Reuters-Asian heroin heads for Aust

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Subject: Reuters-Asian heroin heads for Australia, Canada -Interpol

Asian heroin heads for Australia, Canada -Interpol
05:30 a.m. Feb 24, 1999 Eastern
By Rajan Moses

YANGON, Feb 24 (Reuters) - More heroin produced in Myanmar and elsewhere in
Southeast Asia is heading for Australia, the South Pacific and Canada than
to the United States, a senior Interpol official said on Wednesday.

``Southeast Asian heroin...used to make up a major percentage of the heroin
reaching the United States. (This) has diminished significantly and been
replaced by heroin coming out of South America and Mexico,'' said Paul
Higdon, director of Interpol's Criminal Intelligence Directorate.

``The majority...coming out of here is going to the South Pacific, Australia
and some to Canada,'' he told reporters on the sidelines of a controversial
international conference on heroin organised by Interpol.

Asian drug enforcement officials were focusing on these newer trafficking
routes, he said, without giving data on quantities moved.

``That's certainly putting Australia on guard. They have to know who the
enemy is and coming to a conference like this helps,'' Higdon said.

Some conference delegates estimate that less than 10 percent of the heroin
produced in laboratories in Myanmar and the poppy growing Golden Triangle,
which straddles the borders of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos, now makes it to
the United States.

In the past, drug officials had said up to 70 percent of Golden Triangle
heroin found its way to the U.S. market.

The United States and most European countries declined to attend the
Interpol conference because it is being held in military-ruled Myanmar, a
major world heroin producer.

But 65 delegates from 28 countries, including Australia, Japan, New Zealand,
Switzerland, countries of the Association of South East Asian Nations,
Austria and U.N. agencies, are attending the closed-door meeting.

Some delegates said the U.S. and European countries had been missed because
they were the biggest heroin consumers.

``The conference lacks a little solidarity when you don't have everyone
here,'' said Higdon. ``We talk about international problems and when the

whole international community joins together to address it we feel that more
is accomplished.''

Vital information and data that could be shared by the Americans and
Europeans had been sorely missed.

``They are the biggest consumer markets and we could have gained from their
expertise and data,'' said one delegate.

The United States and the Europeans said they feared Myanmar would use the
meeting to give a false impression of its drug suppression efforts.
Absentees also linked their refusal to attend to Myanmar's poor human rights
record.

Yangon's military rulers curb the activities of a vibrant opposition led by
Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and hold many political prisoners.

Higdon commended Myanmar's drug suppression efforts, despite international
criticism of its handling of the problem. ``There has been a great deal of
seizing of essential chemicals and increased activities in (heroin)
laboratories destructions.''

Opponents of Myanmar's generals have accused them of links to the drug trade
and pointed to the government's protection of well-known heroin traffickers
like Khun Sa and Lo Hsing-han. Khun Sa is believed to live in Yangon under
government protection and Lo to be involved in business in Myanmar.

Myanmar says keeping Khun Sa out of the drug business has helped curb the
flow opium and heroin flow from Shan State in the northeast of the country.

Higdon said the meeting had discussed Khun Sa.

``They (Myanmar) had to do something with insurgency...and sometimes you
have to make a pact with the devils. That's the way things are
accomplished.''