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U.S Seeking to find ways to curb dr
- Subject: U.S Seeking to find ways to curb dr
- From: tun@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 13 Feb 1995 16:01:00
Subject: U.S Seeking to find ways to curb drug from Burma
Mail*Link(r) SMTP U.S. SEEKING TO FIND WAYS TO STOP HEROIN
SHIPMENTS...
95/02/11 12:56:33
U.S. SEEKING TO FIND WAYS TO STOP HEROIN SHIPMENTS FROM MYANMAR
(th)
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
c.1995 N.Y. Times News Service
WASHINGTON Myanmar has become the largest supplier of heroin
sold in the United States, Clinton administration officials have
concluded, and diplomats and drug officials are struggling over how
to respond to the sharply increased flow.
Administration narcotics experts say heroin production in
Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, has doubled since 1988 and now
accounts for up to 70 percent of the American supply.
Those experts are urging President Clinton to step up anti-drug
cooperation with Myanmar's military junta. But human rights
officials argue against cooperating with a government judged to be
a serious abuser of human rights.
In its latest human rights report, the State Department said
Myanmar has ``a highly authoritarian regime'' that has killed and
jailed its political opponents, squelched free speech and
demonstrations and pressed thousands of people into forced labor to
assist the military.
Worried that heroin use is growing on urban streets, however,
Lee P. Brown, director of the White House Office on Drug Control
Policy, is leading a push for expanded cooperation with Myanmar's
military to help eradicate poppy fields and arrest drug traffickers
there.
``As the world's major producer of heroin, Burma is a very
major, major, major problem,'' Brown said in an interview.
The Drug Enforcement Administration's estimate that more than 60
percent of the heroin sold in the United States comes from
processing plants in Myanmar is up from 15 percent a decade ago.
The administration also estimates that each year Myanmar
harvests more than 2,400 tons of opium, from which heroin is
derived, making it by far the world's largest grower.
The surge in Myanmar's narcotics output has largely offset sharp
drops in production in Thailand and Mexico. Some drug officials
acknowledge that one reason Myanmar's heroin output has soared is
that Washington cut off almost all anti-narcotics cooperation,
including joint poppy eradication efforts, after the military coup
in 1988.
``There's been a fairly dramatic increase in heroin since the
military came to power,'' said Robert S. Gelbard, assistant
secretary of State for international narcotics matters. ``There is
a lot of concern about narcotics-related corruption, particularly
in the mid-levels of the Burmese Army.''
But human rights officials in the State Department argue that
stepped-up cooperation with Myanmar would undercut the
administration's human rights policy and lend legitimacy to a junta
that has killed hundreds of supporters of the democratic opposition
since it seized power.
In particular, the debate in the administration pits concerns
about heroin addiction in America against anxiety about the future
of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition leader and Nobel peace
laureate who has been under house arrest in Myanmar since 1988. Her
party won a landslide victory in elections in 1990, but the
military annulled the result.
White House officials say they hope to complete a review of
Myanmar policy over the next few weeks. ``It's a real tug of war,''
a senior drug official said.
(STORY CAN END HERE. OPTIONAL MATERIAL FOLLOWS)
Government officials said the leading opponents of expanded
cooperation are Sandy Berger, the deputy national security adviser,
and John H.F. Shattuck, assistant secretary of State for human
rights.
A State Department official who insisted on anonymity said, ``We
really don't think we can cooperate on much of anything with a
regime that's as repressive as this one.''
Backing Brown's call for increased cooperation are Thomas A.
Constantine, director of the Drug Enforcement Administration;
Timothy E. Wirth, the undersecretary of State for global affairs;
and Assistant Secretary of State Gelbard, administration officials
say.
``I'm very concerned about human rights violations in Burma,''
Brown said. ``But I'm equally concerned about human rights in
America and the poison being exported from Burma that ends up on
the streets of our cities.'' He estimates that there are now
600,000 heroin addicts in the United States.
Brown said so much Burmese heroin is flooding in, often
transported by ethnic Chinese and Nigerians, that the street price
has fallen while purity has increased. As a result, he said, there
has been a surge in overdoses, especially in the Northeast, where
heroin use is concentrated.
The stepped-up cooperation under consideration would include
sharing intelligence with Myanmar officials, training the country's
police and providing equipment to them like police radios,
drug-detection kits and trucks.
Much of Myanmar's opium cultivation and heroin processing takes
place in areas controlled not by the military but by dissident
minorities and rebel armies. The best-known drug lord, Khun Sa,
controls a powerful army as well as poppy fields and processing
plants in eastern Myanmar, near the Laotian border.
Burmese military officials have told Washington that they can do
little to suppress heroin production because so much is taking
place in areas controlled by rebellious ethnic minorities.
The military has asked the Clinton administration for guns and
helicopters to help subdue those areas, but administration
officials insist that any increased cooperation will not include
weapons.