SMALL VICTORIES ARE RECORDED IN BURMESE WAR ON DRUGS

YANGON, Myanmar - Heave tons of sacks of opium, heroin, marijuana and other
illegal drugs into an outdoor furnace and the result is a tower of black
smoke that rises over this green and rain-washed city for hours.The bonfire
in late June was proof, an official told assembled diplomats, that Myanmar
was waging a heroic war on drugs, "considering that we receive almost zero
assistance from the international community for our efforts."

"We have to believe that they will meet the deadline," said Col. Kyaw
Thein, the top drug enforcement official here. A crackdown on drug
producers and traffickers is one of a set of criteria imposed by the United
States as a requirement for counternarcotics assistance, which would come
mainly in the form of training.

Colonel Kyaw Thein acknowledged that, according to the State Department,
Myanmar had "failed demonstrably" to act as a "responsible state" in
combating the drug trade. It is one of only three countries, along with
Afghanistan and Haiti, in that category.

Foreign help is essential, Mr. Lemahieu, the United Nations expert, said,
if Myanmar's drug eradication program is to succeed.

"It is a very good effort, a very good step in the right direction," he
said. "But we don't need one step; we need 1,000 steps. But who will
implement them? Who is skilled here?"

Simply cutting production is not enough; crop substitution programs are
needed to give farmers a new livelihood, and that is no easy matter, he
said. Production fell by 80 percent or more in Afghanistan when growing
poppies was banned last year by the Taliban government, but it is now
quickly rising again.

Current crop substitution programs here offer farmers an income of only
about 20 percent of their earnings from poppies, said Colonel Dibrell, the
American attache.

Responding to critics who say the West should remain disengaged from
Myanmar because of its human rights record, Mr. Lemahieu argued that
assistance in narcotics control also amounted to assistance in transition
to a democratic government.

The drug trade fuels an unofficial economy and enriches an underworld that
has a stake in maintaining the status quo, he said. It subsidizes ethnic
insurgencies that have caused continuing instability that makes political
change difficult.

It also creates instability in the region, contributing to tensions and
violence along the border with Thailand, an area where drug cartels engage
in jungle warfare.

"If you want to have political transition, you need to tackle drugs," Mr.
Lemahieu said. "If you want to work on regional security you will have to
tackle drugs."