Asian Nation Lets Heroin Flood West, U.S. Says
A senior U.S. official accused the government of Myanmar on Monday of allowing drug lords in the Golden Triangle to flood the West with record quantities of heroin.
“Evidence indicates that the government (of Myanmar, formerly Burma) has a sort of collusive relationship with some of the traffickers and is allowing them in some kind of bargained way to go ahead unfettered,” Assistant Secretary of State Melvyn Levitsky told a news conference.
He said the Bush Administration wanted to renew the battle against the Asian heroin trade after targeting Latin America’s cocaine barons.
“We are beginning to devise a strategy,” he said, adding that there had been an explosion of heroin production in Myanmar during the past year.
Levitsky said the Golden Triangle, a mountainous area where the borders of Laos, Thailand and Myanmar converge, is now the world’s leading source of heroin.
Levitsky, who will visit Laos, India and Pakistan after Thailand, said the Drug Enforcement Administration is still willing to cooperate with Myanmar in fighting the drug trade, despite the 1988 military takeover of the country.
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