| |
Thai-Myanmar ties: Drug lords cash in
By Tom Fawthrop
BANGKOK -
Thailand's policy of attempting to improve diplomatic
and economic ties with Myanmar has undermined attempts
to stop the flow of narcotics across the porous Myanmese
border, says leading Thai senator Dr Kraisak Choonhavan.
Kraisak, chairman of the Thai Senate's Foreign
Relations Committee, is a strong critic of Prime
Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's policy shift toward closer
engagement and the avoidance of any confrontation with
Yangon and its drug-trafficking ally the United Wa State
Army (UWSA). In a recent interview with Asia Times
Online, the senator charged: "The government has bent
over backwards to please the generals in Rangoon, the
Burmese are dictating to us."
The softly-softly
approach with the prickly Myanmese generals appears to
be at odds with the latest Thai intelligence reports
predicting a flood of methamphetamine pills swamping the
Thai market this year. While Thaksin stresses the
importance of friendly diplomatic relations with Yangon,
up to a billion yaba ("crazy medicine", as the
Thais refer to speed) tablets from the UWSA-controlled
drug laboratories inside Myanmar's Shan are expected to
be smuggled across the border this year. Thailand
already has an estimated 250,000 addicts and is now
facing an epidemic of yaba addiction.
Thailand's northern military command has
classified the nation's top security threat as the drug
operations across the border masterminded by ethnic Wa
and Chinese, who in recent years have seized control
over most of the Shan territory of eastern Myanmar.
About half of the Wa army is used by the
Myanmese army as a border security force along much of
the 850-kilometer frontier with Thailand. Shan sources
estimate the Wa control 80 percent of the opium-heroin
trade and all the methamphetamine laboratories, which
produce the easy-to-smuggle pills.
About this
time last year Thai soldiers engaged in periodic clashes
along the border with Myanmese army and their ethnic-Wa
allies in a bitter war of words and bullets. Since the
1989 ceasefire agreement with Yangon, the Wa armies have
stopped fighting the government and formed a de facto
alliance. The 20,000-strong UWSA has acquired heavy
artillery and anti-tank weapons, making it the most
heavily armed drug mafia in the world.
Thaksin
has made sure there will be no repeat of last year's
confrontation with Myanmar's generals by his recent
replacement of key army commanders who favored a tougher
approach.
Wa drug baron Wei Hsueh Kang is wanted
both in Thailand and the United States for drug
trafficking. The US State Department has put a US$2
million reward on his head.
In talks with
Bangkok during 2002, the Myanmese junta showed no
interest in the Thai request to crack down on Wei Hsueh
Kang's operations. But Yangon did insist on the removal
of Thai army chief General Surayud Chulanont and of the
commander of the 3rd Army (which patrols the Chiang Mai
region of northern Thailand), as well as an end to the
so-called "provocative operations" of Task Force 399
along the border as preconditions for friendly
Myanmar-Thailand relations.
By the end of 2002
the Thaksin administration had obliged on all three
counts. The two key generals were replaced, and Task
Force 399 has been scaled down and removed from the
border.
Kraisak commented that General Surayud
was "the first professional army chief in modern Thai
history and highly conscientious in the field of
combating drug traffickers". The Thai senator argued
that the transfer of a highly respected army chief at
the behest of Burmese generals is "humiliating - our
national pride is being trampled on for speculative
business gains".
Thaksin has opted for closer
relations with Yangon with a strong emphasis on
increased business ties as the best way to prod the
generals in the direction of shutting down the Wa's
burgeoning drug empire. Cooperation, not confrontation,
is the hallmark of the new track in Myanmar-Thailand
relations.
In November, General Chavalit
Yongchaiyudh, the Thai defense minister, disclosed
bilateral cooperation on four megaprojects: the
construction of a hydroelectric dam on the Salween River
by Thailand's MDX company, a coal mine in a Myanmese
town opposite Prachuap Khiri Khan, a port project in
Tavoy, and a Mae Sot-Yangon road project.
"Joint
development will make border areas more open and help
eliminate bad people, minority people and bad things
hidden along the border and ensure greater security,"
said the defense minister, who has been linked with Thai
logging companies and other private business interests
in Myanmar. General Chavalit also claimed "drug
production would decline if minority people were cleared
from border areas through peaceful means".
This
business-first agenda is deeply resented by many in the
Thai military. General Anu Sumitra, former military
intelligence chief in the Chiang Mai (3rd Army) region,
declared in a letter to the Bangkok Post: "The defense
minister and the prime minister have business interests
in Burma. To protect those business interests, they are
even prepared to sacrifice the dignity of our army," a
statement that reflected the sentiments of many current
senior officers.
Thaksin has ordered a domestic
crackdown on illegal drugs but with major operations
ordered to stay well clear of border suppression that
might antagonize the Wa and their allies, the generals
in Yangon.
Privy councilor and former prime
minister Prem Tinsulanond has also expressed concern
about the prospect that there was no end to the
methamphetamine invasion, and apparently favors
retaining Task Force 399 as the frontline defense
against unwelcome imports from the Wa drug lords.
The Thai government and others who advocate the
soft-engagement approach with Yangon argue that the
generals and the Wa leaders really want drug
eradication. An agreement to phase out opium production
in the Wa-controlled territory by 2005 has been widely
publicized. However, no such pledge has been made about
stopping the methamphetamine trade.
Senator
Kraisak and other analysts argue that the power of the
generals has long been closely wedded to the Wa-Chinese
narco-economy, estimated to be worth more than $550
million a year, and that without these narco-profits
fueling banks and business in Yangon, the economy would
have collapsed long ago. Wa investments include the
Myanmar Mayflower Group, the Hong Pang corporation
(directly linked to heroin trafficker Wei Hsueh Kang),
and Yangon Airways.
There is no sign that the
Thai government, for all its friendly overtures, is
having any impact on Wa narcotics production. On the
contrary, the evidence points to an expanding Wa drug
empire. New drug laboratories have sprung up at Myawaddy
in the west where they can pump pills into central
Thailand, by the banks of the Mekong, and also in Kachin
state, which extends the yaba plague to both Laos
and India.
"The new Thai approach is a complete
failure," said Senator Kraisak. "Thaksin's policy only
makes it easier for the drug traffickers. Our military
are now reluctant to engage with intruders on the border
- this boosts the confidence of the Wa soldiers."
(©2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights
reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com
for information on our sales and syndication policies.)
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
