Shan leader slams UN drug report
Shan Herald Agency for News: October 13
Sao Sengsuk, acting president of the Shan Democratic Union,
speaking
about the Myanmar Opium Survey 2004
released by the United Nations
Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Tuesday, curtly brushed
aside the
report as a "misrepresented
portrayal" of the real drug situation in
"It is just an account put together by people who went
to the ground
only once in a blue moon,"
said the 69-year-old former commander-in-
chief of the Shan State Army that
had in 1973 proposed "a return to
the legal (1947) constitution of
only flourish in a state of
anarchy."
Sengsuk was challenging both the
UN's 2004 output figure, 370 tons,
and what UNODC executive director
Antonio Maria Costa said in the
report: "(T)his trend, if
sustained, signals a potential end to more
than a century of opium production
in the Golden Triangle."
Opium cultivation in
2003, continuing a steady decline that began nearly a decade
ago,
according to the annual Myanmar
Opium Survey 2004 released by the
United Nations anti-drug office on Oct.
11.
Land in opium cultivation this season is estimated to be
44,200
hectares, a cumulative decline of
73 percent compared to 163,000
hectares in 1996. Meanwhile, opium
production for 2004 totalled 370
tons, 54 percent less than the
previous year, the report said..
But the report contrasts with an article in the Bangkok Post
Sept. 26
that said poppy cultivation
has been on the increase. The September
issue of
during the 2003-2004 season, the
output of which was upset by
unexpected dry whether and not due
to government suppression.
A bumper crop for the 2004-2005 season
has already been predicted by
some observers in anticipation of
the
declaration by Wa leader Bao Youxiang.
The late Chao Tzang
Yawnghwe, Shan scholar and activist (1939-2004),
had also suggested during the
Conference on Drugs and Conflict, held
in
venture what the actual opium
production figure is because this would
require, in addition to satellite
photographs and related techniques,
a sustained on-the-ground survey by
a credible outfit, for a duration
of five years at least."
Even this would not be 100 percent reliable as opium is an
illegal
crop, and farmers would naturally
deny growing it, or will avoid
telling the truth. In addition to a
good survey project, the political
environment must be such that it
fosters trust between rulers and the
ruled, which would encourage
farmers to cooperate with the survey
teams and the government.
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