The following editorial was published by The Boston Globe on July 13:

As Secretary of State Colin Powell prepares to attend the Ministerial Meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations later this month in Hanoi, he would do well to follow the advice offered to him in a letter signed by 36 US senators. The letter urged Powell in "reaffirm US commitment to democracy and human rights in Burma."

This is not merely an idealistic stance that sounds good in a press release. Burma's military dictatorship is a major exporter of heroin, refugees, cross-border warfare, HIV/AIDS infections, and strategic threats to neighbors.

If Powell fails to place America four-square on the side of the oppressed people of Burma and of that country's anxious neighbors, he will inevitably raise doubts about Washington's reliability as a defender of stable development and the rule of law.

The junta thwarts the will of citizens who voted overwhelmingly in 1990 for the National League for Democracy, the political party of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. The generals have transformed what was a prosperous, highly literate country into an impoverished society intimidated by government informants.

The senators' letter, co-sponsored by Democrats Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Tom Harkin of Iowa as well as Republicans Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Jesse Helms of North Carolina, asks that Powell in Hanoi "address the production and transshipment of illicit drugs from Burma, including heroin and methamphetamines."

The wisdom of the senators' counsel ought to be evident. The regime of the generals running Burma has become a fountain spouting many of the transnational ills that haunt the contemporary world. The letter calls on Powell to raise the issue of hundreds of thousands of people from Burma who were forced to flee the depra-dations of the junta and seek refuge in Bangladesh or Thailand. The senators also "respectfully request" that Powell bring up "the twin evils of child and forced labor," suggesting that as a career soldier he must be particularly sensitive to the horror of Burma's "estimated 50,000 child soldiers, the highest number in the world."

Another ominous aspect of the junta's rule not mentioned in the senators' letter is the extent to which the military has made Burma a client state of Beijing. Not only does the junta spend obscene sums buying arms from China. It has also caused considerable concern in India by making Burma a platform for the projection of Chinese power in Asia.

Powell should seize the opportunity he will have in Hanoi to prod ASEAN countries to demand that the junta release imprisoned members of the National League for Democracy and conclude the current talks with Suu Kyi by permitting a revival of Burmese democracy.