Burma Related News- March 11, 2001.

[Tin Kyi <tinkyi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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BURMA RELATED NEWS - March 11, 2001.
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Head Lines
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Reuters - Myanmar drug production set to explode
AFP - Thaksin to press Myanmar for answers on "drug city"
AP - Thai PM Unveils Plans To Increase Struggle Against Drugs
AFP - Myanmar bans energy drinks, MSG made in Thailand
BKK Post-Myanmar bans energy drinks, MSG made in Thailand
Bkk Post-Dam head taken, three dead in raid

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Sunday March 11, 5:47 PM
Myanmar drug production set to explode
By Trirath Puttachanyawong


CHIANG RAI, Thailand (Reuters) - The tide of methamphetamines flowing into Thailand is set to increase by 40 percent this year as production in Myanmar is stepped up, the Thai army said on Sunday.

"We estimate that this year's production will increase to 700 million pills from 500 million last year," Thai Army Chief of Staff General Boonrawd Somtas, told reporters on the sidelines of a conference on Thailand's drug problem.

Boonrawd said drug production was expected to grow in Myanmar in order to sustain a larger population in drug-producing areas near the border with Thailand.

The Myanmar government and its Wa ethnic minority militia allies have undertaken the large-scale relocation of Wa people from areas near the border with China, south to areas near the Thai border.

"The Wa aim to complete the relocation of 200,000 people to the Thai-Burmese border area this year," he said. "This will result in an increase of drug production."

He said since 1999, some 50,000 ethnic Wa had been moved, and methamphetamine production had risen by 400 percent.

Thai army sources say the relocation of Wa people is aimed at boosting the strength of the United Wa State Army (UWSA), an ethnic Wa militia group which controls most of Myanmar's drug production and is allied with the Myanmar army.

The Myanmar army and the UWSA are a battling separatist Shan guerrillas in northeastern Myanmar's Shan State.

Boonrawd said Thai authorities were having only limited success in intercepting drug consignments entering Thailand across its porous borders with Myanmar and Laos.

"At least 85 percent of this production gets through to addicts - about 2 million throughout the country," he said.

The street value of methamphetamines - stimulants which affect the central nervous system - is around 50 baht ($1.14) a pill.


STUNNED PRIME MINISTER

Newly elected Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra told reporters he was stunned by photographs shown at the conference of a prosperous and growing drug-producing town in Myanmar.

He said Thailand wanted "sincere" discussions with Myanmar on the drug issue.

"We need a decisive response from Myanmar to help solve this problem," he said.

Thaksin did not say when he or other ministers would meet their Myanmar counterparts.

The conference, attended by Thai government, police and army officials, focused on the flood of methamphetamines from the "Golden Triangle" - the region where the borders of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos meet.

The Golden Triangle has long been notorious as one of the world's main opium-growing regions -- heroin is refined from opium -- but the drug gangs in recent years have been diversifying into methamphetamine production.

In recent weeks fighting between the Myanmar army and its UWSA allies, and ethnic Shan rebels has simmered along the Thai-Myanmar border, with skirmishes occasionally spilling over onto Thai territory.

Thai army sources have said the fighting is linked to control of the drugs trade.

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Sunday March 11, 1:57 PM
Thaksin to press Myanmar for answers on "drug city"


CHIANG RAI, Thailand, March 11 (AFP) - Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said he will demand an explanation from the Myanmar junta over the construction of a "drug-manufacturing city" on its side of the border.

During a weekend brainstorming session of top security officials at this northern town on the edge of the fabled Golden Triangle, Thaksin said he would not accept excuses that the Mong Yawn settlement was not under junta control.

"I want to reassure you one million percent that I will talk with Myanmar over the drug issue," he told reporters.

"I want to hear the word clearly from Myanmar authorities that Mong Yawn is not under their responsibility," he said, in an implicit warning that Thailand could use that admission to take its own action against the settlement.

Mong Yawn, just 30 kilometres (19 miles) north of Chiang Mai province, is the major staging ground of the United Wa State Army (UWSA), an ethnic militia accused of being one of the world's biggest drug manufacturers.

The Thai military says that since building began in 1998, it has become a self-contained drug-making centre complete with its own dam and hydro-electric generating plant, as well as hotels and casinos.

The town in the southern region of Myanmar's Shan state is currently home to a population of 55,000 and there are plans to move in another 50,000 by the end of this year.

Military sources say the transformation of what was once a remote village into a thriving city has been funded by profits from the drug trade, including heroin which is sent all over the world.

