Thailand rewarding Wa for their crimes

Thailand rewarding Wa for their crimes, says Shan expatriate 

Thai Project for Wa 

A respected Shan in exile has written to the Thai prime minister requesting him not to target only the Wa but also the original inhabitants as beneficiaries of the proposed development project that had been offered to Burma last year.

In her letter dated 28 January, Sao Noan Oo a.k.a. Nel Adams of Lawkzawk, a former Shan state, now making her home in England, said, "The Shans ..... cannot understand why the Was are being rewarded for their criminal and terrorist activities while the victims are being ignored and neglected."

She was speaking in connection with the ongoing Thai efforts to assist Wa people coming from the Chinese border to be resettled in the townships adjoining Thailand including Nayao, renamed by the Wa as Yawngkha, opposite Mae Fa Luang District, Chiangrai province. According to social workers, 2,000 families in the area, mostly Shan and Akha, have been displaced by the relocation program that was launched in 1999.

The Shans that fled to Thailand did not want to leave their homes, she said. "(T)heir country ... is naturally beautiful and has one of the best climactic conditions in the world. (It) has been their home and haven for thousands of years. If you were in their place, would you leave your home and flee to neighboring countries where you are not welcomed unless you are desperate and driven to do so?"

She commended Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra for the planned B. 20 million project to help establish a drug free village in the border areas, "but the Shans are very anxious that the project might have a negative effect on the original inhabitants." She therefore requested, among others, that the Thaksin administration appoint a governmental representative to monitor the working and progress of the project" so as to avoid the Was encroaching further into areas occupied by the original inhabitants."

Nevertheless, she was pessimistic about the whole proposed project. "(A)s long as the Burmese Military Junta are dependent for their economy directly or indirectly on poppy plants, I do not foresee any decrease in the growing, production and trafficking of drugs from Burma into Thailand and other countries," she concluded.

A similar letter was also written to Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi.

Sao Noan Oo has written and published her experiences in a book titled, "My Vanished World: The true story of a Shan princess."