[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index
][Thread Index
]
More News Related to Burma (r)
Asia Week
Week of June 20, 1997
Why School Is Out in Myanmar
The school year begins in June in Myanmar. But not this year. The
Education Ministry postponed the nationwide opening of grammar and high
schools until an unspecified date. There is no official explanation for
the move, but the understanding in Yangon is that the State Law and
Order Restoration Council (SLORC) wants to avoid any incidents that
could complicate the country's July induction into the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations. And it is the possibility of demonstrations -
one of SLORC's greatest fears - which many Yangon residents feel is the
reason for the shutdown. Parents in the capital have resigned themselves
to not having schools open before August.
There are recent historical grounds for SLORC's concern. High-school and
grammar school students were among those who filled the streets in 1988
to protest against former dictator Ne Win's government, which SLORC
replaced after a bloody crackdown. But the younger children are unlikely
to start anything on their own. In the past, they have taken their
activist cues from their older brothers and sisters. And undergraduates
have not been in school since the government shut down colleges and
universities last December, after dispersing a big student protest near
Yangon's main campus. Then, the target of student discontent was not
ASEAN, but the alleged mistreatment of some carousing colleagues at the
hands of the police. But the militancy was enough to set off alarm
bells. And with the appearance of pro- and anti- ASEAN elements within
the government (some of the generals prefer closer ties with China), the
authorities are taking no chances.
(From Letters and Comments Section)
I AM STUPEFIED AT your selections for the "Power 50." It's beyond
reasonable comprehension to have Dr. Mahathir -- a proverbial "big fish
in a small pond" -- in your second slot, and to leave out Aung San Suu
Kyi, whose ongoing efforts have changed U.S. policies toward Myanmar.
Rev. Bill Pantin
Kuala Lumpur
The Straits Times (Singapore)
DRUG SEIZURE: Myanmar authorities earlier this month seized 10,000
amphetamine tablets and arrested three men in a raid in Tarchilek, a
border town with Thailand, the official Myanmar radio reported.
The report said police had acted on a tip-off. Myanmar, one of the major
sources of the world's opium and heroin, is now producing amphetamines.
-- AFP.
Burma's Drug Commitment Questioned
By ROBERT HORN
Associated Press Writer
Monday, June 16, 1997 1:45 am EDT
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- Burma's military regime says 700 of its
soldiers have been killed and 2,200 wounded battling opium warlords in
Burmese jungles since 1988.
But during that same period, Burma's production of opium -- the raw
material for heroin -- has increased from less than 1,000 tons to 2,560
tons a year, making it the world's largest opium producer.
So is Burma really fighting drugs?
Several Western governments are skeptical about the Rangoon regime's
attempts to eliminate opium growing and say they fear drug money is
becoming a serious component in Burma's economy.
Col. Kyaw Thein, a key figure in Burma's anti-drug activities, rejects
the questions, calling them politically motivated. He says it is his
government's obligation to fight narcotics.
``But this is a complicated matter. We need more time,'' he adds.
Rangoon's most vocal critic has been the United States, which in April
slapped Burma with economic sanctions for the military's increased
repression of the democracy movement.
The U.S. State Department accuses the military regime of lacking the
``resources, the ability or the will to take serious action against
ethnic drug trafficking groups.''
It also says the military is allowing some major traffickers to attend
the country's constitutional convention as representatives of ethnic
minorities.
A recent State Department report said 15 percent of foreign investment
in Burma goes through a company owned by relatives of Lo Hsing-han, a
major drug trafficker.
Nonetheless, the State Department says there is no evidence high-ranking
Burmese officials are involved in the drug business.
And some paint a more positive picture of the regime's efforts, noting
the opium is grown in remote regions where various groups have fought
Rangoon's control for decades.
``The Burmese are serious about fighting the drug trade,'' says Gerald
Moore, former director of the United Nations Drug Control Program in
Rangoon. ``A lot of what you read about Burmese involvement in drug
trafficking just isn't justified.''
