Don Pathan
Irrawaddy/Transnational Institute
October 2005
This year’s international anti-drugs day was supposed to be a special occasion for the United Wa State Army, reputedly the world’s largest armed drug trafficking group.
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| Wa opium farmers, outskirts of Panghsang, last cultivation season. |
Opium would from now on be prohibited in the UWSA-controlled region, officially known as Special Region 2. The UWSA planned to announce that this past season was the last opium harvest for the poor farmers who for generations had grown poppy because there was nothing much else they could cultivate in this mountainous region. Hundreds of invitations were sent out to various international agencies and VIPs, but there was one slight problem. The language wasn’t right.
The Burmese government didn’t have anything against the fact that the invitation cards were written in Chinese. What irked the generals in Rangoon was that the invitation for the event, which was supposed to coincide with the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking on June 26, explicitly stated that the host of this event was the "Government of the Wa State".
For the generals in Rangoon, there is only one government in Burma. And so they called off what was to be an historic event for the Wa and possibly a turning point in the history of Burma’s opium politics. The wording on the invitation cards was the UWSA’s way of telling the junta that Special Region 2—together with areas along the Thai border that they had taken from former drug warlord Khun Sa after they defeated his Mong Tai Army in 1996—was their turf.
Today more than ever, according to one UWSA official, the Burmese junta has to be reminded of this reality because the status quo that defined their relations is resting on very shaky ground. Since the ouster of former prime minister Khin Nyunt, who had orchestrated a series of ceasefire deals with armed ethnic groups like the UWSA, Burmese army commander Deputy Snr-Gen Maung Aye and junta chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe had made a concerted effort to redefine Rangoon’s relationship with the ethnic armies.
One of the stipulations placed upon the UWSA, said a Wa official and a commander of a Thai army unit monitoring the border area, is that Burmese government troops can enter any of the autonomous regions they please without prior approval or having to be disarmed and escorted. So far three relatively small ceasefire groups have taken part in a staged and well-publicized ceremony that saw their troops surrendering their weapons to Burmese government officials.
But the real targets, observers said, were major armed groups like the Wa, Kokang Chinese, Chin and Kachin, all of whom control their own territory and in one way or another benefit from the lucrative drug trade. Rangoon turned up the heat last December when it dispatched 10 separate units of up to 10 men each to the UWSA’s Special Region 2. Officially it was supposed to be a geographical survey, but Thai military officials monitoring the situation think they were there to map out a plan of attack. The UWSA reluctantly agreed to the request but on condition that the Burmese officials disarm and that Wa officials escort them.
What concerns Thailand and China is that Rangoon’s efforts to demilitarize the ceasefire groups could turn the clock back to the days when all armed groups were fighting against the Burmese or among themselves to stake their claim. An all-out battle between the Burmese and the Wa, they said, could send hundreds of thousands of displaced opium farmers as refugees into neighboring Thailand and China.
Rangoon’s decision to snub the June 26 drug-burning ceremony in Panghsang was further evidence that nothing comes easy in trouble-plagued Burma. Historically, relations between the junta and the country’s armed ethnic minorities have never been smooth. Burma-watchers say many people tend to mistake the "ceasefire" agreement for a permanent peace.
Since the opium-free announcement on World Drug Day failed to resound internationally, it can be speculated whether the Wa will go back on their assurance that 2005 will be the last year for opium cultivation, or whether they intended to initiate the ban at all.
A Chinese officer monitoring the border said that China, like Thailand, is concerned that starving opium-farmers may seek to resettle on their side of the border where sizeable Wa communities are scattered. Some Thai officials believe the UWSA will churn out more methamphetamine tablets, or ya ba, to make up for the losses from the opium ban if it is actually enforced.
Rangoon bears much of the responsibility for the situation, having adopted a laissez faire policy during the past 16 years rather than making meaningful efforts to change the status quo. Groups like the UWSA used this time to strengthen themselves strategically and formulate their own foreign policy, hoping to legitimize themselves in the international community.
UWSA chairman Bao Yu-xiang has called on the UN and other international agencies to help with crop substitution, while Rangoon has put the plight of the poor opium farmers in its own formulation of an opium policy.
For the UWSA leadership, a further major setback occurred earlier this year when a US federal court charged eight UWSA leaders, including Bao and seven of his lieutenants, with drug trafficking. Although it was billed as an inevitable occurrence, the indictment in absentia of the Wa leaders jolted not only the Burmese government but the Thai and Chinese as well. UWSA investments are largely placed in neighboring countries, especially China’s Yunnan Province and the northern region of Thailand.
Bao’s indictment came as he expressed confidence that he had been making headway in his quest to be recognized as running a legitimate organization. In one interview, he even said "you can have my head" if 2005 is not the last year for opium cultivation.
As part of his effort to win legitimacy, Bao opened up his region to foreign envoys and aid workers, persuaded the UN to set up a small crop-substitution project and threatened to punish farmers in his territory if they continued to grow opium after this year. He even managed to obtain from the Thai government a 20 million baht (US $500,000) contribution towards an alternative crop scheme, the Yong Kha Development Project, with the help of then Burmese prime minister Khin Nyunt. But when the US federal court charges were announced, Bao’s dream of having the UWSA accepted internationally as a legitimate outfit went out the window.
The US indictments were also embarrassing for Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who had given the UWSA the benefit of the doubt when dispatching then Third Army Region commander Lt-Gen Picharnmate Muangmanee to participate in the opening ceremony for a Thai-funded school in Wa territory in December 2003.
Thaksin reached out to the Wa despite having publicly declared war on Wei Hsueh-Kang, one of the UWSA commanders wanted in Thailand as a suspected drug lord. Thaksin has said he will take down Wei one day, dead or alive, while Thai troops are reportedly clashing regularly with Wa soldiers along the border.
For a brief moment at the opening ceremony of the Yong Kha Project, it looked as if things would change for the better in the region. But nobody seriously believed the good times would last. After all, that particular event in December 2003 had more to do with whitewashing the world’s largest drug-trafficking army—and strengthening Thai-Burmese relations—than it did with the interests of Wa peasants or any long-term peace settlement.
Throughout the entire kiss-and-make-up episode between the Thais and the Wa, Wei and his gang continued to run their drug-funded businesses through his associates in Burma, China and Thailand, while heroin and methamphetamine coming out of clandestine laboratories in Wa-controlled areas continued to flood world markets.
Today, a cloud of uncertainty hangs over Burma’s sector of the Golden Triangle as Wa leaders and others wonder what is in store for the stake holders. The future does not look bright.
Don Pathan is editor of the regional desk at The Nation, Thailand’s independent English language daily newspaper.
https://www.tni.org/my/node/11707
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