The "Red Wa" is also widely accused of manufacturing some 700 million methamphetamine pills, mostly destined for Thailand where they have found their way into every corner of society and caused a massive addiction crisis.

Myanmar's military regime is accused of agreeing to turn a blind eye to the Wa's narcotics empire in exchange for a ceasefire with the ethnic army which it had battled for decades.

Some 80 senior ministers and officials attending the weekend meeting to thrash out a coordinated battle plan against the drugs scourge were shown satellite images of Mong Yawn that illustrated its alarmingly rapid development over the last two years.

Thaksin said that the sophistication of the facility made it clear Thailand could not avoid tackling the drugs issue with Myanmar authorities.

"A cordial relationship must be based on mutual trust, as the drugs problem is a major threat to Thailand," he said, adding that some 2.7 million Thais, out of a population of 62 million, suffer substance abuse problems.

The prime minister did not say when he would make his first trip to Myanmar, although he has indicated it will be his first foreign port of call after being elected in the January 6 national ballot.

Thai Army Commander General Surayud Chulanont defended the release of satellite images of Mong Yawn, which were published in the Thai press Sunday, saying they should not affect relations with Myanmar.

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Sunday March 11, 5:13 PM
Thai PM Unveils Plans To Increase Struggle Against Drugs


CHIANG RAI, Thailand (AP)--Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra Sunday announced that he will count on popular participation as part of a new three-part strategy to tackle Thailand's biggest social problem: drug trafficking and addiction.

In addition to the plan, Thaksin said he will open talks on the issue with neighboring Myanmar, which Thailand says is the source of massive amounts of the illegal stimulant methamphetamine.

Thaksin spoke at a news conference at the conclusion of a 1-1/2 day meeting with senior security officials to come up with new anti-drug strategies.

In a speech opening the meeting Saturday, he described the drug menace as "like a cancer that will further spread and destroy the whole body," and said the authorities' mission was a "war." He said that 6% to 7% of Thailand's 61 million people are addicted to drugs.

The three-pronged strategy unveiled Sunday involved having all anti-drug work coordinated under a single chief, Thaksin himself; adjusting the units involved to respond more efficiently to problems; and improving drug laws to be more fair to addicts and tougher on sellers, as well as speeding up the justice system.

Thaksin said the government would launch a "people's power" project to get popular participation in the anti-drugs campaign all the way down to the village level.

He also said Thailand would open talks with Myanmar to solve border conflicts and the drug issues.

The presence of Myanmar ethnic rebels along the border with Thailand has long caused strains between the two countries, and the two countries' troops clashed last month after Myanmar soldiers crossed into Thai territory to attack an ethnic rebel group.

But the alleged trafficking of methamphetamine from Myanmar, also known as Burma, has caused an even greater strain in relations, because the methamphetamine problem has become so big that Thai officials consider it a threat to national security

Thai and other drug experts say Myanmar's military government turns a blind eye to drug production and trafficking as a way of ensuring peace among ethnic minority groups, who have been restive for decades.

"We will open talks with Myanmar to get solutions to the border and drug conflicts," Thaksin said Sunday. "The conflict along the border should not last that long but relations concerning drugs will take some more time. We need decisiveness and determination from Myanmar."

Myanmar officials have not yet commented on Thaksin's plans.

The meeting was held under tight security in Chiang Rai, 680 kilometers north of Bangkok, in the Golden Triangle region where the borders of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet.

The Golden Triangle is historically a center for production and trafficking of opium and its derivative heroin, but in recent years has become a major source of methamphetamine, which is relatively cheap and easy to make.

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Sunday March 11, 5:12 PM
Myanmar bans energy drinks, MSG made in Thailand


YANGON, March 11 (AFP) - Myanmar stepped up its war of words against Thailand Sunday, announcing a ban on imports of energy drinks and goods containing the flavour enhancer MSG, made in the kingdom.

"Thai-made monosodium glutamate and various kinds of energy drinks such as Red Bull ... are being illegally imported from Thailand into Myanmar ... and distributed in the country by smugglers," the official media said.

"With a view to safeguarding public health, authorities have banned the importing, trading and consuming of above-mentioned illegally imported items," it said, adding that they were "injurious to health."

Thai-made MSG and energy drinks are popular products in Myanmar and have been widely circulated for many years in a trade that has until now been ignored by the authorities.

The move may have been prompted by ongoing friction in the wake of clashes at the Mae Sai-Tachilek border crossing between the two neighbours, which prompted Thai authorities to close the checkpoint last month.

Thailand's army said last week that the crossing would be reopened from Monday, but that supplies for the Myanmar military including medicine, rice and fuel would still be blocked.

