Pubdate: Sun, 26 Jun 2005
Source: Nation, The (Thailand)
Copyright: 2005 Nation Multimedia Group
Contact:  http://www.nationmultimedia.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1963
Author: David Scott Mathieson
Note: David Scott Mathieson is a doctoral researcher at the Australian
National University.

BURMA'S DRUG-FREE DEADLINE IS A DELUSION

Tomorrow marks United Nations International Day against Drug Abuse and
Illicit Trafficking, when people and governments celebrate the dream
of a drug-free world. In Burma, the ruling military regime, the State
Peace and Development Council (SPDC) uses this day to appeal for more
aid in their fight against narcotics, staging drug-destruction
ceremonies in Rangoon, where everything from opium bulbs to No-4
heroin and cough syrup are torched or crushed for the benefit of the
international community. SPDC officials and diplomats congratulate
each other and talk about progress, drug-free deadlines and
development.

The Burmese regime's mouthpiece, The New Light of Myanmar, stated in
March that 18 such ceremonies between 1990 and 2004 had destroyed more
than US$14 billion (Bt575 billion) worth of narcotics and
"paraphernalia", a number arrived at by some artful
calculation.

Yet how much has really changed in Burma's narco-dictatorship? Not
much. The hype is for the benefit of a complacent international
community lulled by deception that the Burmese regime is serious about
narcotics eradication.

And it works. The former East Asian head of the United Nations Office
on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Sandro Calvani, has heralded the end of
"major drug production in the Golden Triangle", and the public
optimism of UNODC Burma representative, Jean-Luc Lemahieu, has been
successful in garnering support and funding for their joint projects.
The SPDC's 15-year, three-phase narcotics-eradication project
initiated in 1999 appears impressive. It aims at having all of the
country "opium-free" by 2014. Swathes of Shan state, the main opium
growing territory, have been declared poppy-free, with deadlines
agreed upon by local militias, the SPDC and the UNODC.

At its peak in 1996, Burma was the world's primary producer, with
1,760 tonnes of opium. Last year, the UN claimed that had dropped to
370 tonnes. Burma is now a distant second to Afghanistan. Yet look at
other pages in these UN reports, and they will tell you Burma is
Asia's largest producer of amphetamine-type stimulants (ATSs), or
yaba, that Burmese production coincided with opium reductions and that
ATSs are the world's biggest drug problem. Is this cause for
celebration?

Just how accurate are UNODC figures? The UNODC relies on sophisticated
satellite monitoring and ground surveying to ascertain opium-crop
reductions, yet admits these methods "are not conclusive". In its 2004
opium survey, the UNODC claimed an annual 29-per-cent reduction in
poppy cultivation, from 62,200 hectares to 44,200 hectares. Yet most
of this "decline" came from a drought in northern Shan state that
destroyed 80 per cent of the crop. The other survey zones remained
largely static, and in eastern Shan state, cultivation rose.
Independent accounts from southern and eastern Shan state claim there
has been a surge in opium cultivation in the last year.

Just how successful have UNODC projects been? In late 2003, more than
180,000 farmers had to receive emergency aid from the World Food
Programme to avert a famine generated by forced eradication of their
crops. Four years before, more than 100,000 civilians were forcibly
removed to the Thai border in a brutal "crop-replacement project" that
was a smokescreen for increased ATS production. In a neat twist of
logic, Jean-Luc Lemahieu calls for emergency poverty alleviation and
warns of the "looming humanitarian crisis" when the deadlines take
effect this year.

How far should we trust the SPDC? The regime has been suspected of
involvement in the drug trade for years: at worst, a systemic
collusion with narcotics traffickers, at best the patronage of an
environment conducive to drug production and money-laundering. Some
observers claim that last year's purge of Prime Minister Khin Nyunt
and his military intelligence clique, which engineered the cease-fires
with major drug producing militias and incorporated them into the
economy and constitutional process, would slowly unravel the nexus of
collusion. This is naive: kickbacks are just being kicked to other
members of Burma's military.

Increasing yaba smuggling into Thailand in the past several months
demonstrates that it's business as usual, and the recent offensive by
the United Wa State Army's (UWSA's) 171st Division, led by drug lord
Wei Hsueh-kang, was designed to wrest control of the border near Mae
Hong Son for increased drug shipments. Everyday cooperation between
Burmese military units, drug producers and smugglers in the
borderlands near Thailand, Laos, China and India are now systemic.

If there are appreciable declines in narcotics production, then
someone forgot to tell the drug dealers. Production and distribution
have spread to Laos, Cambodia and India, and smuggling to the rest of
Asean, China and Australia remains. In March this year, Thai police
seized 610 kilograms of heroin and more than 10,000 yaba tablets from
a boat off the coast of Trat province, the largest haul in 10 years.
In 2003, Australia's largest heroin seizure netted 50kg of the famous
Double UO Globe-brand No-4 heroin on a North Korean freighter. These
major shipments all originated in northern Burma. This month, Thai
police intercepted 148kg of the methamphetamine "ice" and 86kg of
heroin on their way to Malaysia.

But perhaps the SPDC knows more about drug production than they're
letting on. A ceremony scheduled to be held in the Wa Special Region
in northern Shan state to mark the official opium-free pledge by the
UWSA was cancelled this month by the regime. Whether this was because
the United States indicted all the leaders of the UWSA earlier this
year on drug charges or there is still opium there is anyone's guess.

UWSA leader Bao Yu-chiang promised that "you can chop my head off" if
there were any opium left in the Wa area after today.

However, the UNODC and the SPDC have quietly pushed back the 2005
deadline to 2008, including areas already declared "opium-free".
Failure makes for a flat celebration.

David Scott Mathieson is a doctoral researcher at the Australian
National University.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin