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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HEADLINE -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AP - Myanmar's Illegal Lottery
Bkk Post - Drugs-linked Shan state company raking in money BBC - China's drugs boom
BBC - The Taleban's drug dividend
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BURMA RELATED NEWS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday, August 15 2:41 PM SGT
Myanmar's Illegal Lottery
By AYE AYE WIN, Associated Press Writer YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - From the third to the ninth of every month Myanmar
takes an unofficial holiday. Businesses halt and office work slackens as people
indulge in what has become a national pastime, even obsession: the ``two-digit
lottery.''
Hoping to get rich quickly in one of the world's poorest countries, more
and more people are turning to the hottest - and illegal - game of chance.
Hundreds of thousands of people pay clandestine visit to roadside food-stalls,
coffee shops, betel-nut shops and markets where the tickets are sold under the
counter.
Before putting their money on line, many visit temples to consult Buddhist
monks on lucky numbers; others try to predict the jackpot number by interpreting
dreams and incidents.
Playing the lottery is simple: punters have to bet on a two-digit number of
their choice. They win 80 times their investment if the number tallies with the
last two digits of the winners in the official lottery run by the Finance
Ministry every month from the third to ninth.
Myint Aung, a major operator of the two-digit lottery, said he hires
``several boys'' to sell tickets. Sales remain open until 8:30 a.m., thirty
minutes before the results of the official lottery are announced, he said.
``My man waiting at the state lottery office in downtown Yangon calls my
mobile phone as soon as the results come out,'' said Myint, a 51-year-old ethnic
Chinese man.
Since it was started last year by a few enterprising businessmen, the
two-digit lottery, or ``na lone ti'' has gained immense popularity. It is
cheaper, promises a quicker payoff and offers better odds than the official
lottery, where the winning ticket has to match a long number with two alphabets
followed by six digits.
Occasional police raids on ``na lone ti'' dens, the risk of arrest and
potential three-year jail sentence has failed to deter operators and bettors
alike. Prizes are collected from the seller's shop, or in the case of bigger
pay-outs, delivered to the winner's home.
The official lottery holds draws every day for seven consecutive days,
announcing regular small prizes before revealing the jackpot. The ``na lone ti''
follows the draws and hands out prizes corresponding to the winning official
lotteries.
Multiple winners are possible since the last two digits could have been
picked by many people.
The government lotteries cost 14 cents. The ``na lone ti'' can be bought
for as little as one penny. The most expensive ticket is for $857, which
promises a possible prize money equivalent to $68,560, a big fortune for most
people. A mid-ranking government employee earns about $20 a month.
The ``na lone ti'' tickets are 2-by-3 inch pieces of white, blue or pink
paper with the bettor's number scribbled on it. The seller keeps a carbon copy
of the ticket for verification later.
Nyunt Lwin, a bus driver, who earns $28.57 a month, said he won $57.14 this
month.
``I will continue to bet. It is fun as well as profitable,'' he said.
Many ardent bettors flock to monasteries, famous for pointing the believers
in the right direction.
Khin Hla, a woman in her late 40s, said she consults a monk the first week
of every month, at a monastery in Hlegu, 20 miles north of Yangon.
``The monk does not give the number directly. We have to watch the gestures
of the monk closely. Correct interpretation of the monk's movement is the key,''
she said. ``If the monk shows a thumbs-up gesture, the winning number for the
day could be 41 or 14 - thumbs denoting number one and the remaining four
fingers representing number four.''
But asked if she has ever won the clandestine lottery, Khin Hla replied
dejectedly that luck has not been on her side yet.
Bangkok Post - Aug 15,
2000.
BORDER Drugs-linked Shan state company raking in money Its other businesses are doing very well Chewin Sattha Shan State South Company, suspected of involvement in methamphetamine
production, is enjoying success in various other businesses in Burma's Shan
state, according to an informed source from Ho Mong.
The firm is run by a Rangoon-appointed six-member committee to rule Ho
Mong, former stronghold of the Mong Tai Army led by former drug kingpin Khun
Sa.
The source said SSS was successful in its operation of interprovincial
buses, construction of a power plant in Nong Luang and a hydropower dam in Lang
Kher district, and gems trade.
