VIETNAM EXECUTES CANADIAN TRAFFICKER

Death by firing squad for woman caught trying to smuggle heroin is seen as
demonstration of the country's crackdown on drugs

HANOI -- Vietnam has demonstrated its determination to wage a tough fight
against drug trafficking with the unprecedented execution of a Canadian
woman convicted of drug trafficking.

Nguyen Thi Hiep, convicted of trying to smuggle five kilograms of heroin out
of the country four years ago, was executed by firing squad here at dawn on
Tuesday.

She was the first holder of a Western passport to be put to death in Vietnam
and her execution was seen by observers here as a signal of an intensifying
crackdown in the war on drugs.

"The Vietnamese authorities wanted to make her an example to respond to the
frequent criticisms from the West that they were lax in fighting drug
trafficking," said a Western diplomat who requested anonymity.

The Canadian government for its part summoned the Vietnamese ambassador to
Canada to express its "deep disappointment" over the execution and suggested
Nguyen Thi Hiep may have been innocent.

Nguyen Thi Hiep, who was in her early 40s, was born in Vietnam but became a
naturalised Canadian citizen after moving to Canada in 1992.

She was arrested in April 1996 while in Vietnam on a tourist visa, along
with her mother, Tran Thi Cam, 73, who still held a Vietnamese passport.

Nguyen Thi Hiep was condemned to death and her mother to life imprisonment
after they were arrested at Noi Bai international airport trying to smuggle
the heroin to Hongkong.

Vietnam toughened its anti-narcotics laws in 1997, enacting the death
penalty for anyone possessing more than 100 g of heroin or more than five
kilograms of opium.

Numerous executions have taken place over the past few years but they are
rarely publicised.

Since March, however, Vietnam has intensified its anti-drug efforts, partly
in reaction to an annual US report which named the country as a producer and
transit point for narcotics.

About a dozen foreign drug traffickers have been sentenced to death in
Vietnam over the past five years, mostly Laotians but also nationals of
China, Taiwan and Singapore.

Vietnam remains a major transit point, however, for heroin from the
drug-producing "Golden Triangle" region of Burma, Laos and Thailand.