Promotion of drug kingpin looms large over wa army's outside relations

Don Pathan
The Nation

Something has got into drug kingpin Wei Hsueh-kang, the notorious opium warlord who controls a sizeable army near Thailand's northern border.

According to Chinese and Thai military sources and others monitoring the notorious Golden Triangle, Commander Wei is hoping he will be selected to the topmost position in the United Wa State Army (UWSA), one of Burma's ceasefire groups responsible for flooding Thailand with methamphetamines and the world with pure-white grade four heroin.

If that happens, Wei would replace ailing UWSA chairman Bao Yu-xiang, who runs the 20,000-strong army out of Panghsang, a small town on the Sino-Burmese border.

The Bao and the Wei families, while part of the UWSA structure, have historically been rivals. But they need each other in order to maintain their bargaining leverage with the Burmese government with whom they entered a cease-fire agreement in 1989.

Wei and his brothers have a firm grip on the Wa troops along the Thai border, an area commonly referred to as the South Wa region, while the Bao siblings control the area along the Chinese border, officially known as Special Region Two.

Since early 2000, Bao has shown signs of being willing to leave the trade, but in exchange for some sort of recognition from the international community, particularly from Thailand.

Bao even ceased opium cultivation in 2005 as a gesture of goodwill. But nobody took him seriously as millions of methamphetamine tablets coming from Wa-controlled areas continued to flood Thailand on a weekly basis. The opium harvest can be monitored by satellite images and quantified accordingly, but that is not the case with the clandestine labs pumping out so-called yaa-baa.

Over the past couple of years, chairman Bao has been in and out of the hospital because of various illnesses. His brother Yu-yee, who used to command a Wa battalion near the Thai border when Wei had a run-in with Burmese Army commander Maung Aye in early 2001, has the potential to replace Bao.

But the extent of his influence in the so-called South Wa region near the Thai border is nothing compared to that of Wei Hsueh-kang and his brothers.

Besides the rivalries between the two families, the UWSA itself is a problem - a global one at that. 

Wei has long been on the list of America's most-wanted criminals ever since an indictment was filed against him in 1993 in the New York Federal Court accusing him of conspiring to distribute heroin to the United States. The US has placed a US$2 million(Bt66.8million) reward on his head. A Thai court sentenced him to death in 1997 on similar charges.

In January of 2005, the year that the UWSA announced it would put an end to its opium cultivation, the US Department of Justice charged seven more Wa leaders - including the three Bao brothers and two of Wei's siblings - with drug trafficking. Thai and Chinese narcotic officials were irked by the move, saying the charges against the Bao brothers really tied their hands.

Prior to the US charges being laid in January 2005, the Thais and the Chinese had been toying with various options in their dealings with the UWSA. While the Chinese saw Bao as someone they could deal with, whether clandestinely or otherwise, the Thai side wanted to pit the two families against one another.

Officials from Thailand's Office of the Narcotics Control Board said they were willing to let bygones be bygones and turn a new leaf in their relations with the UWSA if the organisation quit the drug trade.

This would have been a leap of faith indeed, considering how Wa militias and Thai soldiers have a history of engaging in bloody clashes along the border.

However, Thailand can't compromise on Wei because of legal implications, the officer added. In early 2003, the Thai Army even tried to split the UWSA by negotiating directly with Wei Sai-tang, a Wa commander who, like Hsueh-kang, controls a battalion in the South Wa region near the Thai border.

"Sai-tang was a nationalist and didn't think highly of the 'White Wa' - the Wei brothers. They were called white because they were ethnic Chinese," said a Thai intelligence source who had direct dealings with Sai-tang.

In exchange for parting with the UWSA, the Thai Army would provide Sai-tang's outfit with an economic and military lifeline from Thailand.

In this connection, Sai-tang would cleanse himself of the UWSA's past and effectively become a Thai proxy in the rugged hills of the Golden Triangle, a deadly region where everybody plays for keeps.

But when news got out, Hsueh-kang and Yu-xiang acted quickly. They whisked Sai-tang away from the Thai border and locked him up in Panghsang. He was charged with, among other things, producing illicit

drugs and fake banknotes.

Bao went ahead anyway and tried hard to befriend the international community. He allowed international NGOs to work inside Wa territory and public health and crop substitution projects, and reached out to UN agencies and foreign journalists.

While the Chinese and the Thais were willing to give Bao - not Wei - the benefit of the doubt, Washington didn't care to make the distinction between an opium warlord who wanted to kick the habit and a kingpin who didn't have much to lose.