Its businesses were doing quite well this year with many Taiwanese and Hong
Kong investors also co-investing in establishing teak furniture factories and
exporting cattle from the Shan state to Thailand, the source said.
According to the source, SSS has sought concessions from Rangoon to operate
transport and passenger boats in the Salween river, develop a Tha Sop Teng-Ban
Hat road into a transport route, and run mineral and granite mining operations
in the state.
Rangoon has allowed the firm to import 250 four-wheel-drive pick-up trucks
from a neighbouring country for use in its businesses and agreed to provide it
with 5,000 gallons of petrol per month for its trucks.
It was reported the firm has at least two methamphetamine factories in Ho
Mong which have so far produced more than three million speed pills meant to be
smuggled by Wa National Army troops into Thailand for sale.
SSS was established in April last year after the Ho Mong administration
committee members met Burma's State Peace and Development Council first
secretary-general Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt to seek permission to run 13 different
businesses in nine Shan state towns.
The six-member Ho Mong ruling panel is made up of Chao Muang Khon, Chao Ja
Mai, Khun Sa's son Chao Jam Hueng, Chao Suwan, Chao Sai Daed and Maha Ja.
BBC - Tuesday, 6 June, 2000, 15:23 GMT
16:23 UK
China's drugs boom By Duncan Hewitt in Beijing
The casual visitor to any of China's big cities could be forgiven for
thinking this was a country without a serious drug problem - streets full of
people who look either too smart and law-abiding, or simply not wealthy enough
to be users of proscribed drugs.
Yet in a leafy backstreet in one of Beijing's quieter residential areas
there is a reminder of how deceptive appearances can be.
Outside the Chaoyang district court is a noticeboard with details of
forthcoming criminal trials; a quick look one day recently revealed that about a
third of some 25 cases listed were of people accused of drug dealing.
While the Chinese authorities paid limited attention to the return of the
drugs trade amid the breakneck economic reforms of the 1980s, the problem has
now become hard to ignore.
'Designer drugs'
Official figures say 57,000 people were arrested last year for drug
trafficking or drug production, up eight percent from a year earlier, and at
least 100 people are reported to have been executed for drug trafficking in
1999.
The scale of the crimes is growing too. In March a court in Huizhou in
southern Guangdong province sentenced four people to death and eight others to
prison for manufacturing one and a half tonnes of 'ice'.
Yang Fengrui, head of the narcotics squad in China's police ministry, said
recently that seizures of the designer drug increased tenfold last year - and
police believe the 16 tonnes they got their hands on may be only the tip of this
particular 'iceberg'.
Mr Yang also said that the drug, never detected in China until 1997, has
now been found in two thirds of the country's provinces.
The spread of ice (also known as methamphetamine) can be partly explained
by the fact that China is the world's largest natural source of ephedrine, from
which the drug is derived.
But China is also facing a surge of drugs from across its borders, both
from Central Asia, and from the south-west - where Yunnan province borders the
notorious Golden Triangle region of Burma and Laos.
Chinese police have in recent years begun tentative cooperation with
neighbouring governments, as well as with international anti-drug agencies. But
drugs continue to flow into the country, either for shipment to markets in Asia
and the west, or for Chinese consumers - last year five tons of heroin were
seized, while ecstasy and other designer drugs are also spreading.
Tough punishment
Police say if foreign sources are not cut off, China will be unable to
solve its drug trafficking problem.
The number of registered drug addicts in China is 680,000 - almost three
quarters of them users of heroin. That may not seem much for a country with
close to 1.3 billion people. But that figure represents a 15% increase during
1999 alone; and the true number of addicts is widely acknowledged to be far
higher - not least because many drug users were too scared of being treated as a
criminal to register for treatment.
In recent years officials have finally begun to offer rehabilitation rather
than outright punishment, but sympathy for drug addicts is still limited.
The challenge for China now is that drug use has spread out of remote
ethnic minority areas in the south-west and a few big coastal cities, into wider
society.
Intravenous drug use is officially listed as the main cause of the rapid
spread of HIV/AIDS in China; while drugs of various types have found markets in
the night clubs of the big city, and among disaffected young people in many
areas of the country. Drug rehabilitation centres are planned in 742 counties
around the country over the next two years
There have also been public information campaigns, with posters and
exhibitions.
