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Show WES yy es 8 LETTSOT t ESV UY SEES The Salt Lake Tribune NATION/WORLD Sunday, August 4, 1996 Ancient Chinese Trading Routes Now Heroin Trails BYKEITH B. RICHBURG “THE WASHINGTON POST RUILI, China — Burmese “businessmen” approach strangers with whispered offers of ruby and jade. Heavily made-up young prostitutes beckon male passers-by to red-lit upstairs cubicles. And along nearly every street and mud-caked alleyway, small walk-in clinies offer treatment for myriad sexually transmitted diseases. This frontier town,sinister andsleazy, is the Wild West of China’s rugged Yunnan Province, which borders Burma, Laos and Vietnam. For centuries, this mountainous region has been defined by its re- moteness — place to which Chinese emperors banished criminals and malcontents, where Marco Polo marveledat the “natives” who “eat the raw flesh of fowls, sheep, oxen and buffalo” and where World War II American intelligence operatives funneled arms to Chinese guerrillas along the Burma Road. These days, however, the ancient trading routes that traverse this inhospitable terrain are being used for trafficking in a more lucrative commodity: her- oin. Western drug-enforcementofficials say Yunnan Province has emerged as the mostimportant transshipment corridor for heroin produced in Burma — the source of the vast majority of heroin that reaches Widow Sues Insurers the streets of America’s cities from the drug-producing ‘“Goiden Triangle” region of Southeast Asia. Kazakhstan. The drug flow through China has had a devastating impact on southern border towns, promoting lawlessness, banditry and the concurrent problems drug agent. From laboratories in Burma's Kokang region — whereraw opium is refined into heroin — the drug of addiction, AIDS and prostitution. “You have rob- “Youlook at the seizures we've had,and it’s stuff coming from across southern China,” said one U.S. shipments leave Burma by truck or mule caravan and cross ‘thousands of miles of mountain trails to reach China. Once in Yunnan,the drugs are seat to the provincial capital, Kunming, for repackaging. Thetraffickers then have several options for moving it to markets in the West. Some of the heroin is moved overland to China's coastal Guangdong and Fujian provinces, where it is loaded onto ships. Someis sentby air freight to Hong Kong for later delivery in the United States. A fa- vored new route is over the newly opened border with Vietnam, giving access to ports at Haiphong, Danang and Ho Chi Minh City, as well as several airports. Typically, heroin coming out of China is hidden in containers along with legitimate cargo, such as food, textiles, plastic toys or other Chinese products headed for the United States. Drug-en- forcement officials say they have even discovered shipments Burmese heroin moving from Yunnan through Xinjiang Province in the northwest, from where it continues westward through Tajikistan or beries.A lot of these guys have guns. There are shootouts with police,” a U.S. law-enforcementofficial said. “It’s like Bogota, Colombia, for a thousand miles.” Oneof the main consequences of China’s new role as a heroin-trafficking center has been a surgein its addiction rates. When the Communists came to power in 1949, drug addiction in China was rampant, with opium widely used among rich and pooralike, according to the Beijing-based National Institute on Drug Dependence. But within a few years, drug ad- diction — andtrafficking — were virtually eliminated until at least 1979, when Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping ended decades of economic isolation and opened the world’s most populous country to commercial influences. By 1989, China reported having 70,000 drug addicts. The figure jumped to 380,000 in 1994 and 520,000 last year, according to Zheng Jiwang, professor of pharmacology with theinstitute. “This problem got moreserious following the years of China’s reforms, because there was a flow of drugs into Yunnan,” Zhengsaid in an interview in Beijing. Who Kept Awful Secret; ‘THE ASSOCIATED PRESS NEW ORLEANS — ForJody Deramus, the shock was finding out that her husband had AIDS. Her compa, anger came from: learning his life insurance ny had known he was infected — and steadfastly refused to tell him. 308 For18 crucial months before an independentdiag nosis revealed why he was getting sick so often, thé couple tried unsu to conceive a child, axDeramus to repeated unprotected sex. Her husbanddied in 1991. So far, she says, she bas tested negative for the virus — “a miracle,” as she puts it. In court papers, Jackson National has not said why it withheld the results — only that it was within iis rights to de so under Mississippi law. A U.S.district judge agreed, and dismissed the suit. i OfRA reations by Donna Karan NewYork, 0 Ralph Lauren, Giorgio Armani Lec zioni, Wenn, uchman, Vertigo and more SOMERTHES CY Ritiott Tickets are $10. Seating is limited; R.S.V.P by Tuesday to 322-4200, ext. 1350. Donna Karan New York bias-cut panne velvet evening dress, in sapphire: panne S@lvet Maxi-conl maroon. ta On Monday,the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal will consider whether Jackson National Life Insur ance Co. had the responsibility to tell Frank Deramus he had tested positive for the AIDS virus... Deramus, 53, who seeks unspecified damages, al; ready has lost before a Mississippi federal judge, who ruled the company had no duty to disclose results of a medical test used solely to determineinsurance eligibility. View runway modeling DKNY, Christian Dior, Idash, } Crossroads Plaza, in Collectors. |