But with an ailing Bao Yu-xiang's days numbered, the issue of succession has become a hot topic. Thai officials said they could forget about any future talk with the UWSA if Wei takes over. Chinese officials echoed the same sentiment. They said future dealings with the UWSA would be extremely difficult, given the US indictments.

For the time being, all eyes are on Xiao Ming-lien, the deputy chairman of the UWSA. "What's important is that Ming-lien is not on the US Department of  Justice's wanted list," said the Thai military officer. "There would still be some breathing room," he added.

Both sides see Ming-lien as clean. But that, too, could be a problem. Without drugs, Ming-lien has no money. Without money, he has no army.

Promotion of drug kingpin looms large over Wa army's outside relations

Don Pathan
The Nation

Published on July 22, 2008

Something has got into drug kingpin Wei Hsueh-kang, the notorious opium warlord who controls a sizeable army near Thailand's northern border.

According to Chinese and Thai military sources and others monitoring the notorious Golden Triangle, Commander Wei is hoping he will be selected to the topmost position in the United Wa State Army (UWSA), one of Burma's ceasefire groups responsible for flooding Thailand with methamphetamines and the world with pure-white grade four heroin.

If that happens, Wei would replace ailing UWSA chairman Bao Yu-xiang, who runs the 20,000-strong army out of Panghsang, a small town on the Sino-Burmese border.

The Bao and the Wei families, while part of the UWSA structure, have historically been rivals. But they need each other in order to maintain their bargaining leverage with the Burmese government with whom they entered a cease-fire agreement in 1989.

Wei and his brothers have a firm grip on the Wa troops along the Thai border, an area commonly referred to as the South Wa region, while the Bao siblings control the area along the Chinese border, officially known as Special Region Two.

Since early 2000, Bao has shown signs of being willing to leave the trade, but in exchange for some sort of recognition from the international community, particularly from Thailand.

Bao even ceased opium cultivation in 2005 as a gesture of goodwill. But nobody took him seriously as millions of methamphetamine tablets coming from Wa-controlled areas continued to flood Thailand on a weekly basis. The opium harvest can be monitored by satellite images and quantified accordingly, but that is not the case with the clandestine labs pumping out so-called yaa-baa.

Over the past couple of years, chairman Bao has been in and out of hospital because of various illnesses. His brother Yu-yee, who used to command a Wa battalion near the Thai border when Wei had a run-in with Burmese Army commander Maung Aye in early 2001, has the potential to replace Bao.

But the extent of his influence in the so-called South Wa region near the Thai border is nothing compared to that of Wei Hsueh-kang and his brothers.

Besides the rivalries between the two families, the UWSA itself is a problem - a global one at that.

Wei has long been on the list of America's most-wanted criminals ever since an indictment was filed against him in 1993 in the New YorkFederal Court accusing him of conspiring to distribute heroin to the United States. The US has placed a US$2 million(Bt66.8million) reward on his head. A Thai court sentenced him to death in 1997 on similar charges.

In January of 2005, the year that the UWSA announced it would put an end to its opium cultivation, the US Department of Justice charged seven more Wa leaders - including the three Bao brothers and two of Wei's siblings - with drug trafficking.

Thai and Chinese narcotic officials were irked by the move, saying the charges against the Bao brothers really tied their hands.

Prior to the US charges being laid in January 2005, the Thais and the Chinese had been toying with various options in their dealings with the UWSA. While the Chinese saw Bao as someone they could deal with, whether clandestinely or otherwise, the Thai side wanted to pit the two families against one another.

Officials from Thailand's Office of the Narcotics Control Board said they were willing to let bygones be bygones and turn a new leaf in their relations with the UWSA if the organization quit the drug trade. This would have been a leap of faith indeed, considering how Wa militias and Thai soldiers have a history of engaging in bloody clashes along the border. However, Thailand can't compromise on Wei because of legal implications, the officer added.

In early 2003, the Thai Army even tried to split the UWSA by negotiating directly with Wei Sai-tang, a Wa commander who, like Hsueh-kang, controls a battalion in the South Wa region near the Thai border.

"Sai-tang was a nationalist and didn't think highly of the 'White Wa'- the Wei brothers. They were called white because they were ethnic Chinese," said a Thai intelligence source who had direct dealings with Sai-tang.

In exchange for parting with the UWSA, the Thai Army would provide Sai-tang's outfit with an economic and military lifeline from Thailand.

