CALL FOR MARTIAL LAW ON MYANMAR BORDER

BANGKOK -- The Thai Senate plans to ask the government to declare martial
law along parts of the Thai-Myanmar border to fight amphetamine smugglers, a
senator has said.

Maha Sarakham Senator Witthaya Masena, the Senate foreign affairs committee
spokesman, said his committee and the Senate committees on local
administration and military affairs had agreed that the government should
declare martial law in border areas.

He said the three committees had visited border areas in northern provinces
and were told the situation was getting worse.

Interior Ministry officials and drug-suppression officers in the provinces
had told the committees that about 95 per cent of residents in some villages
along the Thai-Myanmar border were addicted to amphetamines.

The spokesman said the three Senate committees believed imposing martial law
would better empower the authorities to fight drug trafficking.