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Khun Sa Dies At 74

sriracha john

By sriracha john
in Thailand News

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sriracha john Star Member

sriracha john

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ALeqM5gEj4Xy52ND4uyIpjsg-QSNF9O49Q.jpg

Khun Sa, shown at this headquarters in Homong, Myanmar on November 22, 1995

Associated Press

Former Notorious Druglord Khun Sa Dies

BANGKOK, Thailand — One-time drug warlord Khun Sa, variously described as among the world's most wanted men and as a great liberation fighter, has died, an associate and a Myanmar official said Tuesday. He was 74.

Khuensai Jaiyen, a former secretary of Khun Sa who works with ethnic Shan minority guerrilla groups, said that his former boss died in the Myanmar capital of Yangon on Friday, according to his relatives.

The cause of death was not immediately known, but Khun Sa had long suffered from diabetes, partial paralysis and high blood pressure.

A Myanmar official in Yangon confirmed the death. Khun Sa was cremated Tuesday morning, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press.

Khun Sa's body had been kept since Friday at Yay Way cemetery in Yangon's outskirts, where the cremation took place, said a cemetery worker, who asked not to be named for the same reason.

For nearly four decades, the charismatic warlord claimed to be fighting for autonomy for the Shan, one of many ethnic minorities who have battled Myanmar's central government for decades.

But narcotics agents around the world used terms like the "Prince of Death" to describe him and the United States offered a $2 million reward for his arrest.

"They say I have horns and fangs. Actually, I am a king without a crown," he told this reporter, who visited his remote headquarters of Ho Mong after an 11-hour mule ride.

At the height of his notoriety, Khun Sa presided over a veritable narcotics kingdom complete with satellite television, schools and surface-to-air missiles in the drug-producing Golden Triangle region where Myanmar, Thailand and Laos meet.

He preferred to paint himself as a liberation fighter for the Shan ethnic minority, heading up the Shan United Army — later the Mong Tai Army — in Myanmar's northeastern Shan State.

He had lived in seclusion in Yangon since 1996, when he surrendered to the country's ruling military junta who allowed him to run a string of businesses behind a veil of secrecy.

Born of a Chinese father and Shan mother on February 17, 1933, Khun Sa received little education but learned the ways of battle and opium from the Kuomintang, remnants of forces defeated by China's communists and forced to flee into Myanmar.

By the early 1960s Khun Sa, also known as Chang Chi-<deleted>, had become a major player in the Golden Triangle, then the world's major source for opium and its derivative, heroin.

He suffered a near knockout blow in the so-called 1967 Opium War, fighting a pitched battle with the Kuomintang in Laos. Laotian troops intervened by bombing both sides and making off with the opium.

For a time he served in the Myanmar government militia, but was jailed in 1969 after allying himself with the Shan cause. He was freed five years later in exchange for two Russian doctors his followers had kidnapped.

The wily operator sought a less hostile environment in Thailand, setting up a hilltop base protected by his sizable Shan United Army. But he was driven out in 1982 and lodged himself in Ho Mong, an idyllic valley near the Thai frontier inside Myanmar, also known as Burma.

There, the chain-smoking warlord entertained visitors with Taiwanese pop songs, grew orchids and strawberries, and directed a flow of heroin to addicts around the world. Washington estimated that up to 60 percent of the heroin in the United States was refined from opium in his area.

Khun Sa claimed he only used the drug trade to finance his Shan struggle. Peter Bourne, an adviser to former President Carter, called him "one of the most impressive national leaders I have met."

Khun Sa argued that only economic development in the impoverished Shan State, still one of the major sources of the world's heroin, could stop opium growing and its smuggling to the "drug-crazed West."

"My people grow opium. And they are not doing it for fun. They do it because they need to buy rice to eat and clothes to wear," he once said.

He carried out a one-way correspondence with U.S. presidents, offering to sell Washington the entire crop of opium in exchange for funds to implement his development plans for the Shans.

But in 1989, he was indicted for heroin trafficking by the U.S. District Court in New York and his extradition to the United States was requested.

Khun Sa continued to war with the central government and rival ethnic guerrilla groups like the Wa until 1996 when the junta, which had once threatened to hang him, offered him amnesty. He disbanded his Mong Tai Army of about 10,000 fighters and moved to Yangon, the Myanmar capital.

Although difficult to confirm, reports said he lived a life of luxury in a secluded compound, having been awarded concessions to operate a transport company and a ruby mine along with other businesses.

There was speculation that he was still involved in the narcotics trade, which was largely taken over by his former enemies, the Wa.

- Associated Press

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sriracha john Star Member

sriracha john

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Drug warlord Khun Sa dies

Drug warlord Khun Sa has died in his Rangoon residence last week, a source close to him said Tuesday. He was 73. The cause of death was not immediately known, but Khun Sa had long suffered from diabetes, partial paralysis and high blood pressure.

He was cremated Tuesday morning.

