Burma: Government, ethnic groups wage war on drugs

Burmese soldiers destroy an opium field in Shan State. Pic: AP.

With the poppy growing season underway in Burma UNODC has issued a report on opium production in the Southeast Asian nation as accounts come in of poppy fields being destroyed and drugs being seized by both the government and ethnic groups.

The report said that the area under poppy cultivation was about the same as 2013 but due to a reduction in yield per acre production was down 23 percent from 870 tons to 670 tons.

It said that as in previous years the majority of poppy cultivation 89 percent took place in Shan State, with Southern Shan State accounting for 44 percent, Eastern Shan State 30 percent and Northern Shan State 15 percent.

According to a report in the Shan Herald authorities have seized 30 billion kyats  (US$29 million) worth of drugs in 2,000 cases this year so far. Most of the arrests were in southern and northern Shan State, but they applied to all drugs, even though opium and yaba (amphetamine) were the most common seizures. So far this year the authorities announced that they have destroyed 9,838 acres (3,981 hectares) of poppy fields in Taunggyi, Loilem, and Kyaington districts in Shan State with Hopong, Pinlon, and Hsihseng Townships in Taunggyi District being the areas that had most poppy fields destroyed.

Sao Khun Sai leader of Shan Drug Watch (SDW) accused the government of only prosecuting drug dealers when it was advantageous to them.

He told Shan News: "The Burmese Government has been using the drug issue as a political weapon. When they pursue drug cases they do not arrest the main producers and distributors, they let them go free. Instead they arrest only small dealers."

This was neatly illustrated in another couple of Shan News stories. In the first one it was reported that Wai Shaw Yin, the leader of the southern Wa ethnic armed group, had all his legitimate businesses and personal assets frozen after pick-up trucks that he owned were stopped and found to be transporting opium. His older brother has a 2 million baht (approx. US$61,000) bounty on his head from the Thai government for dealing drugs.

A few weeks later Shan News reported that the opium seized in the pick-ups and the frozen businesses and assets actually belonged to a certain U Aik Lee and not to Wai Shaw Yin. According to the report the relationship between the two men is unknown, "but sources close to both men say that U Aik Lee was working for Wai Shaw Yin."

Unfortunately their real relationship to each other is unlikely to ever be known as U Aik Lee has disappeared and according to another source he has escaped to Thailand.

Apparently U Aik Lee had evaded the army by running away into a nearby orange orchard when they stopped the pick-ups carrying the opium. One villager found the escape suspicious saying: "It is unbelievable that U Aik Lee escaped. He was there when they all came from Mongton Village but he managed to escape in a nearby orange orchard, how did he manage to escape if he did not pay a bribe."

It seems as though deals have been done to conveniently shift the blame for the drugs away from Wai Shaw Yin and onto someone who, conveniently, is not in the country

This would have been politically expedient for The United Wa State Army (UWSA), which are trying to rehabilitate its previous reputation as the ethnic group most associated with drug production and dealing. In January 2005 a grand jury in New York indicted eight of the groups leaders, including their chief Bao Youxiang, on charges of heroin and amphetamine trafficking.

Now the group claims it has given up drug dealing. UWSA spokesperson Aung Myint told Irrawaddy: ""We, the UWSA, are wholeheartedly engaged in the fight against drug-dealing."

He also said: "For seven years since 2005, there have been no poppy fields and no poppy plants in our region. This has finished. That's why the world should recognize us." The UNODC report backs-up this assertion and says that despite looking they could find no evidence of poppy cultivation in Wa State.

That does not mean that the UWSA is not involved in opium cultivation in next-door Shan State.

According to a Transantional Institue report entitled 'Bouncing Back Relapse in the Golden Triangle' the UWSA "continued to be accused of involvement in production of heroin and especially of having switched to large-scale methamphetamine production."

The UNODC report says farmers stagger the planting of poppy over about a month with the majority having been planted by the end of October. As the poppy season gets under way, so the reports of poppy fields being destroyed increase.

Since the end of October there have been reports of the government destroying 20 acres of poppy fields in Demawso Township, Karenni State on October 23

Government officials destroyed poppy fields to the west of Pekon Township, Southern Shan State on November 14.

They destroyed a further 37 acres of poppy fields in Phruso Township, Karenni State in November.

But, it is not just the government that wants to be seen to be fighting against drugs. The Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) claims to have an an anti-drug policy and on December 8 the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) publicly burned 3 kg of raw opium, 4.5 kg of refined heroin, 4,224 amphetamine tablets and about 10 kg of precursor chemicals used in the production of amphetamine worth more than US$100,000.

Previously on September 27 the KIA Anti-Drug Committee had destroyed 26 kg of raw opium about 15 kg of heroin and some 60,000 amphetamine tablets. The KIA also claimed that even if it destroyed all the drugs in the territory under its control they would continue to be produced in government-controlled areas.

Whether these public drug destructions and anti-drug policies are having an effect is debatable as is the sincerity of such policies, regardless of who carries them out.

http://www.information.myanmaronlinecentre.com/burma-government-ethnic-groups-wage-war-on-drugs/