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UN, Junta cooperating in drugs war



UN, Junta cooperating in drugs war

Ten-year plan would erase poppy by 2008

Bangkok Post
April 16, 1998

Nusara Thaitawat

Burma and the United Nations' drug agency are drafting a drugs control
programme aimed at total eradication of opium poppy cultivation within a
decade.

The Burmese government has agreed to full representation by the UN Drug
Control Programme (UNDCP) in Rangoon for the first time since the 1980s.

Richard Dickins, who served as law enforcement adviser with the UNDCP
regional office in Bangkok, took up his post earlier this month.

In an interview with the Bangkok Post, Mr Dickins said the programme would
be comprehensive -- alternative crop development, health care, education --
and cover the whole country, not just Shan State where most of Burma's
opium is grown.

A rough draft is expected to be complete no later than mid-May for the
Burmese government to study, and a final draft within six months.

The programme could supplement Rangoon's "master plan for the development
of border areas and national races" launched in 1990.

That plan calls for integrated development combined with law enforcement,
with the aim to provide alternative source on income for ethnic minorities
in border areas.

There is no budget yet, but Mr Dickens in hopeful that donor countries,
which had been cautious about helping Burma because of the political
situation, would relax their funding when they see the programme is logical
and feasible.

Mr. Dickins, formerly with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, is upbeat
about the prospects for work with Rangoon.

Even though the United States' annual narcotics report, released in March,
said Burma remained the world's largest supplier of opium and heroin and
had done little about it, Mr Dickins insisted the political situation was
ripe for international cooperation.