INTERPOL TRUSTS THE CAT TO KEEP THE

[dohrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Subject: INTERPOL TRUSTS THE CAT TO KEEP THE CREAM



INTERPOL TRUSTS THE CAT TO KEEP THE CREAM

taz (http://www.taz.de/), 23.02.1999, by Silke Blum

** The drug conference, which starts in Burma today, could be useful for
the drug lords there. German banks, which want to do business in
Rangoon, could also help the drug dealers unvoluntary. **

RANGOON/BERLIN (taz) - Pa Phit spits sobered on her scraping-knife,
then she pushes away with her thumb the clammy opium paste. Whenever she
is speaking in her mouth shines a ruby. This teeth decoration is an
acquisition from better times. The poppy capsules have only a few
sap in this season, she complains. It was just too dry. Despite of the
El-Nino-Effect in the Golden Triangle there is no lack of this
stuff. The size of the poppy growing areas in Burma has doubled since
the end of the 80s. From the crop of around 2500 tons of opium you can
get back 250 tons of heroin. So Burma remains, according to the
U.S. drug authorities, the largest heroin exporter of the world. Yet.

Pino Arlacci, head of the U.N. drug control programme, announced
recently a new chapter in the struggle against this drug. Arlacci's
office has taken over the supervision of a genetic laboratory in
Uzbekistan. While the Cold War Soviet secret agents developed
biological weapons there. They should annihilate the food of the
"enemies of the Soiet Union". Nowadays the Americans and Britons
finance a new researching project: The laboratory developed a mushroom
which attacks and annihilates the poppy plants (refer taz from
5.12.98). This genetic created mushroom has been tested in field
experiments; but the U.N. ordered its staff to be mute. They fear the
cry of environment protectors because the set off of genetic
manipulated parasites contains uncalcutable risks.

In this year the development of the artificial mushroom is planned to
get finished, then the spores could get sprayed on the poppy fields
with planes. The imagination of a fast end of the lucrative opium
deals may shiver the drug dealers and the military junta. According to
estimations of the U.N. Burma gains anually around 44 billion dollar
with its drug deals. Many generals got rich by blackmailed money. So

General Maung Aye, the current head of the army of the military
council, has been payed by the opium king Khun Sa, when he was
chief-commander of the government troops in the opium hills. A
confident paper of the Thai anti-drug authority tells that the - in the
70s death-sentenced - drug lord Lo Hsin-han got the privilege to smuggle
heroin to the Thai border from secret service head Khin Nyunt in
1993.

The anti-drug mushroom would be maybe mentioned at least at the edge
of the 4th International Heroin Conference which begins today in Burma's
capitol city Rangoon, if not the USA and Great Britain unlike other
western countries decided to boycott the meeting (refer taz from
13.2. and 19.2.1999). They fear a revaluation of the junta due to the
conference, which is proscribed because of heavy human rights
violations and implications in drug deals.

But Interpol insists on the conference despite the boycott of nearly
all western countries including Germany. But even then the German
government financed partly the conference with its annually Interpol
membership fee of 2.24 million DEM.

The espionage centre in the heart of Rangoon with its concrete- and
brick walls, loop-holes and barb-wired fences, looks more like a
mediaevil fort than a high-tech facility. But even satellite phones get
monitored and manipulated here. This centre is not intended for the
struggle against the drug mafia. Moreover, the world wide searched
opium king Khun Sa, after he made an agreement with the government,
found his first shelter here. More the total monitoring of the democracy
movement around Aung San Suu Kyi, which is done from here, causes
problems.

On the other side Burma's junta used a lot of money for the screening
of own information streams without beeing threated by foreign
powers. This investitions are a location-advantage for the drug
mafia because discretion is their main goal. Burma outrunned Thailand
in beeing the turn-table for money-washers. When Thailand announced to
liberate its banking system and so broke the monopols of the
sino-asian family clans, the bankers have been alarmed. The Burmese
business partners got convinced of the advantages of an economic
opening. The "Visit Myanmar Year" offered the oppurtunity of "washing"
the drug money by large-scale investing in tourism. Since them more
and more drug money gets sluiced in the Burmese economic
circulation. The financial markets are booming.

The Deutsche Bank, the Dresdner Bank, the Berliner Bank and also the
West/LB [the four biggest German banks, the translator] apply for an
permission for Burma. While German bank employees can get prison terms
even by reckless acceptance of drug money since 1992, German banks
have nothing to fear in Burma. Thereby, according to estimations of
the U.S. embassy in Rangoon, half of the circulating money in Burma is
coming out of illegal businesses. But money washing is legal in
Burma. Although money washing is the same important for drug dealers
like production and transport of their wares, the goal of the Geman
government is to improve the possibilities of the police in the [drug]
producing countries for the struggle against the drug smuggling:

"Material support for observations, delivering of communication and
transporting equipment [and] information technology" stood on the 1990
action schedule of the German government, whose international goals are
also adopted by the new government.

Liaision agents of the Bundeskriminalamt [German "FBI", the
translator] are already in contact with the Burmese leaders. The
possibility to get monitoring equipment for free must sound like music
in the ears of the Burmese security forces. On international ground
the Burmese junta complains often about lacking technical help from
foreign countries. Thereby the anti-drug force doesn't belong to the
police but to the Ministry of Home Affairs. Despite, the Burmese
police is very well equipped. The special unit "political examination"
is especially feared by the democratic opposition. Human rights groups
esteem that there are over 2000 dissidents in jail. There are tortures
in the prisons. Whereas it sounds strange that the general secretary of
Interpol claimed last year in Vienna, the international cooperation of
the police has to be done in the spirit of the general declarion of
human rights. Meanwhile more and more international wanted drug
dealers find openly shelter in Burma without disturbance of the
authorities, at least this month the amphetamine king Wei
Hsueh-kang. For his head the USA pays two million Dollars.

- -- 
+================== Burma Group Tuebingen ==================+
| Heiko & War War Min Schaefer    | (IRC: ThayMin)          |
| Jakobsgasse 2                   | Channel: #WarWar        |
| 72070 Tuebingen, Germany        | Tel: ++49 7071 55 25 54 |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| http://homepage.uni-tuebingen.de/student/heiko.schaefer/  |
+===========================================================+
            -- PGP-Key on request available! --

------- End of forwarded message -------