Burma Unveils "Opium Free Zone"  
Posted by ajones -- December 14, 2002
Reprinted from the Bangkok Post
Burmese anti-drug authorities tried to portray a positive image of their country yesterday by presenting the seventh meeting of Thai-Burmese drug officials with their opium-free zone project.
Burmese delegates led by Pol Maj-Gen Khin Yi, secretary-general of the Central Committee on Drug Abuse Control, showed the plan at the meeting in a bid to make their Thai counterparts more understanding about their aim to eradicate opium by 2015.
Burma says it will spend US$150 million with the help of the United Nations to destroy opium plantations in 41 townships, mostly along the Thai-Burmese border in the north.
A source said the delegate explained that the project was divided into three phases of about five years each.
The delegate had not elaborated, but did say the project used a community-based approach to tackle opium cultivation and other drug problems.
However, Thai drug officials wondered whether it would succeed given Burma's internal problems.
Even in Thailand, which has been destroying opium plantations for more than 30 years, cultivation continues along the Thai-Burmese border.
Thai officials would prefer Burma to suppress all drugs, especially methamphetamine and heroin, to make all Asean countries drug-free by 2015.
Chartchai Suthiklom, deputy secretary-general of the Office of the Narcotics Control Board, said the first-day bilateral meeting yesterday focused on exchanging information on suspects who were still at large between the two countries. Thai officials asked their counterparts to help track down drug suspects in five cases who were believed to have escaped from Thailand to Burma.
He said the two sides also agreed to strengthen cooperation between Burmese officials at Myawaddy coordinating office and Thai officials at Mae Sot coordinating centre.
Many drug suspects were arrested in the past years due to cooperation between the Mae Sai and Tachilek offices.
Burma, which has a coordinating office in Kawthaung, also asked Thailand to set up another office in Ranong. Thai officials said they were considering it because they were aware many traffickers had changed their traditional routes from the North to the West of Thailand in the past few years.
It is predicted there will be an increase in opium cultivation in Thailand next year due to a bigger heroin demand.
The Northern Narcotics Control Office recently conducted a survey of opium plantations which showed that cultivation would expand to 8,000 rai from this year's 7,800 rai.
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