Rohrabacher Seeks to Derail Myanmar Relations : Diplomacy: Congressman says evidence of officials’ drug connections should bar normal ties between U.S. and Asian nation.

WASHINGTON — Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) said Wednesday that he will use evidence of officially sanctioned drug dealing to try to derail efforts to normalize diplomatic relations between the United States and the military regime in Myanmar.

Rather than improving relations with the military rulers of Myanmar, the Southeast Asian nation formerly known as Burma, Rohrabacher said the U.S. government should “relegate them to gangster status.”

Rohrabacher returned to California Wednesday from a 10-day, officially sponsored trip to Thailand, Cambodia and Taiwan. The conservative Republican serves on the Asian affairs subcommittee of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and has been a longtime critic of the Myanmar regime.

In Cambodia, Rohrabacher said he observed preparations for the first general election since Vietnam invaded the country in 1978, ousting the Khmer Rouge government. The Khmer Rouge has been blamed for a reign of terror in the 1970s in which more than 1 million Cambodians died.

Rohrabacher said the large field of candidates for Cambodian president includes at least one Californian and a former constituent--Ted Ngoy, a political activist and onetime “Doughnut King” of Long Beach.

But it was the military rulers in Myanmar who drew most of Rohrabacher’s attention. During the visit, the congressman said he traveled in northern Thailand, close to the border with Myanmar, and spoke with local journalists and informants for U.S. intelligence agencies. They offered eyewitness accounts suggesting that Myanmar’s military rulers have profited from the heroin trade in the so-called Golden Triangle, the congressman said.

“It is a joke to them that anybody is suggesting the Burmese regime is not directly involved in the organized drug trade,” Rohrabacher said. “This is laughable to them.”

That alone should be enough to block efforts by some in Congress to move closer to the Myanmar government, the congressman said.

The rapprochement so far has been incremental. For example, a delegation led by the Myanmar minister of livestock earlier this week left for a tour of U.S. fisheries--the first high-level visit of Myanmar officials to the United States since the military seized power on Sept. 18, 1988.

Rohrabacher said he was particularly incensed by recent remarks made by fellow congressional Republicans suggesting that the United States should adopt a softer line in dealing with the military rulers in Myanmar.

Referring to Rep. Nancy Johnson (R-Conn.), who recently returned from the Southeast Asian nation, Rohrabacher said: “She was telling us that she was having lunch with (a) general’s wife” who later escorted Johnson to a government-sponsored lecture on health care.

“That’s like saying, ‘I spent a nice afternoon at tea with Mrs. Himmler.’ ”

A spokeswoman for Johnson said her office would have no immediate comment.

Rohrabacher said he will present his findings to members of the Foreign Affairs Committee, which recently held hearings on U.S. relations with the Myanmar government.

Rohrabacher also said he spent time at the border with members of the Karenni ethnic minority, which has been the target of attacks by Myanmar troops. Rohrabacher caused a stir shortly after his election to Congress in 1988 when he made an unsanctioned trip into Myanmar to meet with Burmese resistance fighters. The congressman said he stayed on the Thai side of the border this trip.