Heroin-Burma Triangle
The extent of the heroin trade in Myanmar is staggering
ABC Australia travels to Burma, modern-day Myanmar, to investigate the complications of the country's heroin trade, which forms part of the so-called Golden Triangle. While government officials assert their attempts to eradicate the trade, they have also been accused of cooperating with heroin smugglers and producers. ABC talks to government officials, critics and local farmers on the controversial issue.
Myanmar, formally called Burma, forms part of the Golden Triangle, an area shared with Laos and Thailand, and one of the most notorious opium-producing regions of the world. SLORC, the military government in Burma which took control of the country in 1988, claims to be suppressing the trade, yet critics of the regime remain dubious. "Drug related corruption is endemic in all the countries around the Golden Triangle", claims Bertil Litner, a journalist and expert on Burma, "Burma, China, even Laos, vast quantities of heroin go through those countries with official complicity." Yet alleged government involvement is not the only thing preventing the trade's suppression; many tribes and farmers rely on the trade to earn a living, with some risking fines in order to continue their poppy farms. ABC travels to the trading town of Mandalay, north on the Burma road to the military stronghold of Lashio, and then on to a remote area in the Golden Triangle, in its investigation of heroine within Burma.
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Produced by ABC Australia