Interpol Conference in Burma

[HMarciniec@xxxxxxxxxxx]

	LE MONDE DU RENSEIGNEMENT 
	January 28, 1999 - N. 351 

	Why and how could the General Secretariat of Interpol plan to
organize its 4th international conference on heroin in Rangoon, from
February 23rd to the 26th, when Burma is the world's first producer and
exporter of heroin and when the Burmese government has been banned by the
international community for its role in money laundering? This decision
alarmed the special services in charge of fighting drug trafficking,
including those in the United States. The decision, made in mid-November by
an ad hoc committee of Interpol, was even more surprising in light of the
previous meeting in October 1998 in Cairo, which only mentioned a
possibility of a "summit in Asia". The French members of the committee had
apparently campaigned for the conference to happen in Rangoon: France is the
first European investor in Burma. Moreover, some experts are wondering how
the members of the European Union could have ratified such a decision when
they were renewing, in October 1998, their sanctions against the Burmese
government (which forbid contacts between European and Burmese officials),
and while Great Britain was announcing that it would not accept a Burmese
delegation during the following EU-ASEAN Summit in Berlin, in December 1999.
The Burmese authorities, who have not yet officially announced the
conference, have already taken over two of the capital's large hotels for
Interpol members and organized the visit of a poppy field...The largest
producing areas of Burmese opium are under governmental control since 1995,
while the luxury hotel industry is considered as the main tool for
laundering drug money in Burma.