Rice embargo leaves Wa in limbo

^{4 June 2008}

“To add to the trouble, we can no longer get rice from areas west of the Salween, except by smuggling,” said a Wa officer in Panghsang. “Now we are paying almost twice as much. One kilogram of rice used to cost 2.5 yuan ($0.4). Now we are paying nearly 5 yuan ($0.8).”
 
The leadership is also not certain whether or not the annual 10,000 ton of rice donation from China will be coming this year either.
 
The Wa region, dubbed the Wa Self Administered Region (SAR) by the draft constitution approved by Burma’s ruling junta last month, has since time immemorial existed on rice imported from neighboring areas.
 
Its medium of exchange until 2005 was opium, the region’s major product. However, the group was pressured both by China in that year to declare a drug free zone.
 
“Since then, we have strictly adhered to a ‘no poppy fields’ policy,” he said. “But I don’t know what will happen if the embargo continues.”
 
Some ex-poppy farmers have already petitioned for a return to poppy cultivation, according to local sources when SHAN visited the area in March.
 
Burma’s ruling junta has also reportedly tightened its restrictions on movements of rice from one township to another, since Cyclone Nargis ravaged the Irrawaddy delta, known traditionally as the rice bowl of Burma, on 2-3 May, ten days before the Sichuan quake, which took a death toll of 70,000.
 
“Our truck, carrying 200 bags of rice, was stopped at Taunggyi,” said a rice trader in Kunhing yesterday. “We had to unload and leave every bag of it there at the checkpoint. This had never happened before.”

On 26 June, World Anti-Drugs Day, Panghsang was presented with more than 10,000 tons of rice by the WFP, Thailand and China, according to a UWSA officer.