Drug trade booms on China-Myanmar
border By Naw Seng
RUILI,
China - To make money by selling potentially lethal
heroin is forbidden by their religion, yet desperately
poor and persecuted Muslims from Myanmar have often
turned to the drug trade. And with increased profits
have come increased risks.
Kyaw Hein, a Myanmar
national, is a former trafficker who now helps Chinese
authorities crack down on the importation of heroin from
his country into China via this border town. He says
heroin comes from Muse, a Myanmar town opposite Ruili,
and then goes on to Kunming, or goes from Ruili to
Kunming via Dali. Further still, it can go from
Panghsang, located in territory controlled by the United
Wa State Army, to Kunming via Simao, also in Yunnan. But
the Ruili route lately has shrunk due to a heavy
crackdown by Chinese police.
Bushi, now a fruit
vendor, is one former trafficker who has broken away
from the trade despite its lucrative nature. At one
time, Bushi had dozens of aides and spent more than
5,000 yuan (US$600) per day in drug earnings. "I
understand heroin kills people," he says. But in those
days he had no choice. Now he does. "I don't want that
hell."
As China's western border with Myanmar is
now the main transit point for heroin, several Myanmar
Muslim traders have taken to the trade. Many Myanmar
Muslims in Ruili - there are some 1,000 here in this
busy border town - are economic migrants because of
political and economic discrimination by Myanmar
authorities.
That discrimination has roots in
history, and at certain points resulted in riots between
the Buddhist majority and the Muslim minority,
instigated by military authorities (see Myanmar's Muslim sideshow, October
21, 2003). Eighty-nine percent of Myanmar's more than 50
million people are Buddhist, Muslims and Christians
comprise 4 percent, and various others make up the rest.
The majority of Myanmar's Muslims live in the
western part of Arakan state, on the border with
Bangladesh, and come under restrictions in marriage and
fertility. Many feel they do not have the same
opportunities as other communities.
Bushi
started out in Ruili as a small jade trader, then found
selling drugs a better way to get rich quick. "I would
be left behind if I rode a cart to follow cars," he
explains. He reckons that almost half of the Myanmar
Muslims in China are in the drug trading business.
Trafficking in heroin and using ill-gotten money
of this sort are forbidden under Islam. "This is
haram [forbidden] money," Bushi says. "We
shouldn't" live on it.
But this has not stopped
many jade traders from turning to the poppy in the past
decade. Despite the fact that, "only a few people
benefit from the drug business," Bushi says. "Many are
in jail."
Bushi has never been arrested, but
some of his men were jailed last year for heroin
possession. The seizure made Bushi a poor man, but in
general he had no problem smuggling heroin to Kunming,
the capital of China's southwestern province of Yunnan.
"I have many ways of getting [heroin] around," he says.
These include putting heroin inside dairy tins,
human rectums and female reproductive organs. But Bushi
knew his luck would eventually run out. "Even the big
chief will get arrested some day," he adds.
A
few traffickers can get and stay rich, but many serve
long sentences in Chinese prisons or suffer the death
penalty. Even so, the temptation is often irresistible.
In any case, traders say, Chinese and Myanmar
authorities are not above taking bribes to close their
eyes.
Ruili residents call heroin traffickers
kya kya kala - kya kya is slang for
"heroin" in Ruili, and kala is a term Myanmar
nationals use to refer to Westerners or Indians.
Some former kya kya kala or those in the
heroin business collaborate with Chinese police to crack
down on the trade. Kyaw Hein is one. His work is to
investigate the Myanmar heroin mafia.
Kyaw Hein
stopped trafficking after Chinese police caught his
brother-in-law in possession of a large amount of
heroin. But his experience as a trafficker immediately
landed him a job. He continues to earn drug money, but
this time in the form of payments made by his former
friends to the police, who give him 20 percent of seized
cash in return for his information.
Kyaw Hein
gives detailed reports of trafficking activities to
Chinese police, who have been trying to clamp down on a
social ill that has resulted in worrisome drug-use rates
along the border since it opened to the region in the
1980s.
On an average day, Kyaw Hein will hang
around town, play cards and chat with friends. Only a
few of them know that he is an informer, but everyone
who works in Ruili's heroin trade is known to him.
Although he prefers this job over trafficking
because it is "safer", he is aware of the threat from
the traffickers themselves. "I know the death knell will
sound for me one day," he says, "but I'm not afraid."
Interviews here showed that even active kya kya
kala are stumped as to where the heroin goes from
Kunming, but they believe that it enters the
international market via several routes.
Last
April, more than half a tonne of heroin en route to
Kunming was seized by Chinese authorities outside Ruili.
According to Jane's Intelligence Review, heroin
from Myanmar reaches eastern China and Hong Kong, to be
eventually exported to Southeast Asia, Australia and
North America.
Nearly 200 Myanmar Muslims are in
Chinese jails, an estimate given by both Bushi and Kyaw
Hein. According to Chinese law, the penalty for drug
trafficking is execution. But the penalty is not imposed
on Myanmar nationals, who serve a maximum of 15 years.
Some traffickers who can afford to bribe police can
reduce their jail terms to a few months, or avoid jail
altogether, according to talk that goes around here.
Kyaw Hein says a group of Myanmar Muslims are
moving to the area close to Panghsang for the coveted
white powder. "All 'tigers' here move there
[Panghsang]," he says.
Bushi has no interest in
becoming a tiger again, preferring to live tranquilly
with his family in Ruili. But he does want to spread the
word about the damage heroin has done to his community
and to the name of Allah. "I dare to die for the truth,"
Bushi says. "People may exit the trade, but it will
continue to affect the world."