Khun Sa had lived in seclusion in Rangoon about a decade ago after he surrendered to the country's ruling military junta who allowed him to run a string of businesses behind a veil of secrecy.

Khun Sa, known as Chang Chi-<deleted>, portrayed himself as a liberation fighter for the Shan, heading up the Shan United Army _ later the Mong Tai Army _ in Burma's northeastern Shan State.

He had become a major player in the Golden Triangle - a former the world's major source for opium and heroin.

- The Nation

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sriracha john Star Member

sriracha john

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Heroin warlord dead

Chang Shi-<deleted>, better known as Southeast Asia's most-wanted Golden Triangle drug kingpin Khun Sa, died in his Rangoon home after losing a years-long battle with diseases including high blood pressure and diabetes, sources on the Thai-Burmese border confirmed. Khun Sa was 73 when he died. He cheated authorities in both the United States and Thailand, where he faced the death penalty for drug trafficking and kidnapping at the height of his power in the late 1970s and 1980s in Chiang Rai province.

Khun Sa rose to be the greatest drug lord in the Golden Traingle, the tri-border area between Thailand, Burma and Laos which once accounted for the lion's share of the world's opium crop, and its refined form, heroin. In 1989, Khun Sa was charged by a New York court of trying to import more than 100 tons of heroin into the US.

Continued here:

http://www.bangkokpost.com/topstories/tops...s.php?id=123135

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percy2 Gold Member

percy2

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He once told the Associated Press: "My people grow opium. And they are not doing it for fun. They do it because they need to buy rice to eat and clothes to wear."
He offered to sell Washington the entire crop of opium in exchange for funds to implement his development plans for the Shans.

Its a shame/good thing that the world is not black and white.

Cheers

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Artisi Star Member

Artisi

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He once told the Associated Press: "My people grow opium. And they are not doing it for fun. They do it because they need to buy rice to eat and clothes to wear."
He offered to sell Washington the entire crop of opium in exchange for funds to implement his development plans for the Shans.

Cheers

Certainly an interesting history if you are so inclined to study it, all drug manufacture was offered to the US government - who politley and with their usual stupid thinking turned it down on the grounds that we don't deal with drug dealers, they even went to the extreme in one instance to set up a sting operation to capture khun Sa and then handed him over to the Burmeses government. So guess where the market for the drugs was after this crazy game - yep- the streets of "good old USA". It was not the first or will it be the last time that politics will get in the way of curbing the drug trade so as a president can get re-elected.

So next time you're trying to blame government for not stemming the drug trade - bear this in mind as it certainly answers a few questions.

Edited by Artisi
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sabaijai Diamond Member

sabaijai

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This one came first ... and you posted the third one. :D

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sabaijai Diamond Member

sabaijai

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Sorry, didn't see it buried within there. As the biggest drug distributer for Thailand at one time, certainly deserving of his own thread in Thailand's forum.

It appeared here first, under News Clippings.

Am merging with that topic and removing duplicate reports.

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percy2 Gold Member

percy2

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Posted (edited)

Edit removed after rereading Sabajai.

So this one was second 151086.

The one SJ pointed out was third 1624495.

And the one I pointed out was first 150959.

A bit confusing.

Cheers

Edited by percy2
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percy2 Gold Member

percy2

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Posted
Edit removed after rereading Sabajai.

So this one was second 151086.

The one SJ pointed out was third 1624495.

And the one I pointed out was first 150959.

A bit confusing.

Cheers

Hang on thats still not right because the SJ reference no. must be a post ref. rather than a topic ref.

But I do recall that SJ wasn't first but he's at the top of the tree now.

Ah well I guess a case of This is ThaiVisa

TITV

Cheers

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sriracha john Star Member

sriracha john

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Warlord's Death Evokes CIA's Golden Days In The Heroin Trade

The death of Burmese warlord Khun Sa severs one of the few remaining links between Washington's Central Intelligence Agency and the trafficking of heroin out of Southeast Asia's famed Golden Triangle.

Khun Sa apparently died last Friday in the Burmese commercial centre and former capital, Rangoon, aged 74 and after a peaceful retirement since he surrendered to the country's ruling junta in 1996.

Many believe he got amnesty in return for handing over to Burma's ruling generals his opium poppy growing and drug production empire that at one time provided 60 per cent of the heroin sold on United States streets.

But Khun Sa never considered himself a drug lord.

He thought himself a liberation fighter for the freedom of his people, the Shan of the forest-covered mountains of northeastern Burma. Poppy growing and drug trafficking were unfortunate necessities, he held, to feed and clothe his people, and buy arms necessary to fight Burma's military regime.

He even wrote directly to several U.S. presidents offering to sell the Golden Triangle's entire crop of heroin to them to keep it off American streets while still sustaining his liberation struggle. He never received a reply.

Khun Sa was a much loved by his people as a great nationalist hero. He was loathed with equal ferocity by successive U.S. administrations and in the late 1980s a $2-million US reward was offered for his capture.

