Poppies return as usual
From all over Shan State, reports have begun to arrive that poppy cultivation is back, as early as August in the south and east, but only recently in the north.
While authorities have warned that poppies must be grown “at the nape” (out of sight) and “not on the forehead” (within sight), many fields are still visible from the motor roads, as in Hopan-Hokhieng area, south of the Mongpan-Mongton road, according to new arrivals of migrants in Chiangmai.
Poppy field in Loilarn range, Homong sub-township, 2011 (Photo: SHAN)
“All known producers like Loi Khilek (Mongton township), Loilai (Mongpan township), Kungmao and Pangtawi (Langkher township) and Sanien (Loilem township) are reported,” said a researcher who doubles as an aid worker on the Thai-Burma border.
Reports from the north are also similar, except in a few townships like Namtu and Mantong where fighting between the Burma Army and the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC) alliance is taking place. “The pawliangs (financiers) are offering a daily wage of K 3,000 ($ 3) plus 3 meals a day,” said a businessman from Lashio who often visits Namtu. “But many people say a lot of risks are involved, such as being caught in the crossfire and being forced to serve as porters.”
Areas in Lashio township, such as Manmark, Mong Kiet and Mong Yaw that are under the control of the Burma Army run Manpang PMF (People’s Militia Force) that had declared drug-free in 2006 has also “returned to its old ways.” These areas were once under the protection of the late Khun Sa (1934-2007) and at present under Bo Mon, a former Khun Sa lieutenant.
In the south, where the Shan State Army (SSA) South that has signed an agreement with Naypyitaw for cooperation against drugs, farmers concerned about possible retaliations from the SSA were reportedly told by PMF officers in Laikha, in August: “It is not the Burma Army and us who are against poppy cultivation. It is Yawdserk (SSA leader). Join us and you’ll be protected.”
The SSA meanwhile said development of people’s livelihood must come before suppression.
Lt-Gen Ko Ko, military appointed home minister and chairman of the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) announced on 5 October its 15 year masterplan to eliminate drugs by 2014 has been extended 5 years to 2019.
Comments
Home Sweet Home
I've only just set foot in there but it's hard not to love a place where authorities warn you to keep your poppies out of site and blame nasty insurgents as the ones trying to stamp them out.
It's reassuring to know that such places exist.
Part of what drew me to Thailand in the early 90s was a isguided and naive belief (though what other belief could a kid from the Western Suburbs of Joh's Queensland have) that I would be able to walk unmolested down unpaved roads, fields of poppies meeting infinity on either side.
The early 90s was too late for that. Lonely Planet said as much, but left their statement just ambiguous enough to give me hope - mostly eradicated - I guess I just didn't try hard enough. All that was left were cheap hostels and tuk tuk drivers touting opium, never returning with the money.
But it was worth the trip.
Reassuring for whom?
That the Tatmadaw (Burnese Army) is issuing instructions to residents of the Shan States where to plant their opium so as to reduce detection by outsiders must be words of comfort for the narco-tourist. What better setup than to have military dictatorships in league with the biggest police states in the world (USA, PRC) including the home of the DEA. Business unabated and it's easier to score a commercial quantity of heroin than it is to go to a chemist and buy a syringe. The same peasants who play stooge to earn some Baht for necessities are also imposed upon to part with a long past it syringe for the lost little boy following the standard business model for smuggling heroin, utterly bereft of any ability to think outside the common wisdom of such fine friends they prefer the counsel of people who are too incompetent to do anything approaching independent thought and action. Self-inflated pasty faced and leering braggarts who prove their worth by relying on Hollywood and Beautiful Downtown Burbank for ideas than anything approaching initiative and effort.
It's the oldest truism in the book; a steady supply of junk is facillitated by a dictatorship so let us be thankful that such dictatorships exist before we begin to think of ways to eradicate injustice, genocide, war crimes. A noble tradition born in the breast of the British Empire and the East-India Company, any hapless fool can be a shareholder for the price of a return ticket to a narco-militarist state. Mumble gumble tinky wat what who gives a damn.
Is there no arresting development?
