No. 18 - 10/2005
21 October 2005

Drugs/Politics

Wa getting away with it

The United Wa State Army will not be held responsible for the 496 kg heroin bust that caught one of its top members red-handed last month, according to a highly-placed source who recently returned from Rangoon.

"I was informed in Rangoon the regime needed the Wa to bring the Shans into line," said the source. "Its policy is to leave the Wa strictly alone as long as Burma's neighbors let them be."

"Of course, that doesn't mean that individual members can consider themselves immune from prosecution," he added.

Ta Pan, nephew of Wa leader Bao Youxaing and commander of Mongyawn-based 2518th Independent Regiment, who had escorted the doomed drug convoy on 10 September, for one is reportedly still under custody.

Rangoon, he explains, is re-inventing the well-known "using fish oil to fry fish" policy, meaning natives against natives. "The Shans will be ruled through non-Shans, with Wa in the east, PaO in the south and Palaung in the north," he said.

The PaO, for instance, are already enjoying special privileges. "Driving through their area of control, I saw hills on both sides of the road from Mongpawn to Loilem covered with poppy fields," he stated.

Daw Kyaing Kyaing, Senior General Than Shwe's wife, is an ethnic PaO, he reminded S.H.A.N.

According to British census, consider the most even-handed, compared to Burmese and Shan figures, the total populations of Shans and non-Shans in the Shan State are just about the same, 50:50.