Rangoon gets tough on heroin trade

[anaing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Rangoon gets tough on heroin trade
  By PETER ALFORD in Bangkok
The Australian

  24 February 1999

  BURMA'S heroin exports remain Asia's most critical drug problem, but
  the military regime has intensified its efforts to curb the trade in the
  past year, a report by the International Narcotics Control Board says.

  In its annual report released last night in Geneva, the UN agency, which
  monitors the illicit and legal drug trades, offers qualified support to
the
  claim by Burma's State Peace and Development Council that it is
  vigorously combating its massive heroin and amphetamines problem.

  The report's release coincided with yesterday's opening of the Interpol
  heroin conference in Rangoon, which has been boycotted by every
  developed nation except Australia, Japan, Switzerland and New
  Zealand.

  Only 28 of the INCB's 176 member nations are represented at the
  four-day conference.

  The US, which supported a boycott started by Britain and other
  European States strongly opposed to the SPDC's repression of political
  and civil rights, has described Burma's attempts to suppress drug
  production and export as "improving but far from what is necessary".

  The US State Department warned that the Rangoon conference could
  "create the false impression (of) international approval by Interpol and
  participating countries of its narcotics performance".

  The INCB report gives no figures on Burma's drug production, although
  the latest information published by the Central Intelligence Agency
  claims the country produced 2365 tonnes of illicit opium in 1997 - 64
  per cent of the world total - yielding almost 200 tonnes of heroin.

  In recent years, Burma also has emerged as a huge producer of
  methamphetamines and other amphetamine-style drugs, exporting much
  of the output to other countries in the region.

  The INCB, which sent a special mission to Burma last year, says the
  country remains the source of much of the world's illicit opiates supply
  "although strengthened law enforcement efforts by the Government of
  Myanmar appear to have led to more opiates being seized and opium
  poppy cultivation being eradicated in more areas".


  The board says there is "clear political commitment" by the regime's
  Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control to eradicating the drugs
  traffic and providing alternative livelihoods for poppy farmers, who are
  overwhelmingly based in the Shan States of north-east Burma.

  But it stops short of saying the commitment extends to other arms of
  government. The board "encourages all government ministries to
  co-operate fully with the committee".

  The board also notes that since 1988 - when the military crushed a
  democracy uprising - the country has received minimal assistance from
  the rest of the world to supplement the limited scope of its
  drug-control programs.

  The INCB warns that China has joined Burma as Asia's major production
  centre for methamphetamine.

  The board also warns the East Asian economic crisis has resulted in
  several countries significantly cutting their drug control budgets,
  although the effect on trafficking and consumption cannot yet be
  gauged.