SHANS/PEACE/POLITICS

[moe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

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Paris, Tuesday, December 15, 1998
Burma's Shan Rebels Wrestle With the Trappings of Peace

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By Thomas Crampton International Herald Tribune
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OM MU, Burma - To hear the leaders of the Shan State Army tell it, the
nine-year truce in their fight against Burma's central government has done
little to demoralize, disband or disarm their rebellion.
Instead, like 15 other insurgent armies in Burma over the last decade, the
guerrilla soldiers have maintained their demands for political autonomy
while being thrust into tight economic relations with Rangoon that benefit
both sides, even if there is an occasional whiff of opium in the deals.

Gangs of gun-toting teenagers patrol the perimeter fences outside the army's
heavily defended 3d Brigade headquarters, and bodyguards protect commanders
against bombs, bullets, poison or mysterious disappearance.

But the verbal agreement that began their uneasy cease-fire has allowed the
Shan State Army to leave behind some aspects of the nomadic, guerrilla
lifestyle. Youthful soldiers attend school; their families cultivate crops,
and the army leadership has established a business office in Rangoon.

Along with these comforts of peace, however, this year the soldiers
discovered an insidious new adversary that decades of jungle combat did not
prepare them to fight: Mortgage payments.

''We spent all the money we borrowed building a sugar factory and have none
left to pay for cane to crush from the December harvest,'' said Sao Hso
Hten, the army's chairman. ''The interest payments are really becoming a
headache, and I don't know what we are going to do.'' 

''We hope a capitalist will come in to help us. Perhaps you can tell some
people,'' he told a recent visitor, offering to lead a tour of the freshly
painted facility.

A recent low-interest government loan of 57 million kyat ($160,000) is the
kind of deal that Rangoon officials say nurtures fragile peace accords by
helping develop some of Southeast Asia's most rugged and remote regions.

Converting jungle warriors into legitimate businessmen is the only way for
the nation's puzzle of 135 ethnic groups to exist in peace, the government
says.

The Shan State Army receives monthly payments of 320,000 kyat from the
central government as well as concessions to cut teak, mine gemstones and
tax vehicles - including opium convoys - that transit their territory.

This same sort of economic cooperation, however, has also raised accusations
that Burma is narco-state, since a small set of the insurgent groups
collectively supply the majority of the world's illicit opium.

Most controversially, the government now has troops stationed in some opium
growing regions and effectively promotes money laundering by encouraging
self-declared drug warlords to invest in toll roads, bus lines and banks.

''There is a fine line between maintaining peace and encouraging
development, which everyone wants, and allowing narcotics traffickers to
conduct criminal activities and spend the proceeds with impunity,'' said a
Rangoon-based diplomat. ''While Burma's government has made efforts to fight
drugs, they will cross that line every time to stay in power.'' 

The Shan State Army leaders insist that they earn nothing from opium
cultivation and that government money cannot buy their allegiance.

''We will not be traitors to the thousands of our comrades who fell in our
40-year fight,'' said Sao Hso Hten, pointing to the dead warriors whose
photographs line the wooden wall of the 3d Brigade headquarters. ''The
chauvinistic ways of the Burmese mean they will try to wipe us out like the
ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. We will use this peace to make our army stronger
than ever before to fight for autonomy.'' 

Burma's 50-year civil war, which at times restricted the national government
to little more than the capital and its prized seaport, still rages nearby,
with government troops battling a breakaway faction from the army of the
retired opium warlord Khun Sa.

''The Burmese Army forces people to resettle in strategic villages and then
shoots on sight anyone who remains in the no-man's-land,'' said Sao Hso Hten.

According to the Thailand-based Shan Human Rights Foundation, more than
300,000 villagers have been displaced in the last two years by this tactic.

''It hurts us to see fellow Shans treated in such a way,'' said Sao Hso
Hten, shortly before clapping with pleasure while relating a story about 10
ethnic Burmese civilians killed in late October by Shan guerrillas. ''We are
at war and such things as these cannot be avoided.''

The war is not always against the Burmese, he added, pointing out that more
members of the army's ruling committee were killed by rival insurgents than
by the central government.

''When the government turned to fight other groups, we used to have
celebrations,'' said Sao Hso Hten, referring to the dozens of insurgent
groups and factions across Burma. ''We have even fought the other groups
ourselves to expand our area of control to collect taxes.'' 

This splintering of insurgent groups presents a threat to noncombatants
living on the Shan plateau.

''Insurgent leaders will make peace to get rich and come out of the
jungle,'' said Richard Dickens, Burma representative for the United Nations
Drug Control Program. ''But if they don't spread around the wealth enough,
the lower ranks will lead bands of disillusioned 14-year-old boys into
highway robbery or freelance opium refining.''

He added, ''This reduces the insurgents to an annoyance for the government,
not a threat to national stability, but it stops development and leaves the
narcotics dependence in place.''



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