-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"> </A> -Cui Bono?- Dave Hartley http://www.asheville-computer.com/dave -----Original Message----- From: Roger Bunn [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, February 11, 2000 5:20 PM To: Dave Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: The LOOP TODAY : Westminster Support Fat lot of good this will be huh? AAP: DATE 18:32 10-Feb-00 AUSTRALIAN DRUGS POLICE OFFICER TO BE TRIALED IN RANGOON CANBERRA, Feb 10 AAP-- An Australian drug agent will be posted to Rangoon as part of a new effort to stop the flow of heroin from Australia's biggest supplier. The Australian Federal Police officer would be attached to the Australian embassy on a trial basis to support the Burmese military government's crackdown on the country's multi-billion dollar opium poppy industry, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said today. "As Burma is the major source of heroin entering Australia, the Australian government attaches high priority to supporting domestic and international anti-narcotics activity there," he said. Australia has been encouraged by Burmese efforts to enforce its obligations under international drug treaties since accession to ASEAN in 1997, he said. He also announced career diplomat Trevor Wilson had been appointed as the new Australian ambassador to Burma, ending the three-year term of Lyndall McLean. Mr Downer said Australia could not develop closer relations with Burma, or Myanmar, without real movement on political reform including human rights reform. AAP rmg/ej ================================ ASIAWEEK 23 JANUARY 1998 Part 1 of 4 INSIDE STORY DRUGS: IS MYANMAR ASIA'S FIRST NARCO-STATE ? COMPELLING EVIDENCE POINTS TO THAT DUBIOUS DISTINCTION By Anthony Davis and Bruce Hawke In the cool, opium-rich hills of Myanmar's northeast, the more things change the more they seem to stay the same. Back in the early 1970s, Lo Hsing-han was a celebrated figure in the Asian drug trade. From a fortified villa in the town of Lasho, the ethnic Chinese warlord ran a powerful government-backed militia force -- as well as convoys of opium from northern Shan state south to heroin refineries along the Thai border. Across the rugged swathe of the Golden Triangle and as far south as Bangkok, Lo Hsing han was a name to reckon with. Twenty-fives years on, it still is. Since his early days as an opium-running militia boss, Lo has had his ups and downs. He joined the Shan rebel opposition and turned his turned his guns against the government; was captured in Thailand and extradited to Myanmar; and then served time in a Yangon jail. But at 63 he's back again, no less influential a figure in the tangled skein of business-politics in northern Myanmar. If anything, he's far more powerful, infinitely more wealthy, and these days positively respectable politically. From a gracious home in Myanmar's capital Yangon, Lo runs one of Myanmar's largest business conglomerates with interests in real estate, manufacturing, export-import and construction that includes key infrastructure projects. Serving as an adviser on ethnic affairs to the military junta's chief. Lt-Gen. Khin Nyunt, his political connections go straight to the top. One recent afternoon back in that original villa on a hillside overlooking Lasho, an expansive Lo held forth on development plans for a 30,375-hectare stretch of hill country north west of the town that is projected to involve new crops, roads and light industry. "Retired?" he growled in Mandrain thick with an accent of his native Kokang district. "I haven't retired! The older I get, the more there seems to do!" Lo Hsing-han's zest for life and enthusiasm for "agricultural development"does nothing to reassure foreign anti-narcotics officials monitoring Myanmar's booming opium crop and the tons of high-quality heroin refined from it each year. In 1996 the northeastern poppy-belt produced a potential crop of 2,560 tons of opium sap--compared with a mere 400 tons when Lo first entered the fray in 1968. And these days the heroin refineries are no longer only on the Thai border but conveniently dotted across the hills along the Chinese frontier in the heart of opium country. "Lo Hsing-han is not the kind of guy you're going to give the benefit of the doubt to,"says a Yangon-based foreign envoy. "We're very suspicious of him." Lo Hsing-han's past and present epitomize much of Myanmar's crisis of international legitimacy. Many of the shadowy figures long associated with the drug trade have insinuated themselves into the political and business fabric of the nation. Heroin production is close to an all-time high, while narco-profits flood the economy. Given the power and connections these people wield, Myanmar seems well on its way to becoming a narco-state -- a country where officialdom, if not directly involved in trafficking, is certainly providing drug lords tacit sanction. "Those guys were