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NEWS - JUNTA OPENS UP SHAN BORDER T



Subject: NEWS - JUNTA OPENS UP SHAN BORDER TO THAI INCURSIONS

BURMA COURIER No. 190           July 11 - 17, 1999

ON THE DRUG BEAT

JUNTA OPENS UP SHAN BORDER TO THAI INCURSIONS
BurmaNews - BC:  July 17, 1999 (based on BKK Post and Phuchatkan
articles)

UWSA deal to move amphetamine business into Myawaddy area

BANGKOK -- Prime Minister Than Shwe of Burma has admitted his government
is
unable to control border areas held by ethnic minorities and stop drug
smuggling, according to Thai Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai.

Speaking in an address on Radio Thailand, Mr Chuan said the two national
leaders had discussed the problem of drugs and border disputes during
talks
in May in the Thai border city of Chiang Rai.

"Prime Minister Than Shwe accepted that (his government) could not
control
areas under the influence of minority groups. He admitted this and asked
me
half-seriously, half-jokingly if I was free to fly with him to inspect
the
areas to prove what he said.  I told him, frankly, that we must
co-operate
to suppress drug trafficking. Burma accepts this, but it will be some
time
before the process can begin."

Apparently, however, co-operation on a limited basis has already begun.
A
Thai military source said this week that troops from a joint drug force
had
been given the green light to cross into Shan state while in hot pursuit
of
drug traffickers or in order to destroy drug production units.

The 800-strong Thai force, with artillery and air support, consists of
infantry soldiers, border patrol troopers, paramilitary rangers,
anti-narcotics officials and immigration police as well as forestry
officials.  They have been deployed along a 40km border area stretching
from Mae Ai district in Chiang Mai province to the Mae Chan and Mae Fa
Luang districts of Chiang Rai province.

The stretch is opposite an area by the United Wa State Army, long been
identified as a corridor for the smuggling of methamphetamine pills
produced by a string of mobile laboratories supervised by Wei
Hsueh-Kang,
the UWSA drug baron. An estimated one million pills a day flow across
the
border through drug-trafficking networks maintained by ethnic minority
groups who live in the area.

The military source said they did not expect heavy resistance from the
UWSA, which would be likely to retreat deeper into Burma rather than
clash

head-on with the Thai troops. In such case, he said, a hot pursuit would
not be necessary.

But the Wa army is apparently already finding other routes to get its
product into Thailand.  A report in the Thai language newspaper,
Phuchatkan, last week said that the amphetamine business was moving
south
into the Myawaddy area opposite Thailand's Mae Sot district.  It said
that
a deal had already been concluded with the Burmese army and the Karen
cease-fire army known as the DKBA on the sharing of the trade benefits
involved with the cross-border trafficking.

Phuchatkan said the details of the plan were revealed in a report of a
Thai
intelligence unit in Tak province.  According to the plan worked out in
June, UWSA operatives would be given permission to carry on their
marketing
activities in Kawkareik and Ban Pang-kan in Karen state.

For its part, the Burmese army would maintain a base near the banks of
Moei
river south of the Friendship bridge at Myawaddy.  In the initial stage,
amphetamines would be smuggled in private cars across the Friendship
Bridge
at Myawaddy every two or three days. The amphetamines are already being
sold to Burmese vendors who smuggle them in Burmese buses to the markets
and temples in Mae Sot District.

The UWSA would eventually be permitted to set up amphetamine production
facilities in Myawaddy and to operate bus routes in the along the
highway
to Pa-an and Mawlamyaing.  Under the arrangement, the Wa cut in any
profits
would be 40 percent while the SPDC and DKBA would get 30 per cent each
for
protection services.

The report said the Wa army had already oiled the way to co-operation
with
the DKBA by donating two used Toyota pick-up trucks to the group for use
in
the border area.