CONFIDENTIAL #2
機密
resources are approximately US $10 million, the greater part provided by the United States. The Fund's major present commitment is a comprehensive programme in Thailand, a principal component of which is an opium crop substitution and community development project in the north of the country in the mountain regions where the opium poppy is grown. It is to run for 5 years in the first instance from 1972. Burma also has decided recently to accept U.N. assistance to begin a pilot opium crop replacement scheme, whilst in Laos the United States is engaged in projects of a similar nature. Valuable though these programmes are, they cannot be expected to make a quick impact on the large amount of illicit opium production in the region with the present resources and at the current rate of progress.
Transportation
25.
Opium exported from the golden triangle is convoyed out of the area by buyers and traffickers to the seaboard on the Gulf of Thailand, generally in the vicinity of Bangkok. Since the "Special Narcotics Operation Northern Thailand" was mounted in April 1972, these southbound drug convoys have suffered considerable losses to the Thai security forces. Recent vigorous law enforcement action throughout Thailand has added to these losses, resulting in key arrests and large seizures. Operations by the Burmese Army near the border with Thailand and two huge hauls at sea off the coast of South Vietnam have also hit the traffickers hard. These notable successes, together with those of the Police Force and Freventive Service locally, caused late last year a shortage of opium products in Hong Kong and a sharp rise in prices on the local market.
G. F. 323
CONFIDENTIAL ## 機密
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