News from India Newspaper (r)

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"Burma largest opium producer: US"

"The Asian Age" Newspaper (India)
Date February 28, 1999.

Bangkok, Feb. 27: Despite significant reductions in opium cultivation in
1990, Burma continues to be the world's largest producer of the
narcotic, according to the US state department's annual narcotics
strategy report released on Saturday.
 Burma's neighbour Thailand, however, is a model of a nation committed
to fights drugs, although it is battling both amphetamine and heroin
problems, the report said.
 "Thailand's opium poppy crop accounts for less than one percent of the
regional production of opiates. Opium from Burma is necessary to satisfy
Thai international demand," the report said.
 Burma, "has been and continued to be the world's largest producer of
illicit opium," the report said. Opium is the raw material for heroin.
 This week, the United States and several European nations boycotted a
conference on heroin production and trafficking sponsored by Interpol,
the France based coordinating organization of international law
enforcement agencies, because its was held in Burma's capital, Rangoon.
 The countries said they refused to attend because they did not want to
lend legitimacy to a military government that tramples on human rights,
has refused to hand over power to a democratically-elected Parliament
and is not serious about fighting drugs.
 In an editorial on Saturday, the Bangkok Post criticised Interpol's
decision to hold the conference in Rangoon, saying it will "haunt the
organization for a long time to come," and called Burma's anti-drug
efforts "cosmetic".
 Burmese officials have countered by listing increased seizures of
narcotics and complaining that they receive little assistance from the
US or other countries to fight drugs.
 The United States cut off most aid to Burma after the military
violently suppressed a democratic uprising in 1988.
 The US report noted that cultivation of opium had declined in Burma for
the second year in a row, but it criticized the military for canceling
an US-funded crop substitution programme.
 Nonetheless, opium cultivation in 1998 fell 16 percent, according to
the report, to an estimated 1,750 tones, that would yield 175 tones of
heroin. The report said Burma "made little if any effort against money
laundering during the year". The United States has accused Burma of
granting amnesties to drug barons and allowing them to invest their drug
profits in the economy.
 While acknowledging that the government had arrested some traffickers,
the report said "it has been unwilling or unable take on the most
powerful groups directly". (AFP)