review, International Herald Tribune, etc.


 - so where's the smoking gun?" he
> said, during a recent<<business??>> trip to Yangon. "In my experience,
the trade is
> not institutional in Burma. That's not to say that people aren't
> profiting - there's indirect profiting from the narcotics trade. But
> across the border, you find Thai politicians and generals in bed with
> the traffickers. That's not the case here." 
> 
> But critics like Albright point to the new role that former drug lords
> like Lo Hsing Han and Khun Sa are allegedly playing in the Myanmar
> economy. SLORC's refusal to extradite Khun Sa to the US, they said, is
> proof of its complicity in the drug trade. 
> 
> But Broman takes a different view. "On their own, the Burmese effected
> the capture of Khun Sa," he said. "They made a major dent in the drug
> trade, and we gave them no credit. The human rights people say they
> cut a sweetheart deal, but I don't believe that. In the US, we call it
> a plea bargain. And in this case, justice was served, because Khun Sa
> is out of the drug business. And that means 12,000 armed men [soldiers
> in Khun Sa's army] are no longer in the drug business." 
> 
Check today's Thai papers.  Khun Sa's men are not only still in the drug
business, they have made a massive move into amphetimine production.  No
real expert contends that the deal with Khun Sa has made any dent in
Burma's drug exports.  


> Moreover, said Broman, it's unlikely that Khun Sa is as rich as many
> people assume. "It's a mistake to think of him as a megabucks guy,
> like the Columbian cocaine lords," he said. 
> 
> "With cocaine, you have cartels that control everything from the coca
> fields to the dealers in New York, so the profits are huge," he
> explained. "But unlike cocaine, heroin changes hands many times before
> it gets to the buyer. Khun Sa would buy the opium from producers, then
> process it and sell it to a politician or a general in Thailand, who
> would sell it to someone else in Hong Kong or Vancouver. The big
> profit is all outside Asia." 

"Big" is a relative term.  Don't forget that the US Embassy Rangoon
estimates that income from opiates equals income from all legitimate
sources in the Burmese economy.  This estimate is derived by taking the
production figures from the satellite surveys, subtracting the amount of
local consumption and wastage, and multiplying by the "farmgate" price of
opium at Burma's borders.  Simple.

> 
> Myanmar government officials also discount the idea of drug lords as
> the new economic kingpins. When asked how much money Khun Sa was
> pumping into the economy, one officer from the Defense Ministry just
> laughed. "They cost us money!" he said. "We have to support all those
> former Mong Tai army soldiers. After Khun Sa surrendered, they were on
> their own - we gave them money and resettled them. We don't want to
> fight them anymore, so we have to find something else for them to do."

Yes, and the SLORC is also moving toward democracy, never arrests anyone
from the NLD, is sincerely working with the ethnic minorities, and myriad
other lies.  What a joke.

> 
> 
> What the Western critics fail to understand, a number of diplomats and
> drug officials say in Yangon, is that the opium-producing areas are
> controlled not by SLORC, but by armed ethnic insurgent groups along
> the border like the Wa, the Kokan and the Shan. 
> 
> SLORC is primarily interested in exerting political control over these
> areas, so has had to come to political settlements with the insurgent
> groups who have traditionally funded themselves with drug profits.
> "These guys were shooting Burmese for a living," said Broman. "The
> drug profits buy bullets that kill Burmese soldiers. So it's in the
> Burmese interest to control drugs." 

Bah.  It is indeed in the Burmese interest to make political sttlements
with drug dealers, then call them leaders of national races.  But when
these deals have consequences such as a rising tide of drug exports, the
SLORC has to accept that the rest of the world finds this unacceptable.

> 
> But to get rid of the existing opium economy and replace it with
> something new, time is needed. "The US wants an instant solution to
> the problem, but that's not realistic," said one drug expert in
> Yangon. 

Another un-named source.  Businessman Broman is the only "expert" quoted
by name!

> 
> Is Myanmar's anti-narcotic campaign real, or just an exercise in
> public relations? Broman and others have said it's real, and is now
> getting encouragement from an unexpected source. 
> 
> "The Chinese are putting pressure on Burma," he said. "China has a
> growing addiction problem, and they've told the Burmese they want them
> to get a handle on it. China and the US both have the same message,"
> he added, "but the Chinese are doing a lot more in terms of helping."
> 
> 
Like what?  We'd all like to know.  The fact is the drug trade remains
unconstrained, while all over the country the SLORC rampages, destroys
villages, rice barns and livestock.  How strange that the drug business is
the one aspect the SLORC claims not to be able to affect.