Pubdate: Mon, 03 May 2004
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Copyright: 2004, The Globe and Mail Company
Contact:  http://www.globeandmail.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168
Author: Geoffrey York
Pubdate: May 3, 2004
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

THE EVOLUTION OF CHAIRMAN BAO

Deep in Asia's Golden Triangle, Geoffrey York Reports, a Ruthless Drug Lord 
Has Had an Epiphany

PANG SANG, MYANMAR -- The drug lord arrives at the hotel in a Toyota Land 
Cruiser, unassumingly dressed in a checked shirt and green pants. The only 
hints of his wealth are his large sapphire ring and the servile bow of the 
waiter who hands him a cold towel.

With his anonymous appearance and humble clothes, Bao Youxiang could be any 
middle-aged Asian businessman. One of his few hobbies is 10-pin bowling -- 
usually at a plush new alley across from the hotel. But when he isn't 
bowling, he is the kingpin of one of the world's biggest opium-producing 
regions, a rugged land of hilltop villages and poppy fields near the 
China-Myanmar border.

The man known as Chairman Bao is the ruthless commander of the 
20,000-soldier United Wa State Army, led by tough Wa tribesmen whose 
ancestors were headhunters. He is also a man with a $1-million (U.S.) 
bounty on his head.

Washington accuses him of leading the world's biggest narcotics army.

Yet despite the controversy surrounding Mr. Bao, there is mounting evidence 
of a radical change in his drug policies -- a change that could deal a 
crippling blow to the Golden Triangle drug trade and liberate thousands of 
people from heroin and opium addiction in his country and in the West.

In a rare meeting with journalists in his ramshackle frontier capital, he 
described how opium addiction has devastated many of the 600,000 people in 
16 ethnic tribes he rules.

"I have to save my own people," he said. "I have witnessed how opium has 
destroyed my people. It makes my heart bleed."

Mr. Bao vowed to end the opium trade in his remote region by July of next 
year. And if the farmers keep growing poppies? He slashes his hand across 
his throat. "I will chop off their heads. And the international community 
can chop off my head. It's for the survival of our people. I give you my word."

The man is certainly no saint. As recently as 2001, his people were 
responsible for 40 per cent of the world's opium. His government still 
collects 7 per cent of its revenue from an opium tax. He readily admits to 
using child soldiers and forced labour as routine practices. He once 
ordered the relocation of 60,000 opium farmers, dooming thousands to 
illness and death from malaria. "Farmers live and die at his whim," says a 
United Nations official in Myanmar.

Yet the UN believes that Mr. Bao's opium ban might be genuine. In one Wa 
region alone, where the UN has helped farmers to find other income, the 
opium poppy fields have shrunk by almost 60 per cent in the past five years.

But the drug trade has been the biggest industry in the Wa territory for 
more than 140 years and some observers are cynical about the proposed ban.

"If the Wa do what they say they will do, a lot of people will starve," 
said a diplomat in Rangoon. "Then, in year two, they'll go back to what 
they were doing before."

In the remote farming villages, where every family has grown opium for 
generations, the villagers themselves are puzzled.

"We will suffer," says Kya Law, a father of 12 children, who earns a few 
hundred dollars annually by growing one or two kilograms of opium. "We 
won't have any money. My family depends on poppies to buy food and 
clothing. I don't know the reason for the ban."

But UN officials in Myanmar say there are increasing signs that the ban is 
legitimate. They are calling for emergency aid to the farmers to prevent a 
humanitarian disaster when opium revenue disappears.

The UN warns that if aid fails to arrive, the world could miss a historic 
opportunity to get rid of a deadly trade. Myanmar's fate could resemble 
that of Afghanistan's, where opium production was virtually eliminated by 
the Taliban regime in 2001 but then quickly re-emerged under the new 
government after the U.S.-led war.

Severe food shortages could result from the opium ban, since most farmers 
rely on opium revenue to pay for half of their annual food needs. Just 
north of the Wa territory, in the region of Kokang, farmers suffered deep 
hardship when an opium ban was imposed last year. Clinics and schools 
closed, thousands of families abandoned the region, and children dropped 
out of school because they couldn't afford fees of a few dollars. The fear 
is that a similar disaster could afflict an estimated two million 
impoverished people across Myanmar when opium bans come into effect in the 
next few years.

If the mysterious Mr. Bao is sincerely planning to enforce the ban, most 
farmers won't dare to defy him. In the Wa capital, even the motorized 
rickshaw drivers are afraid to venture close to the drug lord's luxurious 
villa, with its fountain and its military guard. His army has brigade 
leaders in every district, ready to enforce the ban.

Some observers suspect the Wa leaders are ready to give up opium because 
they have found a more lucrative trade: methamphetamine tablets. The pills 
are known as ya ba (crazy medicine) in neighbouring Thailand, where 4 per 
cent of the population is said to be addicted.

An estimated 700 million tablets are manufactured in underground labs in 
Myanmar every year for shipment to Thailand -- and some labs have been 
found in the Wa territory. "For criminal groups, they are a fantastic way 
to keep the old networks going," says Jean-Luc Lemahieu, head of the UN 
drug agency in Myanmar. "They are very low cost and the prices are high."

Mr. Bao denied that his army is switching to methamphetamines. But then he 
makes a fascinating revelation: one of his own brothers has been implicated 
in a methamphetamine lab and is addicted to the tablets.

"We have taken action against him," he said, his hands flailing angrily. 
"He will have to undergo detoxification."
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager