Reuters-FOCUS-Myanmar to host contr

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Subject: Reuters-FOCUS-Myanmar to host controversial heroin meeting

FOCUS-Myanmar to host controversial heroin meeting
07:17 a.m. Feb 22, 1999 Eastern
By Rajan Moses

YANGON, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Myanmar aims to show it is serious about drug
suppression by hosting an international heroin conference organised by
Interpol starting on Tuesday, but critics have called the choice of venue a
bad joke.

The United States and most European Union nations have said they will not
attend the four-day meeting in Yangon, capital of a country that is one of
the world's leading sources of heroin.

Washington fears Myanmar's military rulers will use the event -- Interpol's
Fourth International Heroin Conference -- to give a false impression of its
drug suppression efforts.

Another critic, financier George Soros's Open Society Institute, likened the
choice of venue to holding conventions on women's rights in Afghanistan or
on terrorism in Libya.

Opponents of the Myanmar government have accused it of links to the drug
trade and pointed to the protection it has given to well-known heroin
traffickers like Khun Sa and Lo Hsing-han.

But more than 20 countries will attend the meeting, including Australia,
Austria, Brunei, China, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa,
Switzerland and Thailand.

Myanmar's Foreign Minister Win Aung last week accused boycotting countries
of neglecting their role in the battle against drugs and defended Myanmar's
record.

``We are doing this not for the public relations, we are doing it with the
collaboration of Interpol to fight against the menace of the drug trade,''
he told Reuters.

Australia called the conference an opportunity to put more pressure on
Yangon to combat drug production and smuggling.

Many overseas officials working to stem a flood of drugs from Myanmar's
refineries have expressed doubts about the government's commitment to wiping
out the narcotics industry.

An ex-lieutenant of Khun Sa said in a recent interview the conference would
do nothing to stem the flood of heroin from Myanmar as the government
protects the trade.

Colonel Yod Suk, head of the insurgent Shan State Army, said heroin output
had increased since the government signed peace agreements with drugs lords
like Khun Sa in 1996.


``After... Khun Sa surrendered, the Burmese army took control of that area
and now the number of refineries has increased.''

Khun Sa is thought to be living in Yangon under government protection. The
U.S. government believes he remains at least indirectly involved in the drug
trade through subordinates.

Shan State, the Myanmar side of the ``Golden Triangle'' opium growing area
formed with the borders of Laos and Thailand, is one of the world's main
sources of heroin.

U.S. estimates put Myanmar's 1997 crop at 2,365 tonnes, enough for nearly
200 tonnes of heroin.

Win Aung said Myanmar would destroy all poppy plantations by 2014: ``We have
the political will to do that, we have strong determination to do that. We
are achieving this gradually.''

The Yangon conference will include sessions covering heroin production and
trafficking in Southeast and Southwest Asia as well as other world
production areas and trafficking routes.

The United States has said the agenda should have concentrated on issues
more specific to Myanmar, including money laundering, corruption, smuggling
and crop destruction.

Myanmar said earlier this month that the United States and Britain, as two
of the largest markets for heroin in the world, had a special responsibility
to attend the conference.