WHY DOES ATROCITY GO UNNOTICED?

Monday's editorial in the Bangkok Post was titled "Drugs and thugs along
the boarder." Although the Burmese generals in Rangoon have closed the
border between Thailand and Burma, there are scheduled talks aimed at
reopening the border. The Post editorial makes several points that ought to
also concern U.S. foreign policy makers.

First, the government in Rangoon has forced the ethnic Shan people from
their traditional homes on the Thai boarder and replaced them with Wa
people. This is the biggest forced migration since the Vietnam War. The
international community did not stand idle when such ethnic cleansing
happened in Bosnia; yet this atrocity seems to go largely unnoticed. Why?

The second point is that the newly arrived Wa leaders have set up their own
rather autonomous state and armed force that is anything other than benign.
"Wa leaders are known to run the world's largest drug cartels. They have
taken over the former heroin networks of Khun Sa, and built strong
trafficking ties with the Chinese triads," the Post reports. "They have
built this huge drug trafficking network behind the armed protection of the
Burmese dictators and with their personal approval."

Shouldn't this be of great concern to our foreign policy makers? Where do
terrorists get their money if not from the drug trade? Isn't the connection
between drug money and illegal arms sufficiently well established that
these happenings ought to be a red flag waving to signal our own security
gurus?

Perhaps the government in Iraq is not the only government that needs to be
removed!

Arthur C. Donart

Bangkok, Thailand

(permanent address, Thomson, Ill.)