TNAG-0560-FCO40-655-Review-of-narcotics-problem-in-Hong-Kong-1975 — Page 24

E.R.

REGISTRY No: 50.

EVED

RECEIVED INter

27 MARCISTRY No. 14

NOTE FOR THE RECORD

25 AM 1975

17 19/1

ん

Worldsmit

R25/3 Armour

Mr Mar Phon

il mack to te dots

Teessay

Mr Adrian Cowell called upon me at his request on Thursday 13 March to report on his meetings in Thailand and in Hong Kong at which the possibility of buying opium grown in Burma was discussed. He told me little that I did not already know either from Mr Rolph or from the tape recording of the meeting in Thailand between Congressman Woolf and representatives of the various organisations within the Shan State. The following points are perhaps of some interest and I am setting them down for the record.

A

The meeting took place in a hotel in Bangkok. There were three groups from the Shan State represented: the Shan United Army, the Shan State Army (Eastern) and the Shan State Army. Of these the first group is the largest mover of opium in the area and the last is the political group which has close contact with the comm- unists. Mr Cowell said that the communists control the growth of about half the opium and that without at least the chivance of the communists no progress towards controlling opium growth in the area will be made. Apparently, the Shan United Army had had an unofficial approach from the Burmese Government for the purpose of buying small amounts of opium, but it was Cowell's view that little progress can at present be made on these lines because the communists will have nothing to do with the Burmese Government. Also present at the meeting beside the Congressman whom we had identified from the tape was an American anthropologist called David Finegold who has worked in the tributal areas in Burma (he was the unidentified American voice on the tape). It is Cowell's view that there will be no point in attempting to buy opium from the Shan State unless there was a possibility in the long term of developing a crop substitution programme, and it was necessary for that purpose to know a great deal more about the customs of the tribal people in the area. There was some thought being given (by an unspecified group of Americans) to mounting an anthropological study in the area. This would not be got off the ground unless the proposals for buying Shan State opiumlore.fruit. The programme that the Shan State representatives had provisionally agreed with Cong- dressman Woolf, subject to his being able to sell it to the Americans

which seems highly unlikely so far as I could judge from my dis- cussions in Geneva with Ambassador Vance), was that by 1 May the Shans would produce for sale a token one ton of opium. If a deal was done on this there would then be a conference of all the interested Shan State groups, the border with the Americans sometime in July to clinch the deal. Cowell told me that Woolf was at present attempting to sell this idea to the State Department in Washington and that he (Cowell) had the impression that Woolf does not at present carry enough weight in Congress to influence State Department policy.

statiment/

aj

Cowell reported briefly on his visit to Hong Kong. He had found it most useful, but he seemed in no doubt that the Hong Kong Govern- ment was extremely cool to what was being proposed. He told me that he had the impression that Congressman Woolf would like the moral support of the Hong Kong Government.

1

i