MYANMAR SEES CUT IN OPIUM PRODUCTION THIS YEAR

YANGON, - Myanmar, a major world producer of opium, predicted on Thursday
that stepped-up government suppression of poppy growing in remote areas
and bad weather would
cut output of the drug sharply this year.

"We expect production will drop by about 50 percent this year from an
estimated 680 tonnes in 1998," said Colonel Kyaw Thein, of the central
committee for drug abuse control.

Official data compiled last year showed Myanmar had 151,000 acres of
poppy fields, mainly in the north and east, which could produce enough
opium to be refined into 66.52 tonnes of heroin.

U.N. officials have estimated Myanmar's opium output at closer to
1,700 tonnes for 1998 and have said any declines that may have
occurred were mainly due to the weather.

Kyaw Thein said of that total acreage, about 40,000 acres of poppy
fields had been destroyed by the authorities so far and crop
substitution programmes launched for ex-poppy growers.

This year, another 6,000 acres of poppy fields were expected to be
destroyed. The northeastern Shan state is the biggest poppy growing
area and is part of the infamous Golden Triangle where the borders of
Myanmar, Laos and Thailand meet.

Most of the heroin refined in the Triangle by drug syndicates now
heads for Southeast Asia, Australia and Canada.

The Myanmar poppy season runs from around July each year. It takes
about three months for poppy plants to mature and bear opium.

"The weather this year has not been favourable for poppy cultivation,
there was very little rain and that will have an effect on yields,"
Kyaw Thein told a news conference.

Kyaw Thein was speaking after a ceremony held to burn seized opium,
heroin and other drugs at a police compound witnessed by delegates
attending an Interpol conference on heroin in Yangon.

Home Minister Colonel Tin Hlaing and Interpol Director Paul Higdon set
fire to the cache which officials said included about four tonnes of
raw opium and 15.4 million amphetamine tablets.

They said the bonfire of narcotics was worth a total of over $200
million.

The controversial four-day Interpol conference has been boycotted by
the nations with the world's biggest markets for heroin -- the United
States and most European countries.

The United States and the Europeans said they feared Myanmar would use
the event to give a false impression of its drug suppression efforts
to the world. Some of the conference absentees also linked their
refusal to attend to Myanmar's poor human rights and political record.

Opponents of Myanmar have accused it of links to the drug trade and
pointed to its protection of well-known heroin traffickers such as
Khun Sa and Lo Hsing-han.

Khun Sa resides in Yangon under government protection and Lo is
believed to be involved in business in Myanmar.

Kyaw Thein defended Myanmar's harbouring of Khun Sa and Lo and said
that getting the duo out of the drug business had helped curb opium
and heroin flow from Shan state. It had also put Khun Sa's
20,000-strong anti-government insurgency group out of business.

In reply to a question on the level of military and police corruption
that might have encouraged drug production in Myanmar, he said there
was some corruption at various levels. "We have taken action against
some...even up to colonel level."

Kyaw Thein flatly denied Western charges that drug money was being
laundered in Myanmar. "We have no evidence of that. There is a lot of
talk outside, but it is only talk," he said.