Inter Press Service - Tuesday, November 10, 1998
Soe Myint

"New evidence from China and India suggests that Burmese heroin exports to those countries now pose similar risks to their peoples causing a public health crisis in those countries," says Southeast Asian Information Network (SAIN) in a recent report.

Roughly 80 percent of reported HIV infections in China are found along the Burmese border. The seven northeast Indian states face similar problems particularly the states of Manipur and Mizoram which share most of the 1,000 km border with Burma.

According to the Chiang Mai-based SAIN, the value of heroin trade along Burma's borders reached 1.2 billion in 1997 from 850 million dollars in 1995. In 1995-96, 163,100 hectares of poppy were cultivated in Burma, which can produce 2,560 metric tonnes of opium.

India-based Burmese pro-democracy groups say the drug smuggling has considerably increased since the opening of the India-Burma border trade in 1995. "Under the shadow of legal border trade, the fatal drug was smuggled. The drug barons felt encouraged to exploit the Indo-Burma border using the northeast Indian route for smuggling," a 1997 report stated.

Manipur state is the worst affected. With injectable heroin from the neighbouring so-called "Golden Triangle" in Burma flowing in through the porous 300-km border, there were 4,000 odd known cases of HIV among drug users by 1996.

Sentinel surveillance reports reveal an enormous problem: between 1994 and 1997 the sero-prevalence rate among injectable drug users shot up from 59.9 percent to 80.70 percent - one of the world's highest.

"Burma is the epicentre of the epidemic in Asia," cautioned Prof. John Dwyer, founding president of the AIDS Society of Asia and the Pacific in June last year. The U.S Central Intelligence Agency estimates that Burma now produces more than 50 percent of the world's raw opium, and refines as much as 75 percent of the world's heroin.

Anti-drug agencies say that opium production has more than doubled since 1988, when the present military regime of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) seized power in Burma. The local military authorities allow the cultivation in return for tax from the cultivators.

Testifying before the U.S House of Representatives on Sep. 28, Gare Smith, acting assistant secretary of Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour, in the State Department said, "there is evidence that corrupt elements in the military may be aiding the traffickers, and there are signs that the SPDC encourages traffickers to invest their ill-gotten gains in a multitude of development projects throughout the country."

It is hard to estimate the quantum of drug trafficking from Burma, but the excise commissioner in Mizoram confirms that a huge quantity was entering the state from Burma. Burmese army officials, he said, were involved in drug running. "Taking advantage of their official status, they carry drugs in official vehicles up to the border where they earn money from the smugglers," the official said.

India borders Burma's western districts of Chin, Sagaing and Naga where opium cultivation has reportedly widely increased with villagers who previously grew rice switching in the 1990s to opium cultivation. According to a villager from Chin state, the 80-odd households in his village are cultivating some 80 acres of opium fields.

With the increased cross-border smuggling, heroin use in neighbouring countries has gone up. In Manipur, for instance, one in five young Manipuris is hooked to heroin and the spread of the HIV/AIDS virus is rampant, mostly amongst drug addicts who share the same needles. Imphal, the state capital, is becoming the AIDS capital of the world.

According to Dr Khomdon Singh Lisam, Manipur state AIDS officer, by 2000, over 600 infected infants will be be born in Manipur and all of them will die of AIDS. Studies have shown that the subtypes of HIV identified in Manipur are those found in Burma (subtypes B and E of HIV-1) and not typical of the rest of the country where subtypes C, A and HIV-2 are predominant.

The number of HIV positive persons in India is currently estimated to be three million. According to a government report of August 1996, a random countrywide screening of 43,892 persons revealed 4,857 HIV positive cases, of which 153 had full-blown AIDS.

Mizoram state which shares about 400 km of international border with Burma, has also witnessed a spurt in drug smuggling and use. The excise commissioner of the state, in an interview in 1997, confirmed the increase in drug trafficking and drug- addiction among youngsters in the state.

A drug smuggler in Mizoram told IPS that one kg heroin sold for 400,000 rupees (roughly 10,000 dollars) on the India-Burma border. The margin of profit shot up to 2,500 dollars in Aizawl, the state capital which is 192 kms from the border and at least three or four times that in other mainland cities of India.

The United Nations Drug Control Programme is now in Rangoon, and has already drafted a programme with the military regime to eradicate the production of opium within 10 years. But it raises more questions than answers since the military junta is well known to benefit from the narcotics industry. (END/IPS/sm/an/98)
981110
IP981102

AEGiS presents published material, reprinted with permission and neither endorses nor opposes any material. All information contained on this website, including information relating to health conditions, products, and treatments, is for informational purposes only. It is often presented in summary or aggregate form. It is not meant to be a substitute for the advice provided by your own physician or other medical professionals. Always discuss treatment options with a doctor who specializes in treating HIV.

Copyright ©1980, 1998. AEGiS. All materials appearing on AEGiS are protected by copyright as a collective work or compilation under U.S. copyright and other laws and are the property of AEGiS, or the party credited as the provider of the content. .