once beyond the reach of the central authorities," says an anti-narcotics official. "Now they are right downtown." A senior Thai drug-suppression official recently expressed what many have been saying in private -- that a nation with Myanmar's reputation for drug production should never have been allowed to join ASEAN. HOW THE POPPIES FLOURISHED In 1989, the Communist Party of Burma collapsed and set the stage for Myanmar's insurgents to forsake the hills for the boardrooms of Yangon. The government's toughest guerrilla foe since the late 1960s, the CPB splintered along ethnic lines -- Kokang chinese, Wa and Shan -- around the country's rugged northeastern marches. Desperate to prevent a link-up between the insurgents and the Burman democratic opposition, the junta moved swiftly to neutralize the guerrillas. Enter Lo Hsing-han, who helped junta chief Khin Nyunt reach a swift ceasefire with the CPB's Kokang Chinese-dominated Nothern Bureau. Overnight, the Kokang 'Chinese territory, wedged against the China's border, was transformed into Myanmar's Special Region No.1. Not long after, the military strongest portion of the CPB, the tribal Wa, concluded a similar deal, establishing Special Region No. 2 in the Wa hills to the south. Linking up with another ethnic Wa force on the Thai border, they set up the 15,000-strong United Wa State Army. In eastern Shan State, meanwhile, a third CPB component became Special Region No.4 headed by two ex-Red Guards who joined the CPB during China's Cultural Revolution. The ceasefire deals soon were extended into agreements with a patchwork of 12 other ethnic insurgent groups scattered across the north and east. The agreements stipulated that the insurgents would halt their attacks on government positions. In exchange they were permitted to keep their weapons, administer their areas and move into business. It was an arrangement that suited both sides, particularly the ex-CPB guerrillas who promptly opened refineries producing NO.4 heroin. At the same time, they responded enthusiastically to the government's carte blanche invitation to participate in the country's newly liberalized but ramschackle economy. In 1989, the junta dropped a policy of confiscating bank deposits and foreign currency of dubious origin. Instead it opted for a "whitening tax" on questionable repatriated funds levied first at 40% and since reduced to 25%. Equally significant, in early 1993, de facto legalization of the black-market exchange rate took place and narco-runds previously held in Bangkok, Singapore and Hong Kong flooded back into Myanmar. Construction in Yangon and Mandalay boomed, most obviously in lavish, international hotels -- most of which now stand virtually empty. "It's clear it all started with dirty money," says a diplomat. Equally clear is that "legitimate" businesses in downtown Yangon also provided ideal conduits for laundering repatriated narco-funds -- and continue to do so. A retired Myanmar banker reckons "at least 60% of private business in Yangon is drugs-related." -- HTTP://www.physics.adelaide.edu.au/~uneoo EMAILS: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] POSTMAIL: Dr U Ne Oo, 18 Shannon Place, Adelaide SA 5000, AUSTRALIA [http://freeburma.org/[http://www.angelfire.com/al/homepageas/index.htm] = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Follow the plea by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and the appreciations of HH the Dalai Lama, the Shan Democratic Union, film maker John Pilger, the Free Burma Coalition, author Alan Clements, Dennis Skinner MP, Tony Benn MP, Ann Clwyd MP, Congress-woman Maxine Waters, Socialist Workers' Party, Dr and Welsh rugby star JPR Williams, Hendrix bassist Noel Redding, S African jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim, All Burma Students Democratic Organisation, All Burma Students Democratic Front, Tasmanian Trades & Labour Council, SACP (South African Communist Party), COSATU, Tim Gopsill, editor. [EMAIL PROTECTED], and numerous others. Supporting a Genuine war upon drugs and human rights abuse. Sydney 2000 : Burma Out! http://www.mihra.org/2k/burma.htm Music Industry Human Rights Association http://www.mihra.org / [EMAIL PROTECTED] Union Action http://www.mihra.org/2k/union.htm Unchained profit : The "New Rachel" page. http//:www.mihra.org/2K/rachel.htm Founded during UN50. Mihra's roots are in music and anti-racism and was first in line in calling for a sports boycott of Burma for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. Mihra also advances protection of creators rights in an anti-cultural market, currently 93.8% monopolised by the recording / publishing Grand Cartel. Major solo work "Piece of Mind". With orchestra, Holland 69. same time as Beatles "Abbey Road". http://onlinetv.com/rogerbunn.html ======================== <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. 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