THAI-BURMA DRUG-BUSTING PLEDGE AS MEETING OPENS

Win Aung: Onus Not On Rangoon Alone

Thailand and Burma pledged to step up co-operation against drug
trafficking yesterday as Asean foreign ministers braced to review
regional efforts at their annual meeting opening today.

The issue was prominent in talks between Foreign Minister Surin
Pitsuwan and his Burmese counterpart Win Aung on the eve of the 33rd
Asean Ministerial Meeting.

Mr Surin said the two sides agreed to activate all existing mechanisms
to end drug trafficking and other cross-border problems, and to
accelerate exchanges.

"From now on there will be quicker movement to resolve existing common
problems between our countries," he said after the 40-minute meeting.

Thai-Burmese relations have been strained since Burmese dissidents
stormed the Burmese embassy in Bangkok in October, and raided a
hospital in Ratchaburi in January.

Mr Win Aung stressed that Burma alone should not be blamed for the
drug problems and emphasised the need to tackle them "co-operatively".
He noted that chemicals, equipment and know-how came from an unnamed
"other country" but quickly added that this included all countries
bordering Burma.

He also claimed that his government seized 17 million methamphetamine
pills this year.

Mr Surin referred to the pledge made in April last year by the two
prime ministers, Chuan Leekpai and Than Shwe, for closer co-operation
against drugs along their 2,400km border.

Besides drugs, Mr Surin and his Burmese counterpart also discussed
illegal Burmese workers, refugees, and the suspension of Thai fishery
concessions in Burma, sources added.

Mr Surin said drug problems would be discussed at the ministerial
meeting today and tomorrow as well as at the Asean Regional Forum on
Thursday.

The Asean ministers are due to review progress on the ground since
their agreement in Manila in 1998 to establish the region as a
drug-free zone by the year 2020, sources said.

Mr Surin is also under urging from a regional human rights working
group, which he received yesterday, to raise at the ministerial
meeting discussion of their draft for the establishment of an Asean
Human Rights Commission.

Somchai Homla-or, a Thai member of the working group, said the
minister agreed to do so. But Mr Surin said the ministers would have
to be briefed by their senior officials first.

Thailand, he stressed, had supported the idea of setting up a regional
human rights mechanism since the Asean Ministerial Meeting in
Singapore in 1993 gave the greenlight for it.

The working group has asked Asean to set up a "study group" and to
organise a region-wide forum of discussion on the question.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations groups Brunei, Burma,
Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore,
Thailand and Vietnam.

High on the agenda of their ministerial meeting is Thailand's proposal
for a troika system of timely troubleshooting that was spurred by
Asean's failure to react effectively to the financial crisis and East
Timor.

The member states have so far agreed on the composition of past,
present and future Asean chairmen. But some, including Cambodia, have
questioned the troika's mandate out of concern that it might go
against the grouping's non-interference principle.

The Burmese foreign minister said his country supported the idea but
he stressed the need for ministers to work out details. The troika
would not be a decision-making body, he added.