It was not always so. Back in the 1960s and '70s, Khun Sa's empire fitted neatly into a CIA operation to fund Southeast Asian hill tribe militias to attack North Vietnamese supply routes to the war in South Vietnam.

In one of the CIA's more foul operations, its agents used its Air America airline to fly out Golden Triangle heroin. The drug was sold to corrupt South Vietnamese and Thai politicians who then peddled it to GIs in South Vietnam and a booming population of addicts in America.

There are some credible reports that, because of Khun Sa's access to southern China, the CIA continued supporting him well after the war in Southeast Asia had ended and even after the U.S. government had put a price on his head.

Khun Sa, meaning "Prince of Wealth," became the nom de guerre of a boy born in 1934 to a Chinese father and a Shan princess mother. His name was Zhang Qifu and he came of age in the tempestuous years after the Second World War when the Chinese Communists ousted the last troops of the old Kuomintang nationalist government from Yunnan province.

The Kuomintang's 8th and 26th Armies established themselves in northern Burma where they carved out a principality financed by opium production and supplied by regular air drops of arms from American planes.

As a youth Khun Sa joined the Kuomintang military, but then switched sides to Burmese government militias charged with halting the opium trade.

Once he had gathered an army of about 800 followers, Khun Sa declared himself a Shan nationalist and set up his own drug-producing principality. This brought him into collision with and defeat by the Kuomintang, as a result of which he was captured and imprisoned by the Burmese government in 1969.

Khun Sa was released in 1976 when his followers kidnapped two Russian doctors and demanded their leader's freedom in exchange.

He moved to the wilds of northern Thailand where he established his base in the town of Baan Hin Taek where he was protected by his well-armed Shan United Army of about 10,000 men.

This began the glory days of his control of the Golden Triangle drug trade. But in 1982, after a long and arduous campaign, the Thai Army and Air Force pushed the Shan United Army back into Burma.

Khun Sa simply set up a new headquarters just inside Burma at Ho Mong from where he controlled the world's heroin trade for nearly two decades.

My friend, Bertil Linter, who is the great expert on the Golden Triangle and who interviewed Khun Sa several times, says the warlord was basically an illiterate thug.

But Khun Sa told another friend, Denis Gray of the Associated Press Bangkok bureau, "They say I have horns and fangs. Actually, I am a king without a crown."

- Vancouver Sun

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A_Traveller Platinum Member

A_Traveller

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Posted (edited)

With all due respect to the thread originators, I posted this information on the forum, within the Burma news thread on the 30th at 16:54, my 2,000 post. ref: 1624259

Regards

Edit removed after rereading Sabajai.

So this one was second 151086.

The one SJ pointed out was third 1624495.

And the one I pointed out was first 150959.

A bit confusing.

Cheers

Hang on thats still not right because the SJ reference no. must be a post ref. rather than a topic ref.

But I do recall that SJ wasn't first but he's at the top of the tree now.

Ah well I guess a case of This is ThaiVisa

TITV

Cheers

Edited by A_Traveller
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sabaijai Diamond Member

sabaijai

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With all due respect to the thread originators, I posted this information on the forum, within the Burma news thread on the 30th at 16:54, my 2,000 post. ref: 1624259

Regards

Edit removed after rereading Sabajai.

So this one was second 151086.

The one SJ pointed out was third 1624495.

And the one I pointed out was first 150959.

A bit confusing.

Cheers

Hang on thats still not right because the SJ reference no. must be a post ref. rather than a topic ref.

But I do recall that SJ wasn't first but he's at the top of the tree now.

Ah well I guess a case of This is ThaiVisa

TITV

Cheers

Sorry, thought the Thailand News Clippings one came first (around 2pm on the 30th? BKK time), my error if not. Popular news item ... :o

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sriracha john Star Member

sriracha john

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With all due respect to the thread originators, I posted this information on the forum, within the Burma news thread on the 30th at 16:54, my 2,000 post. ref: 1624259

Regards

Edit removed after rereading Sabajai.

So this one was second 151086.

The one SJ pointed out was third 1624495.

And the one I pointed out was first 150959.

A bit confusing.

Cheers

Hang on thats still not right because the SJ reference no. must be a post ref. rather than a topic ref.

But I do recall that SJ wasn't first but he's at the top of the tree now.

Ah well I guess a case of This is ThaiVisa

TITV

Cheers

Sorry, thought the Thailand News Clippings one came first (around 2pm on the 30th? BKK time), my error if not. Popular news item ... :o

...well, as long as we're all chirping in... A_Traveller did make the original post, but I failed to notice it as it was under the thread title General Burma News in the Southeast Asia Forum and then.... having not seen it as a thread, I posted it, as the next original post, in it's own thread in General. So sabaijai is correct to make mine as the thread starter if it's going to moved to its own thread in News Clipping Forum.

Edited by sriracha john
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