But despite increased official concern, experts still doubt whether the
authorities have the resources to keep up with the rapid spread of drugs.
If they are to succeed they will also have to stamp out the collusion of
local officials in drug trafficking in some areas, as well as the return of the
cultivation of opium poppies, for which more than 4,000 people were punished
last year.
BBC - Wednesday, 14 June, 2000, 14:14
GMT 15:14 UK
The Taleban's drug dividend By Kate Clark in Kabul Each spring, huge areas of the south and east of Afghanistan are covered
with red opium poppies.
Weeks later, after the flowers have seeded, farmers make holes in the seed
heads and scrape off the white milky liquid. This is raw opium.
Some of it is processed into heroin and morphine base in small factories
inside Afghanistan.
Some leaves the country unprocessed, destined for factories in Pakistan and
Central Asia. From there, it gets smuggled to Europe.
Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium.
Last year, the United Nations Security Council introduced limited sanctions
against the Taleban.
The Taleban's support for the Saudi militant, Osama Bin Laden was their
main cause of concern. However, the resolution also said the Security Council
was deeply disturbed by what it called the "significant rise in the illicit
production of opium in Afghanistan".
In poverty-stricken Afghanistan, poppy is the most lucrative crop farmers
can grow. It's ideally suited to the dry conditions here, needing less water
than wheat.
It gives particularly good yields - higher than in Burma, the world's other
big producer.
Drug taxes
Farmers this year have been selling raw opium for about $50 a kilogramme.
By the time it gets to London as heroin, the price is likely to be more
than 2,000 times higher.
The mark-up is huge, but the income which Afghan opium growers get is high
by local standards.
The farmers pay taxes - providing the Taleban with one of their most
important sources of revenue.
Opium is also one of Afghanistan's few sources of foreign currency.
The crop is so important that when the national currency collapsed in
April, many people blamed it on a drought which had affected poppy production.
At the same time as presiding over record levels of drug production, the
Taleban have introduced some of the toughest laws against drug consumption in
the world.
High production, low consumption
Even cigarette smoking is discouraged.
People who use drugs like heroin, alcohol and hashish are sentenced to
prison.
The Taleban have been accused of hypocrisy for their "high production, low
consumption" narcotics policy, but they say the problem is with western demand.
"It's the responsibility of the West to prevent illegal consumption of
drugs in their own societies," says Dr Najibullah Shams, head of the Taleban's
High Commission for the Struggle Against Drugs.
"They can use opium as a medicine, or as a narcotic. It's their choice."
This year, the Taleban announced they were cutting poppy production by one
third and invited journalists to come and watch crops being cut and burned.
They say they would like to eliminate production, but as a poor country
subject to sanctions, they say they need international support to carry out crop
substitution schemes.
Islamic traditions
Though there are some areas which have a long tradition of opium
consumption - such as Badakhshan in the north-east - overall, there is little
evidence of widespread drug abuse.
However, preliminary results of a United Nations survey suggest it is a
growing problem.
The UN points to Pakistan, where increased production of opium and heroin
brought addicts in its wake.
The Taleban are not worried. Dr Shams says that Afghans' moral and Islamic
traditions will protect them.
On the other hand, the traumas of 20 years of war may make some people
vulnerable.
One young man drying out in the only drug rehabilitation unit in Kabul said
he became addicted after his brother was killed in a rocket attack.
Pain relief
"I just couldn't bear the grief," he says.
"I just wanted to forget. So I started taking heroin."
He was being supported by his family after he made the decision to give up
the drug.
"It's not surprising that people take drugs," says Dr Tamasha, who makes
heroic efforts at the rehabilitation unit - on a salary of $4 a month.
He says about a third of his patients have problems with heroin, the rest
with medical drugs, including tranquillisers, sleeping tablets and
anti-depressants.
"Some people have lost their jobs and can't see how to make a living. Or
they take them to ease the physical pain of hard labour," he says.
"And many, many people have lost family in the war or they've become
refugees or seen their city destroyed. We have suffered from a hundred
calamities." |