The U.S. managed to exert influence over the Thais with military funding and support at a time when the region was unstable. The Thais have no need for a war on drugs in fact they suffer from it more so than we depending on who and where they are. Opium is still a cash crop wherever it is grown there except for ornamental gardens. The gardens at Doi Pui had cannabis and opium growing in it in 1995 and probably still does and the Lahu especially around Mae Hong Son were growing opium but predominantly for their own use and out of site from the roads. I'm sure it is still the same because the villagers want it like that and the King does too. The King can't last forever even if the villagers can and it remains to be seen just how far the pendulum of wowserism will continue to swing against them after he goes.
Across the border in Shan State there are very few roads compared with Thailand and so there is a lot more opium. This is just a precious way of saying that the further away from the prying eyes of CONTROL we get the more rational things become. The opium was there before there was a huge need for weapons and with cease fires being signed by the insurgents they are not recruiting as much now.
The days of armies funding their operations by supplying protection for heroin manufacturers and taxing their trade are over but the farmers still need a cash crop and why not opium? The people on the ground or mueang see opium quite differently from heroin and this includes police and legislators..
The simple knowledge that people have been living with and adapting to opiates since time immemorial without serious ill-effects was all I needed to die a happy man and, more importantly, to live as one. This is what CONTROL is keeping a secret, more, they are turning it into an untruth and truth can destroy facts when necessary so the continued existence of proof is vital. At this point in time the most important thing in the world is to keep development in this part of the world in check, easier said than done.
It's Reassuring to Know that Dictatorships Make Their Own Rules
The assurance of a healthy opium harvest in the Shan States and elsewhere in Myanmar is predicated on the existence of a military dictatorship so fear not, it's been at it since the late 1940's and has never shown any signs of abatement to the miserable sap searching in vain for some remnant of peripheral vasculature. Even if Myanmar , or the Shan States in particular, make a decision to side with the US/UN anti-drug policies Afghanistan is already taking up the slack.
Junkies are the darling children of the people who brought us the New World Order, a Thousand year Reich that will keep the clots and haemorrhoids proliferating in the bodies of the slaves in the new millenium. Their underwater eyes and thinking will see them through to a next life as miserable as this one in all likelihood for those with remnants of Christianity riveted in their hindbrains.
Just pray for war, social dislocation, poverty, desperation, unfulfilled lives and years of wasted life all in the service of a military/industrial/cemetary complex that maintains a constant turnover of racketeers, suffering peasants and their desperate fights for a semblance of justice. The dictatorships, as eager for power and wealth as the sap junkie is for a taste form a symbiotic relationship that will reassure all who crave an easy life and will do anything to maintain it.
Now that the Burmese Army is encouraging the growers to keep their crops out of sight, the junkie and garbo reunion are always a paycheck away. A pity Phil Ochs wasn't a junkie, he would probably still be alive, a total nobody of course, driving cabs or ripping off friends to feed the enemy. The Tatmadaw are like an Olde Worlde bunch of warlords preying on bucolic people of peace to feed their coffers while here in the megacity sewers the perps tread the fine line of wit against incarceration to feed the media junkies. Meanwhile multi-national drug companies peddling the latest recipe for a Treatment of Opioid Addiction fob us off with lightweigh bupe and the biggest rip-off in the history of drugs, Naloxone - an antagonist, the ingestion of which precipitates acute withdrawals in any opioid addict. Control leans on you until your habit is so minimal you can tolerate an antagonist, same as a healthy life moderates the habit of the bucolic opium farmer.
Much like Bayer peddled Heoin as a cure for morphine addiction, the withdrawals at least, so came Methadone; "methadone acts on the same opioid receptors as these drugs, and thus has many of the same effects. Methadone is also used in managing severe chronic pain, owing to its long duration of action, extremely powerful effects, and very low cost. Methadone was introduced into the United States in 1947 by Eli Lilly and Company."(WIKI). But what happens when the 'done runs out on someone taking 100mg/day? Suboxone solved that one and the junkie who really just wants to be as normal as the next john is satisfied. Maybe this site will be john.com.au before it becomes junkie.com.au.