Junta spooks in league with the trade

Junta spooks in league with the trade

Drugs

Following seizure of almost ten million speed pills in the Thai border district of Maesod on Friday, 10 October, Karen National Union's spokesman Saw Sarky claimed yesterday Rangoon's military intelligence was involved in the aborted shipment. 

"MI-25 (Military Intelligence Detachment #25) was up to its neck in the operation," said Karen rebels' Europe-based representative. "It had worked together with the DKBA's Battalion 907, commanded by Nakhanmwe, a Christian officer." 

DKBA is short for Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, a splinter group from the KNU that had since 1994 concluded a ceasefire pact with Rangoon. The group has long been reported as local agent for drugs coming from northern Burma. 

MI-25 is stationed in Hpa-an, about 120 km from the Thai border and commanded by a Karen officer, Maj Saw Hsay Hti. 

The said drugs were captured by Phisanulok-based Third Army. 

The Karen spokesman declined to say whether the KNU had been instrumental in the year's biggest haul. However, Bangkok Post reported a day earlier that information provided by the rebels had played a crucial role in the Third Army's past successes against drug traffickers. 

S.H.A.N. source in Mae Sai, a Thai town opposite Thachilek, said it wasn't a surprise to hear that Burma's feared MI was involved in drugs. "Here, its operatives are paid in pills, not in baht," he contended.