In this connection, Sai-tang would cleanse himself of the UWSA's past and effectively become a Thai proxy in the rugged hills of the Golden Triangle, a deadly region where everybody plays for keeps.

But when the news got out, Hsueh-kang and Yu-xiang acted quickly. They whisked Sai-tang away from the Thai border and locked him up in Panghsang. He was charged with, among other things, producing illicit drugs and fake banknotes.

Bao went ahead anyway and tried hard to befriend the international community. He allowed international NGOs to work inside Wa territory and public health and crop substitution projects, and reached out to UN agencies and foreign journalists.

While the Chinese and the Thais were willing to give Bao - not Wei - the benefit of the doubt, Washington didn't care to make the distinction between an opium warlord who wants to kick the habit and a kingpin who didn't have much to lose.

But with an ailing Bao Yu-xiang's days numbered, the issue of succession has become a hot topic.

Thai officials said they could forget about any future talk with the UWSA if Wei takes over.

Chinese officials echoed the same sentiment. They said future dealings with the UWSA would be extremely difficult, given the US indictments.

For the time being, all eyes are on Xiao Ming-lien, the deputy chairman of the UWSA.

"What's important is that Ming-lien is not on the US Department of Justice's wanted list," said the Thai military officer. "There would still be some breathing room," he added.

Both sides see Ming-lien as clean. But that, too, could be a problem. Without drugs, Ming-lien has no money. Without money, he has no army.

Ceasefire in south is just too good to be true

No one seems to know what to make of it, but the videotaped statement 
that was aired on Army-run Channel 5 generated a great deal of debate 
as to what the future holds.

By Don Pathan
The Nation

Just about all parties agree the whole thing is just too weird. A
group of men in fake beards and moustaches, one of them donning Blues
Brothers-style dark glasses, announcing an end to 100 years of armed
struggle for the independence of the Malay historical homeland
situated in Thailand's southernmost provinces.

No conditions were made. They just got tired of fighting and wanted to
live in peace. Those who refused the order would be considered a
renegade and subject to elimination, the head honcho said.

Immediately after the release of the videotaped statement, former Army
chief General Chettha Thanajaro, the man who claimed credit for
brokering an end to the violence, became the butt of jokes as attacks
in the deep South continued unabated.

Chettha thought he could conveniently put the onus on the militants
who refused to put down their weapons, simply because their
self-proclaimed leaders, who would not even make known their names or
organisation, said they had to quit.

Naturally, the identity of the three men immediately became an issue.
In order to trust them, one must know how much weight they carry with
the militants on the ground.

Army chief General Anupong Paochinda, while distancing himself from
the failed publicity stunt, identified the "leader" as Malipeng Khan,
a former insurgent commander who was active from 1984-87.

But then again, just about every separatist was active during that
time; it was the height of the insurgency of the previous generation
of militants.

Like Anupong, the foreign-affairs chief of the Patani United
Liberation Organisation, Kasturi Mahkota, immediately distanced
himself from the three men.

Others, speaking on condition of anonymity - one Army officer and an
exiled leader, both of whom have directly dealt with Malipeng -
dismissed Anupong's statement. "It was based on a decades-old photo of
Malipeng. The guy in the video looked like Malipeng, so they simply
assumed it was him," said the officer.

At first glance, it was clear someone with strong Thai nationalist
leanings prepared the script for the man. One exiled Patani-Malay
leader said the whole thing was a bit "insulting". The speaker made no
reference to "Patani", the historical Malay homeland.

Moreover, he was speaking standard Malay, not the local Patani
dialect. The flag was just as mysterious.

"Why would anyone listen to them? They don't even know them. This was
just bad drama," the exiled leader said.

There is concern among various quarters the incident could damage a
secret dialogue between the Army and exiled leaders of long-standing
separatist groups.

This "pre-talk" stage is delicate and could be politically costly if
the process is not treated with care. Moreover, given how Thailand's
top brass and others reacted to Thursday's announcement, it is clear
that Thailand's security architects have yet to come to a consensus on
the very idea of talking to the insurgents.

There is no indication this unofficial pretalk stage will evolve into
formal peace talks anytime soon.

Then-prime minister Surayud Chulanont, during a May 2007 visit to
Yala, told a press conference he had received "positive feedback" from
an ongoing "dialogue" with separatist groups.

But what Chettha did was try to take a short cut to the solution
instead of telling the people that reconciling with the Patani Malays
would come with a price. He will have to ask them if they can live
with the fact that not all of the people embrace the values and
principles that define Thailand's nation-state.

