NEWS - Shan Rebels Blame Myanmar Mi

[Rangoonp@xxxxxxx]

Subject: NEWS - Shan Rebels Blame Myanmar Military for Opium Boom

Shan Rebels Blame Myanmar Military for Opium Boom

            Reuters
            20-DEC-98

            MONG PAN, Myanmar, Dec 20 (Reuters) - Rebel Shan
            State Army (SSA) guerrillas have said oppression by the
            Myanmar military of the northeastern state's native
            population has caused the boom in the local opium and
            heroin trade. 

            "Myanmar (government) troops unrelenting oppression of the
            Shan people and other ethnic nationalities has forced them
            to continue growing opium," SSA commander Colonel Yod
            Suk told Reuters at his jungle hideout in Shan state on
            Saturday. 

            "This is because they need permanent plots of land to grow
            rice and other crops and they don't have them," he said. 

            "People in the Shan state have turned to growing poppy
            because it takes a short time or few months to harvest and
            they can shift the location of opium fields in the jungles,"
Yod
            Suk, said. 

            Shan rebels had no permanent land because of frequent
            attacks by the Myanmar military against the SSA and its
            followers as they fought for their own homeland and
            autonomy, he added. 

            The SSA claims to control about 40 percent of Shan state
            and is one of a handful of armed rebel groups that have not
            signed ceasefire pacts with the Yangon government. 

            Shan state is on the fringes of the infamous Golden Triangle
            poppy growing area which straddles the borders of
            Myanmar, Laos and Thailand. Drug traffickers move large
            quantities of opium and heroin from the mountainous zone. 

            The U.S Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) estimated that
            some 70 percent of heroin in the street market in the United
            States originates from the Golden Triangle. 

            The SSA's Yod Sok used to be a lieutenant of the former
            drug warlord Khun Sa who controlled the state's opium trade
            before surrendering to the Yangon government two years
            ago. Khun Sa now lives in Yangon. 

            SSA was formed by Yod Suk and the remnant guerrillas of
            Khun Sa's once powerful Mong Tai Army (MTA) which
            claimed to be fighting for Shan state autonomy but was
            deeply involved in the drug trade. 

            Yod Suk, 40, dressed in army fatigues and guarded by about
            40 armed guerrillas, estimated that in 1998, Shan state
            would produce more than 2,000 tonnes of opium. He gave
            no comparison figure for last year. 

            One tonne of opium can be refined in factories into 100 kg
of
            pure heroin. 

            "There are 40 heroin factories in Shan state near the
            (eastern) border with Thailand, opposite the Mae Hong Son
            and Chiangmai provinces," Yod Suk said. 

            He accused the Myanmar army of providing security for the
            heroin factories and collaborating with ethnic Chinese and
            Thai businessmen to produce heroin. 

            Yod Suk, said he had about 12,000 guerrillas under his
            command in the SSA and was ready to help in drugs
            suppression in the Shan state. 

            In return, he demanded cooperation and support for his
            movement from the the United States and the United
            Nations. 

            "The Americans have dumped millions of dollars on the
            Myanmar government in their attempt to eradicate opium
            fields and heroin production in Myanmar but it has not
            worked," Yod Suk said. 

            "So if the U.S. really wanted to eradicate opium and heroin
in
            Myanmar they should come to us, cooperate with the SSA
            and we will help eradicating opium with them in 1999," he
            added. 

            He also urged U.N. assistance for Shan state to improve the
            living conditions of the Shan people so they could be
            discouraged from cultivating poppies.