SCMP-Junta's anger rebounds on drug

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Subject: SCMP-Junta's anger rebounds on drug traffickers

South China Morning Post
Wednesday, October 27, 1999
THE MEKONG REGION

Junta's anger rebounds on drug traffickers
BURMA by WILLIAM BARNES
The Burmese junta may learn that life is full of unexpected consequences
after trying to punish Thailand for its kid-gloves treatment of five embassy
hijackers.
In trying to hurt Thai cross-border traders, they are also likely to be
creating problems for important domestic allies - ethnic drug traffickers.

Narcotics experts believe that by closing the border on October 2, the junta
has provided an unexpected boost to Bangkok's efforts to suppress the
scourge of amphetamines pouring across from the Shan state.

The military Government has cobbled together about 15 peace deals with
ethnic minority groups in the past decade. And for the first time in Burmese
history, the central authority has been able to claim that its rule runs
throughout the country.

But the deals with heavily armed groups such as the ethnic Wa and several
others allows them to carry on producing and trading drugs in enclaves near
the border.

"These groups are hooked on drug money just as much as their customers are
on their products. They are reluctant to give it up," said a veteran border
watcher in Chiang Mai.

Rangoon's promises of "development money" and other peace dividends have
proved so thin that even the most gullible, or tired, warlord is likely to
resist integration into what passes for normal society in Burma.

In other areas of the world, relieving them of their ill-gotten gains might
make political sense. But in Burma, peace deals with drug traffickers permit
the military to concentrate on cowing the civilian population and
non-trafficking rebels demanding a measure of autonomy.

Fresh drug profits also provide a vital prop to the Burmese economy and,
claimed some observers, the wallets of some members of the junta.

But the junta's desire to somehow punish Thailand runs deep.

The border's closure was announced on the day that Thailand flew the five
dissidents, who had held scores of people hostage in Burma's Bangkok
embassy, to the border jungle, where they were allowed to slip away with
their guns.

The governor of the important northern border town of Tachilek was recently
sacked because he was seen as too soft on border traders.

There have been reports of food and fuel shortages in Burma's border areas.
Even members of the regime's military allies, such as the Democratic Karen
Buddhist Army, have been trying to break the ban by smuggling back supplies.

About 350 monks and nuns recently crossed the border in search of alms
because ordinary Burmese did not have enough food to donate themselves.

A group of Thai fishermen has offered a five million baht (HK$1 million)
reward for the capture of the five students, after Burma's Ambassador, Hla
Muang, said the arrest of the five hijackers could mend relations.