regional briefing :BURMA [feer]

[moe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

4th Feb 1999 [FEER]
Row Over Rangoon 

Controversy over Burma scrapped a meeting of the Asean-Europe joint
cooperation committee
that had been scheduled for January 24-25 in Bangkok. Now it's threatening
another
international forum. Burmese dissidents in exile and human-rights groups are
protesting against a
plan by Interpol to hold an international heroin conference in Rangoon "in
close cooperation with
the Government of the Union of Myanmar," to quote an official letter sent
out by the international
police organization. The U.S. and British governments, among others, have
repeatedly accused
Rangoon of colluding with heroin traffickers and encouraging them to
reinvest their profits in
Burma's economy. The protesters have compared the convening of a heroin
conference in the
Burmese capital with "holding a human-rights summit in Teheran or Baghdad."