NEWS- Interpol's Higdon refuses to

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Subject: NEWS- Interpol's Higdon refuses to see the whole picture in Burma

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Asian Heroin Heads for  Australia, Canada -INTERPOL

           Reuters
           24-FEB-99

           YANGON, Feb 24 (Reuters) - More heroin produced in
           Myanmar and elsewhere in Southeast Asia is heading for
           Australia, the South Pacific and Canada than to the United
           States, a senior Interpol official said on Wednesday. 

           "Southeast Asian heroin...used to make up a major
           percentage of the heroin reaching the United States. (This)
           has diminished significantly and been replaced by heroin
           coming out of South America and Mexico," said Paul Higdon,
           director of Interpol's Criminal Intelligence Directorate. 

           "The majority...coming out of here is going to the South
           Pacific, Australia and some to Canada," he told reporters on
           the sidelines of a controversial international conference on
           heroin organised by Interpol. 

           Asian drug enforcement officials were focusing on these
           newer trafficking routes, he said, without giving data on
           quantities moved. 

           "That's certainly putting Australia on guard. They have to
           know who the enemy is and coming to a conference like this
           helps," Higdon said. 

           Some conference delegates estimate that less than 10
           percent of the heroin produced in laboratories in Myanmar
           and the poppy growing Golden Triangle, which straddles the
           borders of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos, now makes it to the
           United States. 

           In the past, drug officials had said up to 70 percent of
           Golden Triangle heroin found its way to the U.S. market. 

           The United States and most European countries declined to
           attend the Interpol conference because it is being held in
           military-ruled Myanmar, a major world heroin producer. 

           But 65 delegates from 28 countries, including Australia,
           Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland, countries of the
           Association of South East Asian Nations, Austria and U.N.
           agencies, are attending the closed-door meeting. 


           Some delegates said the U.S. and European countries had
           been missed because they were the biggest heroin
           consumers. 

           "The conference lacks a little solidarity when you don't have
           everyone here," said Higdon. "We talk about international
           problems and when the whole international community joins
           together to address it we feel that more is accomplished." 

           Vital information and data that could be shared by the
           Americans and Europeans had been sorely missed. 

           "They are the biggest consumer markets and we could have
           gained from their expertise and data," said one delegate. 

           The United States and the Europeans said they feared
           Myanmar would use the meeting to give a false impression
           of its drug suppression efforts. Absentees also linked their
           refusal to attend to Myanmar's poor human rights record. 

           Yangon's military rulers curb the activities of a vibrant
           opposition led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and hold
           many political prisoners. 

           Higdon commended Myanmar's drug suppression efforts,
           despite international criticism of its handling of the
problem.
           "There has been a great deal of seizing of essential
           chemicals and increased activities in (heroin) laboratories
           destructions." 

           Opponents of Myanmar's generals have accused them of
           links to the drug trade and pointed to the government's
           protection of well-known heroin traffickers like Khun Sa and
           Lo Hsing-han. Khun Sa is believed to live in Yangon under
           government protection and Lo to be involved in business in
           Myanmar. 

           Myanmar says keeping Khun Sa out of the drug business
           has helped curb the flow opium and heroin flow from Shan
           State in the northeast of the country. 

           Higdon said the meeting had discussed Khun Sa. 

           "They (Myanmar) had to do something with insurgency...and
           sometimes you have to make a pact with the devils. That's
           the way things are accomplished."