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Cook condemns opium-funded regime
South China Morning Post
Tuesday September 2 1997
Burma
Cook condemns opium-funded regime
BARRY PORTER in Singapore and Agence France-Presse
British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook yesterday condemned the Burmese
Government for "conniving" with drug barons and said it would be barred from a
forthcoming meeting of European and Asian nations.
Mr Cook said a recent decision taken by the European Union to deny senior
Burmese officials visas made Burma's inclusion at the Asia-Europe Meeting
(ASEM) in London "impossible", even if they were wanted.
The ASEM forum is intended as an international platform for 15 EU members to
meet and hold dialogues with Japan, China, South Korea and the members of the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean).
As a new recruit to Asean in July, military-run Burma may have expected to get
an automatic invitation on to this world platform. However, as host of the
meeting, Mr Cook yesterday firmly said no.
He insisted that ASEM had never been intended as an EU-Asean forum, rather a
meeting between EU members and a select number of leading Asian countries,
which had happened to include the seven core members of Asean.
New members would be invited to join ASEM only by consensus, and there
certainly was not a consensus in Europe that Burma should come, he said.
Speaking in Singapore on the last leg of his six-day Southeast Asian tour, Mr
Cook said: "Burma is the largest single world producer of opium, and it has
achieved that infamous position precisely because it has a Government that
does not act against the drug barons.
"It is not only a deeply repressive regime, but it is also a deeply
irresponsible regime in that it is one of the few governments in the world
whose members are prepared to profit out of the drugs trade rather than to
seek to suppress the drugs trade."
Rangoon hit back last night, calling Britain "the world's number one culprit"
for the spread of narcotics.
"Whether Mr Cook is ignorant of the fact or deliberately trying to cover up
the most irresponsible and unforgivable criminal act Britain committed by
forcefully introducing opium into Asia [150 years ago] is anybody's guess," a
senior official said.
He said Britain was seeking to "victimise" Burma as it did in colonial times.
"Britain should be taking the lead in assisting victim countries to clean up
the mess she . . . created instead of pointing fingers at Myanmar [Burma] to
cover up her own fault," the official said.
Mr Cook said a number of other Asian countries had also expressed a desire to
join in ASEM, including India, Pakistan, Australia and New Zealand. From
Britain's perspective, Mr Cook said he had no objections to India being
present.
Mr Cook's tour of the region, his first as Foreign Secretary under the new
Labour Government, has heavily emphasised anti-drugs and pro-human rights
themes.
He began his tour last week by announcing a new role for the British
intelligence services, putting them at the forefront of the war against drug
barons.
Instead of just catching traffickers as they entered Britain, in future MI6
and MI5 would concentrate on trying to stifle the production of drugs at
source, Mr Cook said.