First World gives Burma a smack

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First World gives Burma a smack
By Peter Alford
23 February 1999
INTERPOL'S Rangoon heroin conference opens today, almost entirely shunned by
the First World nations that are the biggest markets for the international
narcotics trade.

Of Interpol's 176 member countries, only 24 - mainly from Asia and southern
Africa - are represented at the conference, after a boycott campaign
spearheaded by Britain and the US.

Among developed countries, only Australia, Japan, Switzerland and New
Zealand are attending the conference, co-sponsored by the Burmese
Government.

Despite strong urgings from Burmese exile groups to join the boycott,
Canberra has taken the position that the Rangoon conference will help
international efforts to combat the flow of Burmese heroin into Australia.

Interpol's Burma representative, Win Kyi, said yesterday 26 delegations had
confirmed their attendance, two of which were UN agencies - the UN Drug
Control Program and UNAIDS.

Although the US State Department cited Burma's unsatisfactory performance in
controlling its narcotics traffic - it is the world's largest opium producer
and one of the biggest heroin exporters - the boycott has become part of the
international political campaign to isolate Burma's State Peace and
Development Council regime. Burma's new Foreign Minister, Win Aung, has
accused American and European nations of "neglecting their responsibilities
to humankind" by refusing to attend the conference.

Colonel Win Kyi confirmed yesterday the conference had been boycotted by all
European Union and North American countries.

Germany, which now holds the rotating European Commission presidency, backed
out last week after it was confirmed that none of the other 14 members would
go.

These countries and the US represent about two-thirds of the international
market for heroin.

Only Chile is attending from South and Central America, despite the fact
several cocaine-producing countries, such as Colombia and Mexico are
emerging as significant opium and heroin producers.

During the conference, the Burmese authorities will dramatise their claims
to be fighting the drug menace with a mass destruction of heroin, opium and

amphetamines in Rangoon on Friday.

At the weekend, the Government claimed to have seized 98.4kg of heroin,
almost 2.3 tonnes of opium, 91kg of marijuana and 1.3 million amphetamine
tablets last month. The 60 foreign delegates this week will also be shown
opium poppy eradication projects in the country's north-east, which produces
more than 90 per cent of the opium grown in the Golden Triangle region of
Burma, Laos and Thailand.

The most recent CIA figures say 155,000ha of Burmese territory were in poppy
production in 1997, producing 2365 tonnes of opium - 60 per cent of the
world supply .