Pubdate: Sun, 20 May 2001 Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA) Copyright: 2001 San Jose Mercury News Contact: http://www.sjmercury.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/390 Author: Uli Schmetzer, Chicago Tribune BORDER DISPUTE PITS UNITED STATES AGAINST CHINA U.S. Sends Soldiers To Drug Lords' Area BANGKOK, Thailand -- Some 5,000 American soldiers are in northern Thailand not far from the Chinese border this weekend as part of long-scheduled Cobra Gold 2001 military exercises being staged at a time when Thailand and Burma are trading angry diplomatic missives and live artillery shells. Among the troops are about 20 instructors from the U.S. 1st Special Forces Group who will stay behind after the maneuvers to train Thai commandos in anti-guerrilla warfare. Thailand and Burma, also called Myanmar, have been at loggerheads for weeks over the disputed Doi Lang border area, a longtime stronghold of drug warlords whose heroin refineries and amphetamine laboratories have flourished for years with the knowledge of key military officers and officials on both sides of the border. Periodic hostilities over control of drug trafficking are no novelty. But this time the United States and China are playing key roles on opposite sides, just weeks after the U.S. spy-plane incident strained their bilateral relations. Navy Adm. Dennis Blair, chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, confirmed last week at a news briefing that Washington has sent Special Forces guerrilla-warfare specialists to act as "instructors" for a Thai commando unit known as Task Force 399. Thai military officials gave the initial number of U.S. instructors as 20 but said more could be expected. The same Thai sources said Task Force 399 and the U.S. instructors would be stationed at Mae Rim Village just north of Chiang Mai, a garrison town on the edge of the infamous Golden Triangle, the poppy-growing zone on the Burma, Laos and Thailand borders. The highly mobile unit of about 100 will use two U.S.-donated Black Hawk assault helicopters to chase and neutralize drug smugglers along the Golden Triangle, operating less than 100 miles from Chinese border troops. Their main enemy on the other side of the border will be the United Wa State Army, an ethnic narcotics-guerrilla force loyal to the Burma military junta. Western intelligence sources say China is the principal supplier of arms and expertise for the Wa and the Burmese armed forces. More than a year ago the Chinese persuaded the ethnic Wa, the most powerful and most militant of the hillside tribes, to move their people, their army and their drug laboratories from the Burma-China border in the north to Burma's border with Thailand at Doi Lang in the south. "It was a cunning move. By sending the Wa away from their own border the Chinese dramatically reduced drug trafficking into China, which had become a major problem for their own population. Sending the Wa to the Thai border meant dumping the problem on the Thais and their Western allies," said a narcotics expert who requested anonymity. Asian intelligence sources said Beijing supplied the Wa with sophisticated weapons and money in exchange for Wa help in constructing a network of roads through Burma from China. The road system would give Beijing access to seaports and naval bases on the Burmese coast, an access the Chinese have coveted for years. In a blunt warning, Burma's ruling military junta announced it was ready "to fight side by side" with the Wa, whom the U.S. State Department has identified in reports as major drug producers in the region. Thai intelligence sources say the Wa already have been given sophisticated Chinese-made HN-5N surface-to-air missiles capable of knocking out low-flying airplanes and helicopters. On the other side, the United States has supplied Thai forces with the latest night-vision, radar and digital mapping equipment. Burma has already warned the Thais that calling in American "specialists" over the escalating border dispute is perilous to regional peace. In a blunt diplomatic note last week, the junta demanded the Thai military withdraw from 35 border outposts that Rangoon claims are within its own territory. Bangkok has ignored the demand. Although the maneuvers are publicized as an anti-narcotics campaign, some Western diplomats say the extensive military mobilization and American participation also are aimed at containing growing Chinese influence in the region. Observers fear that the escalating border incidents, with casualties on both sides, have the potential to explode into a conflict drawing China and the United States into a confrontation. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth