NEWS - Foreign Nations Question Sup (r)

[talbrecht@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Subject: RE: NEWS - Foreign Nations Question Support for Myanmar's Opium B attle

       According a Washington Post story in mid-February in a "dramatic
shift' Colombia seems to have replaced Burma as the major heroin
supplier to the US. Colombia was the source of 75% of the heroin seized
recently in the US and  a combination of low price and high quality has
increased the number of heroin users from 600,000 to 810,000 in the past
three years . US-supplied airplanes and helicopters are now spraying
poppy fields .in Colombia and the US gives Colombia $289million annually
in anti-drug aid. 
     Comment: With the US focussing on Colombia( and failing to attend
the Interpol meetin in Rangoon) it makes sense for Thailand and Burma to
take matters into their own hands and  sign a cooperation agreement on
narcotics suppression. The inability to compete effectively with
Colombia  in  the USmarket may account for the rise in amphetamine
production in the Golden Triangle with nearby Thailand as the best
market. As in Colombia the problem for Thailand and Burma will be how to
finance programs to help local farmers to grow alternative crops.
Hopefully the UN can help. 

---Original Message-----
> From:	Rangoon Post Co-Editor [SMTP:Rangoonp@xxxxxxx]
> Sent:	Friday, March 05, 1999 12:45 PM
> To:	burmanet-l@xxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject:	NEWS - Foreign Nations Question Support for Myanmar's
> Opium Battle
> 
> NOTE: Though the drug-trade was mainly put to use to raise money by
> the  democratice Kuomintang when they ran from the communist chinese
> that were supported by the Russians that had invaded to fight the
> Japanese and steal machinery, much of this then was started when the
> military regime took power via a coup more than 30 years ago.  
> 
> 
> Foreign Nations Question Support for Myanmar's Opium Battle
> 
>                AP
>                05-MAR-99
> 
>                LAUKAI, Myanmar (AP) -- With his weathered face,
> leather
> jacket and pistol
>                in his waistband, Pheung Kya-shin looked every bit the
> tough guerrilla fighter
>                he once was. But in front of a small audience of
> narcotics experts and
>                journalists, he presented himself as a reformed
> supplicant. 
> 
>                We are purging our area of opium, said the 68-year-old
> leader of the
>                Kokang Chinese community. Help my people make an honest
> living. Give us

>                some aid so we can survive. 
> 
>                His plea was a small shot in a battle being fought in
> the
> international
>                diplomatic arena: Should other nations fund Myanmar's
> new
> drug-fighting
>                program or refuse to trust a government widely
> criticized
> in the West? 
> 
>                The Kokang region is located in a part of northeastern
> Myanmar that is the
>                heartland of opium production. 
> 
>                U.S. officials say Myanmar is the world's biggest
> opium-producing nation,
>                and that most of the heroin sold on America's streets
> comes from opium
>                grown on its rolling hillsides. 
> 
>                But the government has launched an ambitious plan to
> end
> opium
>                production nationwide by the year 2014, and it has
> urged
> other nations to
>                provide the funding it needs to persuade farmers to
> switch to legal crops. 
> 
>                As he spoke in a small, open-air pavilion on a dusty
> hilltop in northern Shan
>                State, Pheung was guarded by members of his ragtag
> local
> militia, the
>                Myanmar National Defense Alliance Army. 
> 
>                They mixed with the government military officers who
> accompanied the
> 
>                foreign drug experts and foreign journalists on the
> helicopter journey to
>                remote Laukai, as Pheung declared that Kokang Special
> Region No. 1 would
>                soon be an "opium-free zone." 
> 
>                "The people accept it. It is already decided. There
> will
> be no poppy next
>                year. This is a must," he said. 
> 
>                The U.S. government complains that Myanmar's war on
> drugs
> falls short
>                because the ruling junta, seeking stability in the
> hinterlands, is too willing to
>                appease ethnic groups making a large part of their
> living
> from the narcotics
>                trade. 
> 
>                Washington admits opium production has dropped in
> Myanmar. But it claims
>                there is an "implicit tolerance" of the drug trade, and
> that the junta is eager
>                to keep former drug lords out of jail to invest their
> ill-gotten gains in the ailing
>                economy. 
> 
>                Last week, Myanmar -- also known as Burma -- and
> Afghanistan, the world's
>                second-biggest opium producer, were decertified by
> President Clinton for
>                failing to take substantial action to curtail narcotics
> trafficking. The finding
>                makes them ineligible to receive any nonhumanitarian
> U.S.
> aid. 
> 
>                Western governments also refuse to give any aid to
> Myanmar because of
>                the junta's poor human rights record and its refusal to
> hand over power to a
>                democratically elected government. 
> 
>                But some drug experts believe Myanmar's military
> government is doing the
>                best it can under difficult circumstances and with
> limited resources. They say