India's Northeast Flooded By Heroin
By KRISHNAN GURUSWAMY
Associated Press Writer
Monday, June 16, 1997 1:36 am EDT
IMPHAL, India (AP) -- Worried that heroin from neighboring Burma was
ruining the youth of India's remote northeast, separatist guerrillas
began enforcing their own anti-drug policy: If you use narcotics, expect
a bullet in the head.
Ronen, an 18-year-old addict who wouldn't give his last name, vividly
remembers when he got his first warning. It was a moonless night last
August. A militant knocked on his door and told him to stop using
heroin.
Shaken, Ronen tried to switch to alcohol, but he gave up quickly and
went back to mainlining heroin. For weeks, he stayed shut up at home,
except for occasional nighttime meetings with a street dealer.
Then on Christmas, he partied with friends all night. Two days later,
three men with automatic rifles dragged him from his house.
``They told me, `This is your last warning.' Then suddenly, one man shot
me in the thigh,'' Ronen says.
He lay in bed a month while the wound healed. Without drugs, his body
shook violently, his head hurt. He was desperate for heroin. But he was
also scared of the rebels. His parents took him to the Kripa
De-addiction Center, one of two dozen such centers in Imphal, capital of
Manipur state.
In the last five years, half of those who underwent the five-month
residential program have given up drugs, Hijam Dinesh, an official at
Kripa, said. The rest either died, disappeared or relapsed into drug
abuse.
Police say they don't know how many addicts have been shot by the
region's powerful rebel movements.
Yet, the guerrillas' threats have not reduced addiction drastically.
Manipur, with 2 million people, has 50,000 addicts, said R.C.
Bhattacharji, narcotics commissioner at the Central Bureau of Narcotics.
The dense forests and rugged hills of Manipur are popular routes for
drug runners from the ``Golden Triangle'' -- the area at the
intersection of Burma, Laos and Thailand -- that grows 60 percent of the
world's opium poppies, the raw material for heroin and morphine. Most of
the drugs are destined for the United States and Europe.
Police admit they are incapable of stopping the trade, claiming they are
hindered by government apathy, inadequate staff, poor pay and lack of
money for informers. The Narcotics and Border Affairs Police has just 12
officers for Manipur. In one year, they seized only 2.2 pounds of
heroin.
``We have five guns and one jeep. And we have to cover the entire
state,'' said Officer A.S. Ramlung. ``What can I do?''
Heroin Traffickers Still Thriving
By GRANT PECK
Associated Press Writer
Monday, June 16, 1997 1:36 am EDT
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- When Li Yun-chung, accused of arranging the
biggest shipment of heroin ever seized in the United States, jumped bail
in Thailand, he made a beeline for neighboring Burma.
He fled to the ``Golden Triangle,'' the rugged area where the borders of
Burma, Laos and Thailand meet that provides about 60 percent of the
world's supply of heroin and opium. Not so long ago, that would have
been the end of the story.
But in May, three months after Li fled, Burmese authorities handed him
back to Thailand. And on June 5, he was flown to New York to stand trial
for allegedly masterminding huge shipments of heroin into the United
States, including one batch of 1,069 pounds estimated to be worth more
than $1 billion. That was the biggest load ever intercepted by U.S.
authorities.
Li is one of 15 ``big fish'' from the Golden Triangle who have been put
out of action in the past three years by operations organized by the
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and its Asian counterparts.
They have had striking but little-noticed success in arresting -- for
the first time -- the kingpins of the heroin trade and bringing them to
justice, sometimes in American courts.
Even China, which has very limited cooperation with U.S. anti-drug
efforts but a rapidly growing drug problem of its own, quietly deported
a Burmese national to U.S. custody in late April.
Still, the potential rewards of the heroin business continue to outweigh
the risks. When Burmese warlord Khun Sa, reputedly the Golden Triangle's
biggest heroin trafficker, surrendered himself to Burmese authorities
early last year, rivals moved in to take over his market share.
Worldwide production of opium last year was estimated by U.S. officials
at nearly 4,300 metric tons -- probably a record amount and enough to
make 430 tons of heroin. Burma was the biggest opium producer, turning
out an estimated 2,560 tons.
