CANADA SHIFTS FOCUS ON DEALING WITH BURMA

Tentative move toward contact with repressive, drug-dealing Rangoon
junta is an effort to fashion a credible policy.

Lloyd Axworthy and his department of foreign affairs are shifting
their focus from the repressions of Burma's military regime to the
effects on Canadian "human security" of the junta's drug trafficking
in an effort to fashion a credible policy toward the southeast Asian
country.

The re-think comes after years of stalemate as vocal pro-reform
Burmese lobby groups here have vehemently opposed any Canadian contact
with the Rangoon regime on the drugs trade or any other issue.

This echoes the position of confined Burmese democracy leader Aung San
Suu Kyi who insists economic and diplomatic isolation of the junta is
the only way to force political reform and kill the drug industry on
whose profits the regime increasingly depends.

Conflicting arguments arguments have come from Canadian diplomats and
especially the RCMP which has long complained it cannot work to curb
drug trafficking into Canada if it is barred from contacts with the
Burmese regime.

After going along since the early 1990s with the lobby groups' demands
for embargoes, Axworthy is now edging toward contact with the Rangoon
junta.

The department's justification is that the trafficking of heroin from
Burma's northern "Golden Triangle" opium poppy fields is now such a
deadly domestic Canadian problem it demands a firm response from Ottawa.

The shift is backed by evidence from social service officials in
British Columbia who say about 1,500 people in the Lower Mainland have
died of drug overdoses, mostly Burmese heroin, in the past three years.

There are no expectations, however, that the re-tuning of Ottawa's
position will see changes in the policy to discourage Canadian
business and industry from investing in the resource-rich country of
about 42 million people.

The as-yet tentative move toward contact with the Rangoon junta,
widely accused of torture, slavery and brutal repression of the
political opposition as well as involvement in the drug trade, has
drawn words of sharp displeasure from Suu Kyi, the leader of Burma's
National League for Democracy.

Suu Kyi, in effect under house arrest in Rangoon, reiterated her
demands for international economic and political isolation of the
regime when she was recently informed of Ottawa's new leanings by
Canadian diplomats.

Axworthy's re-evaluation comes as the 10th anniversary approaches on
May 27 of elections in Burma won conclusively by Suu Kyi's NLD, but
which the military has refused to recognize.

A decade of refusal to reform by the junta has led to a re-evaluation
of policies in several capitals, especially Tokyo, Washington and Canberra.

There is no longer much confidence that sanctions against Rangoon and
blanket support for Suu Kyi will cause the collapse of the junta and
inauguration of the legitimate government.

Raymond Chan, the secretary of state (Asia-Pacific), sought Monday to
calm fears that Canada's objective of promoting reform in Burma is
being abandoned.

"We want an engagement that makes progress. We want to see some
movement on [the junta's] side because their record is not good."

Drug trafficking accounts for at least a third of Burma's exports and
relations between the drug lords and the military regime are tightly
intertwined, according to experts.

Chan said both the United States and Australia, traditionally as
opposed to contacts with the junta as Canada, have recently
established links to the regime to try to stem the flow of drugs to
their countries.

From experience, Ottawa is still uncertain overtures to the junta will
be fruitful.

"On one hand we have been approached by business groups doing business
there who say the regime wants to find a solution and to break out of
its isolation," Chan said.

"But on the other hand, when ever we talk to Rangoon government
officials about reform they take a very hard line."

In the early 1990s when Rangoon was invited to take part in security
discussions at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional
Forum prior to full membership in the organization, Axworthy
approached the Burmese foreign minister.

"He contacted the foreign minister and asked them to be more
cooperative and to start some human rights dialogue with us," Chan
said. "They flatly rejected any kind of engagement."

As a result Axworthy opted for the pressure of discouraging Canadian
businesses from investing in or trading with Burma, Chan said.

The limiting of diplomatic contacts with the junta and ban on anything
that smacks of cooperation with the regime has made life difficult for
Mounties trying to stem the drug trade.

On at least one occasion they have been forbidden to attend a
conference organized by Interpol and the United Nations because it was
held in Rangoon.