The state press has defiantly said that Myanmar would not be concerned if trade were permanently halted at the northern border town as the military-run nation can easily meet the needs of its citizens.

"It is the Thai traders who will suffer," an official commentary said Sunday.

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Bangkok Post - March 11, 2001.
Thaksin to get tough with Burma
Mong Yawn speed empire expanding
Ampa Santimatanedol, Yuwadee Tunyasiri and Anucha Charoenpo

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra will ask Burma to fight drug problems by "cleaning up its own house".

Drugs sold in Thailand were produced mainly in Burma by the United Wa State Army, which had used the income to build "an empire" at its southern military headquarters in Mong Yawn.

At a drug seminar in Chiang Rai, army chief Surayud Chulanont yesterday showed slides of Mong Yawn, opposite Chiang Mai's Mae Ai district, which was built with several billion baht in drug money.

Delegates, including the prime minister, were stunned to see that Mong Yawn is a big town with modern utility services, first-class hotels, a big hospital and a hydro-powered dam for making electricity. Gen Surayud told the seminar that the Wa army had moved 50,000 people from the jungle to Mong Yawn to help manufacture drugs. "The money used in building Mong Yawn was our money. Drugs are a serious threat to our country so we must combine efforts in fighting them," he said.

He said Mong Yawn sent an estimated 700 million methamphetamine pills to Thailand last year. Only 100 million pills were intercepted.

At least 37 drug laboratories were believed to be scattered around the 15,625 rai township.

Gen Surayud said the army was keeping a close watch on Mong Yawn as the town would probably be expanded further this year.

Burma was behind speed production in Mong Yawn. It supported the mass relocation of 200,000 Wa civilians from Panghsang, in the northern Shan State and close to southern China, to Mong Yawn and Mong Mai, opposite Ban San Maked in Chiang Rai's Mae Fah Luang district.

A source said these people serve as the workforce of the expanded township. Pipop Chamniwikaipong, chief of the Narcotics Control Board's satellite survey unit, said satellite pictures showed several roads and buildings, a small airport and other infrastructure systems in Mong Yawn. The town keeps growing.

The pictures also showed many roads were built to Thai border areas as trafficking routes.

Wa traffickers also brought in drugs by sea via Burma to Ranong, the official said.

Mr Thaksin said he wanted the slides shown to the public as a reminder that they must not help fatten the wealth of the Wa army.

He said the truth must be revealed, even if relations with some neighbouring countries turned sour.

"Fact is fact," he said.

Mr Thaksin declined to say how he would respond if Burma claimed Mong Yawn was not under its control, as that country had repeatedly told the Foreign Ministry.

He would have to discuss with officials the most effective way to deal with that matter. He also would have to wait to see Burma's stance.

"I want things from the other side to be clear first before deciding the next move," he said.

He could not reveal all about his government's strategies now because Burma was a "sensitive" country, Mr Thaksin said.

He did not say which was more important: solving drug problems or staying sweet with Burma.

"Good relations means we are sincere towards one another and trust each other," he said.

Mr Thaksin also proposed that drug convicts on death row should not be allowed to appeal for clemency. Only two of 140 such inmates had been executed since 1997.

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Bangkok Post - March 11, 2001.
Dam head taken, three dead in raid
Karen rebels boast of March 5 conquest
Supamart Kasem

A dam construction director was abducted and three Burmese soldiers killed in a raid by Karen National Union rebels on a construction site in Mon state on March 5, a KNU officer said yesterday.

Mahn Sharlaphan, general-secretary of the KNU, said the foray was carried out by soldiers from the KNU's 6th Division led by Capt Hte Nay, Capt Sa Klae and Capt Mahn Htun.

The attack was on a military force protecting the dam construction site, 50km south of Moulmein, the capital of Mon state.

The assault was launched shortly after midnight. Burmese troops withdrew from the site after a 30-minute exchange of fire, leaving behind three dead soldiers, one of them a captain.

The KNU soldiers set fire to a warehouse, destroying 120 drums of fuel and lubricants for heavy machines, before fleeing. They took with them Tint Lwin, the dam construction director.

Pado Mahn Sharlaphan said the KNU soldiers were heading for a KNU stronghold opposite Tak province where the construction director would be released.

The officer said the raid was intended to show Rangoon the KNU is able to provide protection for people living along the border and also repel invaders in areas under its control.

However, he said the KNU still adheres to the policy of holding ceasefire talks with Rangoon.

Rangoon and the KNU reached a ceasefire agreement in 1992, but they failed in subsequent talks to find ways of peaceful co-existence and fighting resumed.