Drug Arrest of Ranking Police Offic

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Subject: Drug Arrest of Ranking Police Official Timed to Coincide with

INTERPOL/Rangoon Confernce on Heroin
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<bigger>Drug Arrest of Ranking Police Official Timed to Coincide with 

INTERPOL/Rangoon Confernce on Heroin

</bigger>


The arrest on charges of narcotics distribution by Burmese Military
Intelligence of a ranking police 

official in Kawthaung District apparently signals a willingness on the
part of the SPDC to get tough 

with its own officials involved in the drug trade. At least that is the
public relations point that the 

government is hoping to make by timing the arrest to occur during the
recently opened 

INTERPOL Conference on Heroin being conducted in Rangoon.


Nyunt Oo (B.C. No. La/72850), a high ranking police official in the port
district of Kawthaung in 

Southern Mergui District, was arrested on 23 February while in possession
of 1.83 Kg of refined 

heroin packed into soap boxes. He was said to be waiting to make delivery
yo a narcotics trafficker 

from Ranong in Thailand. Among his effects was discovered the sum of
400,000 baht. According to 

the inquiry report of MI Bureau 19, Nyunt Oo had been involved in
trafficking heroin since his 

posting to Kawthaung in June 1998 and for a considerable time prior to
that while he was stationed 

in Shan State.


Burma is considered by most international observers to be the single
largest heroin producing 

country. Indeed, representatives from the DEA in the US (among countless
other international 

investigative agencies) have long maintained that SPDC/Slorc officials
and personnel have a long and 

close involvement with the drugs trade in Burma. It should come as no
surprise, then, to hear of the 

arrest of one such official in the trading port district of Kawthaung.
Indeed, if this arrest is to signal 

the beginning of a crack-down on SPDC Government officials and personnel,
then perhaps the 

participants in the INTERPOL conference will in the next few days witness
the arrest and 

incarceration of a long list of SPDC military officers and generals. 


And yet the likelihood of any serious internal policing by the SPDC
remains very unlikely. It is 

relatively easy to find scapegoats in provincial backwaters who trade
insignificant quantities of 

heroin. And yet it remains difficult for the Government to divert
attention from the fact that the most 


powerful  "heroin kings" remain protected by the SPDC military. Khun Hsar
and Law-Sit han stand 

little chance of facing a similar fate as Nyunt Oo. Indeed, Khun Hsar is
likely very much enjoying the 

sweet irony of international narcotics authorities debating his fate
while he relaxes in the comfort of 

his heroin derived riches.


When the SPDC begins arresting those "heroin kings" and those who have
laundered black money 

into white, then it can be said that there is truly a shift in the drug
policies of Burma. Sadly that day 

has not arrived with the arrest of luckless Nyunt Oo.