2008

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Druglord behind yesterday’s attack on Chinese boat

Naw Kham, who has been on the run on drug charges since 10 January 2006, is reportedly the mastermind of yesterday’s surprise attack on a Chinese maritime police boat on the Mekong, according to reports from the border.

Junta demands, paid poppy tax

Local authorities are encouraging people to plant poppies and then collecting taxes from villagers in Mongkeung Township, according to reports from Southern Shan State.

The war of figures continues

In January 1987, Thailand’s drug czar Chavalit Yodmanee was asked by Bangkok Post about Mong Tai Army leader Khun Sa’s claim that some 900 tons of opium would be produced in Shan State for the 1986-87 season.

Mongla casinos doomed but that’s no big deal

More than a year after they were newly inaugurated in April 2006, casinos in Mongla, Burma’s Las Vegas, have been seeing better days since new gambling establishments popped up late last year in the neighboring Laotian town of Boten, Luang Nam Tha Province, according to sources from Kengtung.

Forced relocations genesis to Mekong shooting

Latest findings by Thai investigators indicated that the most plausible cause for the attack on a Chinese police patrol boat on 25 February was the forced relocation of Laotian villagers by the $200 million casino project launched by Chinese financiers earlier this year, according to senior security officials on the triangle.

Changed titles change druglord’s status little

Wei Xuegang, a Chinese-Wa leader who is wanted both in Thailand and the United States, swapped offices with his deputy in the finance ministry in November, but that had done very little to alter his standing among his peers, according to Hawkeye who recently returned to the border.

Wa farmers demand return to poppy cultivation

A growing number of impoverished farmers in the Wa region on the Sino-Burma has been calling on the Wa authorities to allow a return to poppy culture that was suspended almost 3 years ago, according to both official and unofficial sources.

Rubber fields forever for Wa?

There are some 600,000 acres of rubber plantations in the Wa-controlled areas both on the Chinese and Thai borders but they are still not sufficient to sustain the Wa farmers who were forced by their leadership to quit the 120 year old poppy culture in 2005, according to a Wa official who requested anonymity.

Rice embargo leaves Wa in limbo

China has imposed restrictions against rice trading along the border since the 7.9 magnitude quake hit Sichuan, the birthplace of the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, on 12 May, triggering shortage of rice in the 6,000 square mile Wa region, according to sources.

No opium free Burma in 2014 unless…

As the world’s anti-drug day 26 June draws near, Shan Drug Watch, a branch of SHAN, has bad news for Burma’s military rulers: opium output in Shan State is up from last year’s by all accounts, a progress in the opposite direction if their 15 year master plan is taken into account.

Hard to be innocent in Burma

“The government is bankrupt and the generals have all the money,” reported Mizzima News, 25 April, quoting a member of an International NGO in Rangoon.

Wanyin ill-informed choice for drug free project

More than two years after the Yawngkha drug free project was abandoned by Thailand, Burma’s latest Prime Minister Gen Thein Sein, on his 29 April-1 May visit, reportedly proposed another project in a locality hitherto unknown to the outside world.

Increased cultivation on the Shan-Kayah border

Junta authorities cannot be faulted for their efforts to whitewash themselves when it comes to drugs, but impoverished people are turning more and more to poppy cultivation along the Shan-Kayah border areas, says Karenni Anti-Drug Action Committee (KADAC), an independent fact-finding group based on the Maehongson-Kayah border.

Fewer refineries but no less output

Compared to 2003 when SHAN’s Drug Watch published Show Business: Rangoon’s War on Drugs in Shan State, there appear to be fewer heroin or methamphetamine factories along the Thai-Burma border.

Truck caught with drug chemicals released after bribe

After bribing the authorities, the truck which was seized with drug production facilities and precursor chemicals by Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) in Tachilek, eastern Shan State was released two weeks ago, reports Shan Herald correspondent from the Thai-Burma border.

Drug case sends bank scare

The controversial double standard applied by Senior General Than Shwe over the Maung Weik-Aung Zaw Ye Myint drug scandal has caused tension among the junta’s top generals which in turn has prompted panic-stricken customers to withdraw their bank deposits, Chai Sayam reports from the border:

Research paper: Drug free Asean by 2015 unrealistic

The latest report by a veteran research team from Europe that came out Saturday, 23 August, has concluded that the Asean target to make the Southeast Asian region drug-free by 2015 is “obviously unattainable.”