UNIS/NAR/609
11 July 1997
East Asian Ministers Step up Joint Efforts To Fight Drug Production, Trafficking, Abuse
Cambodia, China, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, Viet Nam Endorse UN Initiatives
VIENNA, 11 July (UN Information Service) -- Ministers of six East Asian countries, meeting in Bangkok, today endorsed a number of new measures aimed at strengthening cooperation to combat drug abuse and trafficking in the subregion. The six countries -- Cambodia, China, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Myanmar, Thailand and Viet Nam -- joined forces in the areas of law enforcement, demand reduction and eradication of illicit crops under a 1993 agreement with the Vienna-based UN International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP). The meeting, which followed a two-day consultation of senior officials of the six Governments and the UNDCP, approved several new drug control projects, including an arrangement to improve the exchange of intelligence on trafficking syndicates and programmes to train police, customs, prosecutorial and judicial staff. In addition, Myanmar, China and the UNDCP agreed on a project combining drug control and development assistance to provide basic needs for poor people in the Wa region of Myanmar's Eastern Shan State, near the Chinese border. The aim of the Wa project is to strengthen communities and to provide them with alternative means of livelihood so that they can abandon cultivation of opium poppy. According to the UNDCP, the "Golden Triangle" -- formed by adjacent border areas of Lao PDR, Myanmar and Thailand -- is one of the world's two largest opium producing areas. Cambodia, China and Viet Nam are used as transit countries for the heroin refined from the opium and sent primarily to North American markets. Chemicals used to process heroin from opium, or for production of amphetamine-type stimulants, are also trafficked across national frontiers. The Ministers also pledged to step up efforts to reduce the demand for illicit drugs. According to the UNDCP, the subregion has been experiencing a recent upsurge in abuse of heroin and synthetic stimulants. They updated their drug control action plan to better reflect the current abuse, production and trafficking patterns in the region as well as recent developments in national and regional drug control policies. Under the earlier plan, adopted at a ministerial meeting held in Beijing in 1995, the six countries have been working with the UNDCP on 11 projects in the areas of demand reduction, crop reduction and law enforcement. Sukavich Rangsitpol, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education of Thailand, chaired the ministerial meeting. Also taking part were Mathly Rim Skadavy, Special Advisor to the Minister of Interior of Cambodia; Bai Jingfu, Vice-Commissioner of the National Narcotics Control Commissioner and Vice-Minister of Public Security of China; Soubanh Srithirath, Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs and Chairman of the Commission for Drug Control of the Lao PDR; Lt. General Maung Thint, Minister for Border Areas, National Races and Development Affairs of Myanmar; and Hoang Duc Nghi, Chairman of the National Drug Control Programme and Minister of the Committee for Ethnic Minorities and Mountainous Areas of Viet Nam.
