THAILAND: AMERICAN PRESENCE LIKELY TO ANGER JUNTA

BANGKOK -- The introduction of a score of US special forces soldiers into
the northern Thai border is likely to rile Burma's military regime,
diplomats in Rangoon said.

The highly trained team is expected to be in place by the middle of the
year, after the annual Thai-US Cobra Gold exercise.

They will become part of a special anti-drug taskforce of Thai soldiers and
policemen designed to provide Bangkok with a sharper punch against the
traffickers who bring hundreds of millions of amphetamine tablets across
the border from Burma.

Although Thailand has long had close military relations with the United
States, previous Bangkok governments might have hesitated in making such a
provocative move.

Thai irritation over the activities of traffickers operating out of Burma's
Shan state has reached such a point that it is no longer shy about taking
such bold steps.

There is little doubt that the move will be seen by the ruling generals in
Rangoon as yet another scheme by the "perfidious" Thais to load the drug
blame on to Burma.

One diplomat said: "This will certainly play to their habitual paranoia.
It's a mistake to think they don't believe their own propaganda that they
are surrounded by a lot of bad people plotting against them."

Burma habitually claims Thailand should take much of the blame for buying
drugs and supplying traffickers with raw materials.

The deployment of military personnel might even be counter-productive if it
irritates the Burmese so much that they are less inclined to take action
against ethnic trafficking gangs like the United Wa State Army, said one
military analyst. "You can't say that the Thais don't have their own highly
trained special forces," he said.

Yet Bangkok-based analysts believe such fears miss the point. "The Burmese
have had their chance," one observer said. "From the Thai point of view
things are getting worse, not better, in the Shan state - and the Burmese
are hardly doing a thing about it."

Privately, Thai drug officials expect little from a regime that has higher
priorities than smashing a drug trade that - directly or indirectly - helps
prop up a shattered economy.