The fact that Chettha jumped the gun shows that the former Army chief
has little understanding or gives little consideration to the
sensitivity of this issue that for much of the past century has pitted
the Malay-speaking community against the Thai state.

Desperately seeking a drug-smuggling warlord

Don Pathan
The Nation

For some weeks now Interior Minister Chalerm Yoobamrung has been talking about his connection with Ai Joe, a mysterious figure who supposedly handles Wei Hsueh-kang's drug money.

Wei is a top commander in the 20,000-strong United Wa State Army (UWSA), dubbed the world's largest armed drug- trafficking army by the US government. His battalion controls a sizeable chunk of land adjacent to the northern Thai border with Burma, where he churns out millions of methamphetamine pills on a weekly basis, not to mention some of the world's finest grade-four heroin.

No one outside the Wa territory knows who Ai Joe really is or what he looks like. The only thing we know about Ai Joe, if Chalerm is to be trusted, is that he is an acquaintance of Duang, the Interior chief's son. Chalerm said Duang and Ai Joe had, over the past five years, established enough rapport to serve as the basis for possible negotiations.

Chalerm's idea is to send his son to seek a possible way out for Wei, with the hope that this could pave the way for the beginning of the end of illicit drugs coming into Thailand from the Burmese side of the border.

The idea is to get Wei to kick the habit in exchange for some sort of economic assistance from Thailand. For Chalerm, the idea has a noble ring to it: by helping them, we help ourselves.

Burma watchers, especially those keeping a close watch on the opium trade and the rebel insurgency in the Burmese sector of the Golden Triangle, are scratching their heads as to what to make of Chalerm's proposal. It's not so much a question of Chalerm's credibility. The doubt tends to centre on the merit of the proposal itself.

First of all, Chalerm doesn't seem to mind the fact that Wei is one of America's most wanted persons, with a reward tag of US$2 million(Bt67,500,000). He jumped bail in Thailand in 1987 on heroin trafficking charges and was later sentenced to death in absentia by a Thai court.

A UWSA senior officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, "Commander Wei's movements and whereabouts are highly secret out of concern that he could be nabbed at any given moment."

And in spite of being under the UWSA banner, Wei's business empire, which stretches to Hong Kong, Shanghai and Bangkok, not to mention Rangoon, leads up to, and is controlled by him and him alone.

A Chinese officer monitoring the UWSA's  activities described the organisation as experiencing a dumbbell effect, with Wei and his brothers controlling the Wa area along the Thai border, while UWSA chairman Bao Yu-xiang and his brothers control areas along the Sino-Burma border.

Chairman Bao has shown willingness to enter into negotiations with the West, including the US and Thailand. He even tried giving up opium cultivation for two seasons to win favours. But no one welcomed his gesture. In fact, the US responded unfavourably. The US Department of Justice in January 2005 indicted seven Wa leaders on drug trafficking charges.

Wei, being one of the world's most notorious criminals, can't afford to play at diplomacy.

"Wei's men do push-ups every day. They are always on high alert for whatever threat may come their way," the Chinese official said.

The proposal from Chalerm is nothing new. Thailand, during the Thaksin Shinawatra administration, went down this well-trodden road before, and the end result was a great deal of embarrassment.

Thaksin was duped by the then security tsar of Burma, General Khin Nyunt, into whitewashing the UWSA by initiating a joint crop-substitution/development project in UWSA-controlled areas near the Thai border.

Seed money of Bt20 million from the Thai government helped build a school. But no students attended classes until Chinese-speaking teachers were hired.

The opening ceremony saw the then Thai Third Army Region commander Lt-Gen Picharnmate Muangmanee singing and dancing with Chairman Bao. Strange bedfellows, indeed, considering the fact that just a year ago Wa and Thai soldiers were slugging it out along the common border.

Perhaps Chalerm has something up his sleeve. But if the turbulent history of Burma tells us anything at all, it is that drugs and insurgency are two sides of the same coin.

Chalerm can't possibility solve the drug problem without taking the political dimension into consideration. And until an adequate political settlement can be reached between the Burmese junta and all the armed ethnic armies, one can forget about seeing these drug armies kicking the habit.

No one will ever climb a mountain to buy cabbages. They will, however, do so to buy opium and methamphetamines.

Note: For more information from the US Department of Justice's indictment on the eight UWSA leaders, click http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/states/newsrel