The value of opium and heroin exports from Burma may be almost equal to
that of all its legal exports -- about $1 billion in 1995 -- a report
from the U.S. Embassy in Rangoon said last year.
In Thailand, primarily a transit point for drug shipments, two separate
studies by local scholars estimated domestic turnover in heroin and
opium to be about $1 billion annually.
Small wonder that heroin has attracted entrepreneurs in Burma, China,
Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, all of which have moved from centrally
planned economies to relatively free markets in the past decade.
Improvements in communications and transportation for expanded trade
have made it easier for drug traffickers to operate, the annual report
of the U.N.'s International Narcotics Control Board said.
Burma poses the biggest problem for the drug fighters, according to the
U.S. General Accounting Office, which audits the activities of federal
agencies for Congress.
The GAO praised anti-drug efforts in Thailand, where as many as 31
people charged in U.S. courts with drug trafficking have been arrested
in the past three years, with seven extradited to the United States so
far.
Even a former Thai member of parliament, who previously would have been
untouchable, was extradited in January 1996. Thanong Siriprechapong,
accused of smuggling 50 tons of marijuana to the United States, became
the first Thai national to face such action.
Important cooperation has come from authorities in Hong Kong, another
key transit point for the heroin trade. Since 1991, Hong Kong has sent
at least 64 fugitives to the United States, most of them wanted for
drug-related offenses.
One of them, a former major general in the Thai army, became the first
high-ranking military officer from Southeast Asia to be successfully
prosecuted in the United States on drug charges.
Thanad Paktipatt, 58, was convicted of conspiring to ship 107 pounds of
heroin from Thailand to the United States. He was sentenced in May in
Eugene, Ore., to more than 30 years in prison.
The heroin trail begins in northern and northeastern Burma, where ethnic
minorities like the Wa, Kokang Chinese and Shan cultivate hillside
fields of opium poppies.
At harvest time, they painstakingly scrape off by hand the sap oozing
from cuts they make in the flower bulbs. The sap is boiled into a gum,
and what isn't smoked locally is sold for processing. In closely guarded
jungle laboratories, chemists turn the opium into morphine and then
heroin.
The drug is then sent on its way to the addicts of the world, including
an estimated 600,000 in the United States.
Many more heroin and opium addicts are to be found in the region itself,
enough to make governments that might otherwise turn a blind eye to
trafficking take notice.
``Even China, which once had all but eliminated heroin addiction, is
experiencing a serious rise in teen-age addiction,'' a top DEA official,
James Milford, told the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee in
April.
Ethnic Chinese gangs usually deal with big drug shipments, ranging from
fifty to several hundred pounds, hidden in maritime shipping containers
and air freight cargo.
West African gangs, which have carved out a market niche in recent
years, are known more for using ``mules'' -- individual air travelers --
to smuggle heroin in smaller quantities, concealed in their luggage,
strapped to their bodies, or packed in condoms and swallowed.
The DEA's ``Operation Global Seas,'' which ended last October, rolled up
a Bangkok-based, Nigerian-led network that transported heroin from
Thailand and Cambodia to Chicago and Boston.
The breaking of Khun Sa's operations has disrupted heroin trafficking in
Thailand, reducing the amount of Asian heroin transiting the country
from 80 percent of the world market to 50 percent. New routes emerged
through the southern provinces of China to Taiwan and Hong Kong or
through Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.
The GAO cited the traffickers' ability to shift transportation routes to
countries with inadequate law enforcement capabilities as one of several
problems facing the anti-drug campaign in Asia.
"THERE WILL BE NO REAL DEMOCRACY IF WE CAN'T GURANTEE THE RIGHTS OF THE
MINORITY ETHNIC PEOPLE. ONLY UNDERSTANDING THEIR SUFFERING AND HELPING
THEM TO EXERCISE THEIR RIGHTS WILL ASSIST PREVENTING FROM THE
DISINTEGRATION AND THE SESESSION." "WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING THEIR
STRENGTH, WE CAN'T TOPPLE THE SLORC AND BURMA WILL NEVER BE IN PEACE."
---------------------------------------------------------
Get Your *Web-Based* Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
---------------------------------------------------------