Golden Triangle Opium Still Linked To Insurgencies

[Lite Beer]

Golden Triangle opium still linked to insurgencies

EDITORIAL By The Nation.

UN estimates 580 tonnes of opium was produced in Burma this year, a big rise

The UN has been conducting crop-substitution programmes in northeastern Burma and northern Laos since 1996. Although these programmes have helped reduced opium production in Southeast Asia, from 1,176 tonnes in 1996 to 312 in 2006, production has been on the increase since 2006.

According to the latest UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) annual survey, the increase since 2006 is more than 50 per cent. Burma now accounts for about 16 per cent of the world's opium production, an increase from 5 per cent the year before, according the UN survey for 2010.

The report estimated Burma opium production this past year at 580 tonnes.

One of the factors officials like to point to is the weather patterns and the decline in the food supply, which has forced families in the area to turn to opium as cash crop.

But another factor that few officials like to talk about is the political aspect of the drug business in this area - that opium and the insurgency in Burma's part of the rugged Golden Triangle have always been two sides of the same coin.

Like it or not, opium has been the very commodity that has financed the resistance against the brutal military government of Burma, one of the most condemned in the world.

In a recent report in China Daily, Meng Sutie, director of Yunnan's public security department, was quoted as saying the doubling of opium cultivation in Burma over the past three years has posed a grave challenge for security agencies protecting the Chinese border.

"Myanmar [burma] now grows about 26,800 hectares of poppies," Meng was quoted in China Daily. The UN, on the other hand, puts the figure at 38,100 hectares for 2010 cultivation.

Ming said his estimation was based on data collected by both countries through satellite technology and on-the-ground research in northern Burma.

But these figures are always disputed. One can never really carry out a thorough on-the-ground survey because the areas in question are control by drug armies and opium warlords, most of whom had, until August 2009, ceasefire agreement with the Burmese junta.

As expected, a senior Chinese officer would have to put a nice spin to the bilateral ties with Burma even though reality on the ground tells a different story.

Nobody wants to say that much of the opium and heroin production and distribution is controlled by ethnic armies that entered into a ceasefire agreement with the Burmese junta in 1989, or the fact that much of this drug money is laundered in Burmese and Chinese towns and cities along the border and that local government officials benefit handsomely from these arrangements. Many of these opium warlords were once field commanders of the Communist Party of Burma, which was funded and armed by the Chinese until 1989.

It's a different story now however. The Burmese junta believes the ceasefire agreements with these ethnic armies and former communists are no longer needed and demand that they surrender their weapons and come under the direct control of the military.

To show they mean business, the junta launched an all-out offensive against the Kokang Chinese in August 2009, forcing tens of thousands to flee into China. It was a stark reminder to the Chinese that their friendship with the ethnic armies will no longer come at the expense of Burma's national security.

The writing has been on the wall since October 2004, when powerful intelligence chief General Khin Nyunt was ousted from power. It was he who orchestrated these ceasefire arrangements with the ethnic armies despite reservations from conservative elements within the junta.

Beijing saw it coming and did nothing. The same could be said about Asean, which had been warned about the problem of permitting Burma into its family. But while no one can turn the clock back, there is no reason why the world can't speak frankly about the nature of the problem in the Golden Triangle, which is to say that no counter-narcotics policy has any chance of success without looking at the insurgency side of the equation.

-- The Nation 2011-03-20

[asiawatcher]

If it were up to the US they would "Agent Orange" the crops or napalm them. But there has to be a way to stop or slow, production. I would think the military, as corrupt and powerful as it is, is in the box seat when it comes to taking on the drug lords but the money comes back into Burma so they tend to allow it at present. But ASEAN and like minded bodies would be foolish to allow Burma to be a part of their organisations. It will not be easily solved.

[REM]

It's interesting about what the US would do. In Afghanistan for example, they don't just go in and destroy the opium crops because they don't want to sour their relationships with the locals and tribal governments. Basically, they are already there fighting a war, and they have to cling to what little support they already have, so their logic is 'don't take away the people's only means of income......just yet, because then we'll totally lose them to our cause.' Burma seems different though.

It's interesting, but I think the problem is more similar to a Columbian story, and that hasn't worked out so well in the past 40 years......

[mark45y]

When Thailand invaded Burma during WW II they increased the opium production from 8 to 36 tons. Times have sure changed.

580 tons seems hard to believe and also hard to hide. Boy that is a lot of opium. When I was in the hospital for an operation in Thailand the doc told me I couldn't have any after 3 days. Gee you would think with 580 tons just across the border he would not have been so stingy.

580 tons wholesale $1,740,000,000

Retail, $9,280,000,000

Baht 278,400,000,000

Edited March 20, 2011 by mark45y

[jdinasia]

If it were up to the US they would "Agent Orange" the crops or napalm them. But there has to be a way to stop or slow, production. I would think the military, as corrupt and powerful as it is, is in the box seat when it comes to taking on the drug lords but the money comes back into Burma so they tend to allow it at present. But ASEAN and like minded bodies would be foolish to allow Burma to be a part of their organisations. It will not be easily solved.

Myanmar is a member of ASEAN as is Laos

[londonthai]

"580 tonnes of opium was produced in Burma this year ... opium production in Southeast Asia, from 1,176 tonnes in 1996 to 312 in 2006, ... the increase since 2006 is more than 50 per cent. Burma now accounts for about 16 per cent of the world's opium production, an increase from 5 per cent the year before"

for me those figures don't add up.

maybe the analysts from the un are trying to inflate figures, to keep themselves important and busy

[jdinasia]

"580 tonnes of opium was produced in Burma this year ... opium production in Southeast Asia, from 1,176 tonnes in 1996 to 312 in 2006, ... the increase since 2006 is more than 50 per cent. Burma now accounts for about 16 per cent of the world's opium production, an increase from 5 per cent the year before"

for me those figures don't add up.

maybe the analysts from the un are trying to inflate figures, to keep themselves important and busy

Maybe you are trying to fit 2 separate statistics together? Opium production in Myanmar and opium production in South-East Asia?