The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia

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Moderator
Mr. Joshua Laub
Drugs and National Security Colloquium

Interlocutor
Mr. James Van Wert (Conditional)

Panelists

The Shan Frontier: Exploitation and Eradication

Burma: Indigenous Peoples Mired in 'Foreign Mud'
Ms. Edith T. Mirante
An artist and writer, as director of Project Maje, an independent information project on the political situation in Burma, particularly the frontier war and related narcotics and human rights issues, she produced the human rights survey summarized in the report, I am still alive: Report of a Survey on Human Rights Abuse in Frontier Areas of Burma, 1983-1986.

My Visit to an Opium Warlord
Mr. Joseph Nellis
The former Chief Counsel of the House of Representatives Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control, he traveled to the "Golden Triangle" to arrange a preemptive buy of the annual opium harvest with Khun Sa, considered the "opium warlord" of Southeast Asia. The former General Counsel to the House of Representatives' Committee on the Judiciary, Nellis was an associate Chief Counsel for the Kefauver Committee on organized crime.

The CIA, Government-Gang Symbiosis in Southeast Asia: Why The Drugs Traffic Continues
Dr. Peter Dale-Scott
A former Canadian diplomat now teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, he concentrated on the contras and narcotics matters as a Senior Fellow at the International Center for development Policy in 1987. He has been a witness before a closed Executive session of the House Select Committee on Narcotics and has authored The war Conspiracy: the Secret Found at the Second Indochina War and the Iran Contra Connection: Secret Teams and Covert Operations in the Reagan Era.

Drug Trafficking in Burma
Mr. Jon Wiant
The Director of Intelligence Policy for the National Security Council, specifically tasked with counterterrorism and counternarcotics matters, he is an expert on Southeast Asia particularly Burma. He was formerly the coordinator of narcotics intelligence for the State Department.

This panel includes the screening of the Opium Warlords documentary directed by Adrian Cowell and filmed by Oscar-Winning cinematographer Chris Menges (The Killing Fields)