>                politics should play no part in the international fight
> against narcotics. 
> 
>                "They really have a chance to succeed," said Ian Bain,
> head of Interpol's
>                Drugs Sub-Directorate. "This is a program that is well
> thought out ... that has
>                a strategic aim to it." 
> 
>                Opium, and the heroin derived from it, are produced
> mainly in areas under
>                control of ethnic minorities who have been seeking
> autonomy from the
>                central government for decades, often by force. 
> 
>                The ethnic rebellions were financed in large part by
> the
> drug trade. As the
>                government has reached peace agreements with the rebels
> over the past 10
>                years, weaning farmers from the lucrative opium farming
> has been a
>                dilemma. 
> 
>                At first, the central government turned a blind eye as
> it
> consolidated its
>                control, and opium production skyrocketed. 
> 
>                Pheung's Kokang Chinese guerrillas were the first of 17
> ethnic rebel groups
>                to reach an agreement with the government. The
> agreement
> allowed
>                Pheung's guerillas to keep their armed security forces,
> and it gave them the
>                right to self-administration. 
> 
>                Pheung was a major and controversial player in the
> country's fractious ethnic
> 
>                battling. 
> 
>                He was allied with the hard-core Burmese Communist
> Party,
> then led a
>                successful coup against its leadership. He also became
> seriously involved in
>                the drug trade, helping set up the first heroin
> refinery
> in Kokang territory in
>                the mid-1970's, according to Bertil Lintner, an expert
> on
> Burmese politics. 
> 
>                Pheung's group continued drug trafficking at least into
> the early 1990s,
>                Lintner has written. 
> 
>                The latest International Narcotics Control Strategy
> Report by the U.S. State
>                Department, released last week, says he is suspected of
> continued
>                involvement with the drug trade. 
> 
>                Pheung, however, has long maintained that he is a
> staunch
> ally of the
>                government in its fight against drugs. 
> 
>                "We have been trying to end the growing of opium
> poppies
> for 10 years," he
>                said in his speech. "We encounter so many difficulties.
> Some we can
>                overcome, some we cannot." 
> 
>                Long-term solutions are complicated. 
> 
>                The 15-year plan to end opium cultivation hinges on the
> development of
>                substitute crops of comparable value. 
> 
>                Because the government has limited resources, many
> farmers have been
>                disappointed says Col. Kyaw Thein, the respected
> commander of the
>                government's anti-drug effort. 
> 

>                Japan is funding a project to grow buckwheat, but
> production of high-value
>                export crops is hindered by the area's remote location
> and relative lack of
>                infrastructure. 
> 
>                The most accessible market for commodities from the
> Kokang region is just
>                across the border, in China. But competing with Chinese
> farmers hardly
>                promises high returns, and local farmers have reported
> difficulties trying to
>                sell sugar cane there. 
> 
>                "Even if they grow rice, it will only last for six
> months," says Col. Hla Min, one
>                of the government guides on the tour of Pheung's area.
> "We have to find
>                another way."