ALBRIGHT CHIDES MYANMAR, PRAISES THAILAND ON DRUGS

NONG HOI, Thailand, - U.S.Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
said on Wednesday the success of opium eradication projects in
Thailand contrasted markedly with efforts made in neighbouring Myanmar.

Albright, on the second day of a visit to Thailand, toured this ethnic
Hmong hilltribe village close to the Myanmar border which used to earn
its living from opium until the introduction of a crop substitution
project sponsored by the Thai royal family.

"The reason it's important to be here is exactly the reason that Nong
Hoi is here -- improving the lives of the hilltribes and encouraging
crop substitition," she said.

"This is a marked contrast to the country of Burma (Myanmar), where
they are not doing the kind of things you are doing here," she said
after watching a dance performance by local children.

Albright donated a computer, a laser printer and soccer balls to a
local school.

"The message is we must do all we can to provide alternatives to the
dead end of drugs," she said. "Here in Nong Hoi you are saying no to
narcotics and yes to vegetables and flowers, computers and books."

Locals said they were better off thanks to the new crops they were
growing.

One farmer said he used to earn just 4,000 baht ($108) a year growing
opium, whereas he now made 50,000 from vegetables.

"It isn't as if they are losing money," Albright said. "They're making
money from vegetables -- that's a very good story."

The United States has provided $1.3 million for crop substitution
projects in Thailand over the past three years. It says Thailand has
one of the most successful narcotic crop control programmes in the
world.

While Thai opium output has dwindled in the past two decades, military
ruled Myanmar remains one of the world's main sources of the drug,
which is refined to make heroin.

The State Department said in a report last month that Myanmar's opium
production fell last year, partly due to government efforts to
eradicate the crop.

But it said some 130,300 hectares (321,700 acres) were under opium
cultivation in 1998, capable of yielding up to 1,750 tonnes of opium
gum, or 175 tonnes of heroin.

In Nong Hoi, Albright also met girls receiving vocational training to
help them avoid lives in prostitution. She said it was essential to
improve women's rights.

"Advancing the status of women has to be central to American foreign
policy," she said. "We are learning, but if there are to be
improvements in democracy then women have to be part of it.

"It's also essential that girls not be exploited, abused and exposed
to AIDS. It's important to fight back. NGOs are showing the way but
governments also have to help show there are alternatives to the dead
ends of prostitution and drugs."

Albright is due in Bangkok later on Wednesday for an audience with
King Bhumibol Adulyadej and meetings with Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai
and Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan.