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Khun Sa, Drugs and the Chinese Conn



Subject: Khun Sa, Drugs and the Chinese Connection

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FAR EASTERN ECONOMIC REVIEW
October 19, 1995

Drug lord Khun Sa's troubles are mounting
THE NOOSE TIGHTENS
KHUN SA FACES A DAY OF RECKONING
By Bertil Lintner in Chiang Mai
It's as regular as rain.  Each year, with the advent of the dry
season, Khun Sa's
demise is predicted.  Then a few months later, the Burmese
army's counter - insurgency drive grinds to a muddy halt amid
reports that the Sino - Shan opium warlord is down but not out. 
And then the Golden Triangle gets back to business for another
year.

This time, however, Khun Sa's survival won't be a matter of
course.  Burma's military rulers have ordered a massive troop
build - up next to his territory, after first isolating it by striking
a series of ceasefire deals with other ethnic rebel groups.  Khun
Sa's supply lines from Thailand are also at risk, with Bangkok
pledging last month to cut them off.  In addition, his movement
has been weakened by ethnic tensions, expressed in the recent
mutiny of a top lieutenant.

Military intelligence sources say elements of 20 government
battalions have entered the area between the Salween River
and the Thai border since the beginning of June.  These units
could total nearly 10,000 troops when fully deployed.  They
have already set up firebases on the southern flank of the
territory controlled by Khun Sa's Mong Tai Army, or MTA. 
The deployment was made possible by a
March ceasefire agreement between Rangoon and ethnic
Karenni rebels, who control the deployment area.

With an additional 2,000 government troops concentrated
north of Doi Lang, another MTA stronghold,  most observers
of the situation in the Golden Triangle expect major military
action, maybe even before the rains end in November. 

The Burmese army will face an MTA that has been
economically weakened by a nearly two - year government
blockade of Salween River ferry crossings north of Khun Sa's
base area of Homong. The blockade has pinched supplies of 
the MTA's lifeblood: opium from the fields of northern Burma,
which it refines into exportable heroin in labs near the Thai
border. Now, Thai officials say, those labs are cranking out
amphetamines or heroin mixed with amphetamines.  
"The MTA's been strapped for cash for more than a year," says
a narcotics official in northern Thailand. "They're switching to
amphetamines, but they mix it because it's of poor quality, as
it's getting harder and more expensive for the MTA to hire
good chemists.  The area has become a war zone."

Khun Sa's most important remaining supply routes, through
Thailand, now may also be at risk.  Though Thailand has been
protesting for years that it can't seal off its long and porous
border with Burma, Thai Defence Minister Chavalit
Yongchayudh led a military delegation to Rangoon in
September and promised to try to do just that.  

Burma has kept the main Tachilek - Mae Sai border crossing
shut since March, when it accused the Thais of letting the
MTA attack Tachilek from Thai territory.  Chavalit, with a
view to reopening the border and normalizing the lucrative
trade between the two countries, promised to cut the MTA's
supply lines from Thailand.  

The MTA's problems aren't all external.  Tensions between
the circle of ethnic Chinese businessmen who control the
MTA's economy and its more nationalist Shan rank - and - file
erupted into open mutiny a few months ago.  Led by veteran
fighter Bo Dewing, a Shan who was once the MTA's nominal
commander, and Kan Yawt, a young former member of a Shan
State literary movement, the mutineers are said to number
between 1,000 and 6.000 men -- depending on the source's
bias for or against Khun Sa.

The breakaway group, which calls itself the Shan State
National Army, declared that it was opposed to "Chinese
businessmen using the Shan national cause to conceal their
involvement in the drug trade."  This was an obvious reference
to Khun Sa himself, who is half - Shan and half - Chinese, as
well as to his Manchurian - born chief of staff, Chang Shu -
chuan.

The mutineers also criticized the MTA for summarily
executing villagers and recruiting very young boys into the
force's ranks.  They further accused Khun Sa -- whom they
referred to by his Chinese name, Chang Chifu --  of having
ordered the assassination of many Shan national leaders. 
While sources close to Khun Sa may be right in claiming that
Burmese military intelligence had a hand in the split, many
Shans concede that the underlying grievances are real.

These developments augur poorly for Khun Sa, but they don't
necessarily mean the drug trade will suffer.  Other ethnic
armies stand ready to take the warlord's place -- armies that
don't have Rangoon to worry about.

Since June, nearly 3,000 Wa, Akha, Kachin, Lahu and
Palaung troops -- mostly forces of the former Communist Party
of Burma, which made peace with Rangoon in 1989 -- have
agreed to join the Burmese army's campaign against the MTA. 
A fierce battle took place near Doi Lang on September 19.

The alliance between the Burmese and army and these forces,
which are Khun Sa's rivals for control over the trade, has
raised questions about Rangoon's intentions.  "There are now
more heroin refineries in the former CPB area than under
Khun Sa's control," says the Thai. narcotics official.  "Most of
their business is being conducted through China, but if they
manage to snatch Doi Lang from Khun Sa, they'll have a
secure route down to Thailand as well." 

So the Golden Triangle may indeed get back to business after
the dry season, even without Khun Sa.  As the narcotics
official put it: "They'll just be another cast of characters
running the trade."

THE CHINESE CONNECTION

Twenty Burmese battalions may be enough to bottle up Khun
Sa, but they can't change the law of supply and demand.  The
bulk of the Golden Triangle's heroin production is now making
its way to market via the Chinese province of Yunnan,
courtesy of the United Wa State Army, narcotics officials say.

The 15,000 - strong Wa army is the main remnant of the
former Communist Party of Burma's guerrilla force.  The
communist army received massive amounts of military aid
from China before it fractured into four ethnic groups in the
late 1980s, with the hill - tribe rank - and - file chasing their
old leaders into exile. 

Most Western observers had assumed that China's contact with
those armies ended then.  They were intrigued, therefore, by
the inclusion of a man named Lee Hsu - le, or Aung Myint, in
recent Wa army delegations to Rangoon.

Officially vice - chief of staff of the Wa army, Aung Myint is
an ethnic Chinese from Kawlin in upper Burma.  He fled to
China in the wake of Burma's 1967 anti-Chinese riots and was
trained by Chinese intelligence before returning in 1968 to the
Burmese communist "liberated area," where he became
personal advisor to the party chairman, Thakin Ba Thein Tin. 
When the Wa rank - and - file revolted against the party
leadership in April 1989, he escorted Thakin Ba Thein Tin
into exile in China - only to return to Burma a few months
later to join the mutineers.

An Asian intelligence official speculates that the Was' growing
role in the drugs trade, together with their troop strength,
makes them too important for the Chinese to ignore.  "After
all, the Was have more troops along the Chinese border than
Khun Sa has along the Thai frontier," he says. 



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