Pubdate: Tue, 07 Dec 2004
Source: Nation, The (Thailand)
Copyright: 2004 Nation Multimedia Group
Contact:  http://www.nationmultimedia.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1963

BURMA MUST GET SERIOUS ABOUT DRUGS

With Friends Like Our 'Ally' To Our West And North, Thailand Hardly
Needs Enemies

Trying to score some quick political points, Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra, in his first encounter with his Burmese counterpart, Soe
Win, called on the newly installed chief to track down and hand over
Wei Hsueh-kang, a notorious drug lord wanted by both the US and Thailand.

Soe Win would not say yes or no, but his silence has been interpreted
as believing the request to be wishful thinking on Thaksin's part. Wei
is wanted by the US for heroin trafficking and carries a US$2-million
(Bt78.2-million) price on his head. The Thai authorities also want him
for jumping bail in 1988 on similar charges.

Wei commands a sizeable battalion within a self-styled pro-Rangoon
militia, the United Wa State Army (UWSA), operating from an area just
kilometres away from Thailand's northern border. Perhaps the chairman
of the UWSA, Bao Yu-xiang, put it best in an earlier interview: "The
allegations about Wei are not our problem. Thailand had him, and
Thailand let him go."

Confirming Bao's position, Burma's drug tsar, Brig-General Kyaw Htein,
speaking to reporters at a Chiang Rai narcotics forum earlier this
year, said that Rangoon has no position in regard to Wei.

Basically, this means that if this convicted drug dealer, commanding a
considerable force within one of the world's largest armed
drug-trafficking groups, were to fall from the sky in front of the
Burmese authorities, he would be permitted to go about his business,
assuming that his knees were not broken.

For the past three years, the Thaksin administration has condemned the
UWSA, accusing the ethnic army of flooding the region with millions of
methamphetamine pills on a weekly basis and the world with tonnes of
the finest-grade heroin. Some senior Thai Army officers have publicly
accused their Burmese counterparts of accepting bribes for turning a
blind eye to such illegal activities and called for a military solution.

Part of the reason why Rangoon has not resorted to military force
against the Wa and the other drug armies is that the junta does not
want to turn the clock back to the days when Burmese troops slugged it
out with the different ethnic armies.

As for why Rangoon does not take Thaksin's request seriously, that has
a lot to do with Thaksin himself. Consistency has never been Thaksin's
strong suit, as witnessed by his decision to help Rangoon whitewash
the UWSA by funding a crop-substitution and community-development
project in the Wa stronghold adjacent to Chiang Rai's Mae Fa Luang
sub-district.

Thailand's top brass, sent to attend the opening ceremony for this
project, clasping hands with Chairman Bao and Wa children had
observers and diplomats alike scratching their heads in wonderment and
confusion.

But problems connected with the UWSA churning out methamphetamines and
other drugs just a stone's throw away from Thai soil do not involve
drug production alone. The UWSA has demonstrated the extremely close
relationship between Burma's illicit drug industry and the generals
who rule the country with an iron fist. It also reflects on Thailand's
lack of sound policy and consistency in dealing with the Rangoon
regime and the drug lords who come part and parcel with it.

Moreover, current trends towards globalisation make it easier for
illicit drugs to wash up onto different shores around the world. "The
problem is we don't have enough intelligence," said Zhang Dao-ming, a
regional Interpol official, at a recent Asean conference on narcotics
in the Philippines.

Some countries, said Zhang, are not even willing to share whatever
information they have.

The recent impressive show of cross-border cooperation between Chinese
and Thai officials who broke up a drug-trafficking ring that smuggled
463 kilograms of Burmese heroin into China for re-export to Europe is
a good example of what can be achieved. The suspected kingpin, Chinese
national Liu Gang-yi, was arrested on October 29 and deported to China
the very next day. Altogether, seven of the suspected traffickers were
arrested in China, Liu being the only one nabbed in Thailand. A
similar haul of 354kg of Burmese heroin was made in Yunnan, two years
ago.

While progress has been made, as evidenced by these two cases, total
victory remains elusive.

Thailand and neighbouring governments must comprehensively address
such issues as sources of funding for drug production, supplies of
precursor chemicals needed to manufacture methamphetamines,
clandestine drug-making laboratories and smugglers who routinely
engage in fire fights with Thai troops along our northern border.
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MAP posted-by: Derek