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NEWS - Foreign Nations Question Sup
- Subject: NEWS - Foreign Nations Question Sup
- From: Rangoonp@xxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 05 Mar 1999 20:22:00
Subject: NEWS - Foreign Nations Question Support for Myanmar's Opium Battle
NOTE: Though the drug-trade was mainly put to use to raise money by
the democratice Kuomintang when they ran from the communist chinese
that were supported by the Russians that had invaded to fight the
Japanese and steal machinery, much of this then was started when the
military regime took power via a coup more than 30 years ago.
Foreign Nations Question Support for Myanmar's Opium Battle
AP
05-MAR-99
LAUKAI, Myanmar (AP) -- With his weathered face, leather
jacket and pistol
in his waistband, Pheung Kya-shin looked every bit the
tough guerrilla fighter
he once was. But in front of a small audience of
narcotics experts and
journalists, he presented himself as a reformed
supplicant.
We are purging our area of opium, said the 68-year-old
leader of the
Kokang Chinese community. Help my people make an honest
living. Give us
some aid so we can survive.
His plea was a small shot in a battle being fought in the
international
diplomatic arena: Should other nations fund Myanmar's new
drug-fighting
program or refuse to trust a government widely criticized
in the West?
The Kokang region is located in a part of northeastern
Myanmar that is the
heartland of opium production.
U.S. officials say Myanmar is the world's biggest
opium-producing nation,
and that most of the heroin sold on America's streets
comes from opium
grown on its rolling hillsides.
But the government has launched an ambitious plan to end
opium
production nationwide by the year 2014, and it has urged
other nations to
provide the funding it needs to persuade farmers to
switch to legal crops.
As he spoke in a small, open-air pavilion on a dusty
hilltop in northern Shan
State, Pheung was guarded by members of his ragtag local
militia, the
Myanmar National Defense Alliance Army.
They mixed with the government military officers who
accompanied the
foreign drug experts and foreign journalists on the
helicopter journey to
remote Laukai, as Pheung declared that Kokang Special
Region No. 1 would
soon be an "opium-free zone."
"The people accept it. It is already decided. There will
be no poppy next
year. This is a must," he said.
The U.S. government complains that Myanmar's war on drugs
falls short
because the ruling junta, seeking stability in the
hinterlands, is too willing to
appease ethnic groups making a large part of their living
from the narcotics
trade.
Washington admits opium production has dropped in
Myanmar. But it claims
there is an "implicit tolerance" of the drug trade, and
that the junta is eager
to keep former drug lords out of jail to invest their
ill-gotten gains in the ailing
economy.
Last week, Myanmar -- also known as Burma -- and
Afghanistan, the world's
second-biggest opium producer, were decertified by
President Clinton for
failing to take substantial action to curtail narcotics
trafficking. The finding
makes them ineligible to receive any nonhumanitarian U.S.
aid.
Western governments also refuse to give any aid to
Myanmar because of
the junta's poor human rights record and its refusal to
hand over power to a
democratically elected government.
But some drug experts believe Myanmar's military
government is doing the
best it can under difficult circumstances and with
limited resources. They say
politics should play no part in the international fight
against narcotics.
"They really have a chance to succeed," said Ian Bain,
head of Interpol's
Drugs Sub-Directorate. "This is a program that is well
thought out ... that has
a strategic aim to it."
Opium, and the heroin derived from it, are produced
mainly in areas under
control of ethnic minorities who have been seeking
autonomy from the
central government for decades, often by force.
The ethnic rebellions were financed in large part by the
drug trade. As the
government has reached peace agreements with the rebels
over the past 10
years, weaning farmers from the lucrative opium farming
has been a
dilemma.
At first, the central government turned a blind eye as it
consolidated its
control, and opium production skyrocketed.
Pheung's Kokang Chinese guerrillas were the first of 17
ethnic rebel groups
to reach an agreement with the government. The agreement
allowed
Pheung's guerillas to keep their armed security forces,
and it gave them the
right to self-administration.
Pheung was a major and controversial player in the
country's fractious ethnic
battling.
He was allied with the hard-core Burmese Communist Party,
then led a
successful coup against its leadership. He also became
seriously involved in
the drug trade, helping set up the first heroin refinery
in Kokang territory in
the mid-1970's, according to Bertil Lintner, an expert on
Burmese politics.
Pheung's group continued drug trafficking at least into
the early 1990s,
Lintner has written.
The latest International Narcotics Control Strategy
Report by the U.S. State
Department, released last week, says he is suspected of
continued
involvement with the drug trade.
Pheung, however, has long maintained that he is a staunch
ally of the
government in its fight against drugs.
"We have been trying to end the growing of opium poppies
for 10 years," he
said in his speech. "We encounter so many difficulties.
Some we can
overcome, some we cannot."
Long-term solutions are complicated.
The 15-year plan to end opium cultivation hinges on the
development of
substitute crops of comparable value.
Because the government has limited resources, many
farmers have been
disappointed says Col. Kyaw Thein, the respected
commander of the
government's anti-drug effort.
Japan is funding a project to grow buckwheat, but
production of high-value
export crops is hindered by the area's remote location
and relative lack of
infrastructure.
The most accessible market for commodities from the
Kokang region is just
across the border, in China. But competing with Chinese
farmers hardly
promises high returns, and local farmers have reported
difficulties trying to
sell sugar cane there.
"Even if they grow rice, it will only last for six
months," says Col. Hla Min, one
of the government guides on the tour of Pheung's area.
"We have to find
another way."