[burmanet2-l] 4/8/99:ANU PAPER ATTA

[dawnstar@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Of course, the Honorable Professor Ball's report does not sit well with
the Honorable Foreign Minister Downer's report. Two very different
points of view. Will anyone step up and share their point of view why
the UNITED STATES continues to assert that the Burmese millitary junta
in power today does not have institutional links to the drug traffic?

ds


Dr U Ne Oo wrote:
> POSTED 11 AUG 99: 2:00PM
> 
> THE ANU REPORTER,
> Vol.30, No.11 Wednesday 4 Aug 1999.
> (The Campus Newsletter for Australian National University)
> 
> ANU PAPER ATTACKS GOVERNMENT STANCE ON BURMA'S REGIME
> 
> BY TANIA CUTTING
> 
> The federal government was attempting to gloss over the
> involvement of the Burmese leadership in the country's drug
> trade by using fine semantic distinctions, according to ANU
> defense strategist, Professor DEsmond Ball.
> 
> In a paper entitled Burma and Drugs: The REgime's Complicity in
> the Global Drug Trade just released, Prof Ball from the
> Strategic and Defense Studies Center refuges the federal
> government's claim that the military regime in Burma was not
> deliberately fostering drug trafficking.
> 
> In contrast Prof Ball describes Burma's military dictatorship as
> Asia's most brutal and corrupt. "A major dimension of the
> corruption is the involvement of the regime-- from the most
> senior members of the State Peace and Development Council(SPDC),
> which rules the country down to the infantry soldiers stationed
> in border areas--in drug trafficking."
> 
> "The Australian Government's position is:' Oh yeah, Burma
> accounts for 60 per cent of the world's drugs' and 'Oh Yeah,
> members of the government are involved in the drug trade and yes
> there's no doubt that the regime benefits immensely from drug
> sales, but on the other hand that doesn't mean that the
> government as a whole is complicit in this'," Prof Ball said.
> 
> "They're using very fine semantic distinctions because they
> don't want to disrupt the diplomatic relations with the regime
> so they can't say the regime is made up of a whole lot of drug
> runners and criminals which is basically what they are. they
> can't deny the regime's involvement in drugs but they are trying
> to give it a clean sheet."
> 
> Prof Ball asserts that Burma, already one of the world's biggest
> drug suppliers, will also soon have one of the largest armed
> forces in south-east Asia.
> 
> "The Burmese are up at the moment to around the 400,000 mark,
> which is a massive armed force. The question is how do we deal
> with a country from a defence or strategic point of view, that
> has one of the largest armed forces in this part of the  world
> yet at the same time a country that violates any principal of
> international law and civil society whenever it wishes."
> 
> Issues such as these will also be the topics of discussion at
> Australia's first ever Burma Update organised by PhD students
> Emily Rudland and MOrten Pedersen from the Department of
> Political and Social Change at the Research School of Pacific
> and Asian Studies.
> 
> The Update, from 5-6 August, is a result of growing interest at
> the ANU and around Australia in Burma studies, and an attempt to
> bring together almost all of the world's leading authorities on
> Burma for a substantive examination of the contemporary issues
> facing the country. It is also the first step towards
> establishing a Burma Studies Center at the ANU.
> 
> Ms Rudland, who had anticipated a much more low-key conference
> than now appears to be the case, believes the difficulties
> associated with doing research on Burma is one of the main
> reasons why Update has attracted so much attention.
> 
> "It looks like we'll easily reach our aim of 100 people,"Ms
> Rudland said.
> 
> "It is a pretty impressive list of speakers and we didn't expect
> anything this big when the update was proposed--it's taken off.
> I think there's a lot of interest mainly because people doing
> Burma studies don't get too many opportunities to discuss Burma
> in a forum like this."
> 
> The speakers include Bertil Lintner who is widely regarded as
> the world's leading political commentator on current political
> developments in Burma, David Steinberg, arguably the foremost
> academic in Burmese studies and Andrew Selth, an authority on
> Burma's armed forces.
> 
> --
> HTTP://www.physics.adelaide.edu.au/~uneoo
> EMAILS: drunoo@xxxxxxxxxxxx, uneoo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> POSTMAIL: Dr U Ne Oo, 18 Shannon Place, Adelaide SA 5000,
> AUSTRALIA
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