EBO BURMA NEWS 13 JULY 2003

EBO BURMA NEWS 13 JULY 2003

News Summary:

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1. Myanmar drugs lord under house arrest: Thai report

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Myanmar drugs lord under house arrest: Thai report

BANGKOK, July 13 (AFP) - Top Myanmar drug lord Wei Hseuh Kang has been

placed under house arrest in the military-ruled country's northeastern town of

Lashio, a Thai drug official said according to a report here Sunday.

Wei, an ethnic Chinese leader of the Yangon-aligned United Wa State Army

(UWSA) is one of the world's most notorious drug traffickers and is wanted by

the United States, which has put a two million-dollar reward on his head.

"Drug baron Wei Hseuh Kang is under house arrest in Lashio," the offical

from Thailand's Office of Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) was quoted as saying

in Sunday's Bangkok Post.

"He has not been formally arraigned. He is only restricted from

activities," the official told the daily, adding that his trading company had

also been closed.

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has previously threatened to take

Wei Hseuh Kang, who jumped bail in Thailand in 1990, dead or alive. In

December 2001, Thai authorities seized property reportedly worth more than two

million dollars from him.

Wei's brother Wei Hseuh Tang, another UWSA leader, meanwhile reportedly

faces trial in Yangon on drug trafficking charges, the official added without

elaborating.

The 20,000-strong UWSA is accused by the international community of

controlling much of Myanmar's vast opium and methamphetamines trade.

The group is defended by Myanmar's junta, which signed a ceasefire

agreement with the group in 1989 that granted wide-ranging autonomy.

The military regime insists that the Wa have renounced their involvement in

the narcotics trade and are earnestly involved in crop substitution programs

aimed at ridding their region of drugs by 2005.

Myanmar's ongoing drugs production has tested its relations with

neighbouring Thailand, the main destination for the millions of

methamphetamine pills, known here as yaa baa or crazy medicine, churned

out of mobile factories along the border.

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