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Bkk Post - Snuggling up to the Wa



Bangkok Post - July 29, 1999.
Snuggling up to the Wa

Rangoon's decision to confirm the United Wa State Army-run town of Mong Yawn
as a special administration zone for another five years goes a long way to
re-affirming the suspicions of our narcotics people that those in control of
our neighbouring country to the west are in bed with the UWSA, the people
making a fortune as the biggest drug traffickers in the drug
trafficking-dependent Golden Triangle.

"The extension is part of the whole organised plan to use the
UWSA-administered area as a base for drug trafficking, especially for the
distribution of amphetamines into Thailand," said one operative with the
National Narcotics Operation Centre supervising the war on drugs
country-wide.

"Everyone knows full well that the UWSA's main income comes directly from
the drugs trade. This (the extension) did not surprise us since we expected
Burma to make such a move."Mong Yawn, opposite San Ton Du in Chiang Mai's
Mae Ai district, has been undergoing a vast transformation since early this
year at a minimum estimated cost of one billion baht.

The total refit is aimed at enabling the town, a former stronghold of
ex-drugs warlord Khun Sa, to accommodate the 100,000-plus people expected to
settle in the town over the next five years.

The military regime in Rangoon initially agreed in 1995 to allow the UWSA a
free hand at Mong Yawn for five years.

This was part of an agreement forged after the UWSA broke with the Burmese
Communist Party in 1989 and then fought a successful battle with Khun Sa.

The Thai military expects border problems in the upper north, in particular
the trafficking of methamphetamines, to get much worse.

Recent developments in the UWSA-controlled area is causing Army
Commander-in-Chief Gen Surayud Chulanont some real concerns and he even
suggested at the weekend that there might be the possibility of our chaps
going to war against the UWSA if they continue to produce the drugs that are
causing so much destruction among our youth.

"The army chief is fully aware of what is going on in the UWSA area and the
army will not stand by idly and do nothing," said one soldier.


He said the army would soon mobilise its elite forces in the west and
northwest as a counter-threat force and to re-organise the border area.

Recent reports suggesting that Wei Hsueh-kang, the UWSA's key military
leader and the most powerful drug kingpin in the Golden Triangle, met Khun
Sa in Rangoon earlier this year with the assistance of the
military/government leadership raises real doubts among our top drugs
combatants that Rangoon is any way interested in ending illicit drug
production.

The junta, of course, denied any involvement in the drug trade when this was
suggested by a senior staffer with the National Narcotics Operation Centre,
who said the Burmese military was involved directly in drug trafficking
through its tacit support for the UWSA.