0003160 G.F. 316
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Rangoon, indicated his willingness at a suitable opportunity to follow up his previous unofficial remarks to the Burmese about the advantages of accepting a U.N. crop substitution project by mentioning to them the seriousness of Hong Kong's drug problem and the visit to him recently of Hong Kong's Commissioner for Narcotics in this connection. This would appear to be about as far as one can go with profit in Rangoon just now. It will bo for consideration as to whether this low-key type of approach should be followed up in some way in London or at the United Nations, or both.
10.
The one country Burma fears is China and with good reason having regard their common frontier of over one thousand miles and Burma's inability to control its side along much of its longth. It is the fear of China as much as anything else which is responsible for the Burmese policy of strict neutrality and minimal international involvement. If China adheres to the 1961 Single Convention which is not unlikely and starts to play an active role in the international community effort to stop illicit drug trafficking perhaps by way of being seated in the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs and in the Inter- national Narcotics Control Board inter alia, then it may be prepared to lean on Burma to accept substantial aid (at a price no doubt) to clean up more meaningfully its illicit opium and related problems. But that is for the future. There is no indication at the moment that illicit opium production and trafficking has ceased in those areas of the Shan State under Communist White Flag control. Perhaps the best spur to getting the Burmese to take more seriously and to treat more urgently the suppression of illicit opium production and trafficking in the country will be the increasing evidence coming to light of opiate addiction amongst sections of the Burmese population, particularly amongst young people, hitherto believed to be unaffected.
Laos
11.
The principal opium growing areas in Laos are in those regions of the country now controlled by the Communist Pathet Lao and therefore beyond the reach of the Royal Lao Government. What attitude the Pathet Lao, or perhaps more important their North Vietnamese and Chinese masters, will take towards a return to traditional opium growing by hill tribesmen within its zone remains to be seen. It is to be hoped that the Pathet Lao will take firm measures to prevent a resumption of production, but at this stage one cannot be too sanguine. The answer to this riddle will have to wait until more stable conditions have returned to the country following a peace settlement.
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