Guns might fall silent but the drug trade will rage on
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An end to Myanmar's civil wars is in sight, but the narco-armies on Thailand's border want no part in the peace
A new atmosphere of optimism is pervading Myanmar’s peace process. A meeting between representatives of the government and the country’s 18 armed ethnic insurgencies ended on Tuesday with an agreement to sign a ceasefire pact soon.
The meeting this week in Myitkyina, in conflict-torn northern Kachin State, was the first such summit in decades. Next month both sides will meet in Karen State, just as scarred by violence, for a second round of negotiations. Hopefully that session will herald an end to decades of civil war.
President Thein Sein, who came to power in March 2011, has already signed separate ceasefire agreements with 14 ethnic groups. The next step is a national pact covering every such group.
A ceasefire would pave the way for further dialogue between the two sides, the crux of which would be the ethnic groups’ rights, responsibilities and power. In return they are expected to push for a federal system for Myanmar.
But while the 18 insurgency groups at the Myitkyina meeting were more or less reading from the same playbook, the United Wa State Army (UWSA) and its sidekick, the National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA), also known as the Mongla group, declined to attend the talks.
The UWSA controls a sizeable chunk of territory along the Chinese border where it grows opium and produces some of the world’s most potent heroin. But over the past decade its product of choice has become methamphetamine, known as ya ba – “crazy medicine”. The UWSA is said to be the largest narcotics producer in Southeast Asia.
The Wa Army’s drugs are trafficked over the border into Thailand as pills and powder, thence to the streets of Southeast Asia’s cities and on to Europe and the United States.
The smaller NDAA, meanwhile, rides the coattails of the 30,000-strong UWSA, taking its own cut of the lucrative drug trade in its territory.
The fact that these two groups refused invitations to the Myitkyina meeting suggests that, while Myanmar might be moving in the right direction, uncertainties remain for Thailand, which bears the brunt of the insurgency-fuelled drugs trade on its border.
The Wa groups’ headquarters are in Panghsang, on the border with China, but in the mid-1990s the UWSA moved its forces to the Thai border to fight alongside Myanmar government troops and eliminate its biggest rival, the notorious Shan opium warlord Khun Sa.
When Khun Sa surrendered, the Wa stayed on and established three regiments abutting Thailand. It forcibly relocated 300,000 villagers from the northern region to its new territory on the Thai border.
The government of Thaksin Shinawatra considered working with Yangon on a programme of crop substitution in Wa-controlled territory, but all that happened was the Wa leaders were whitewashed, despite having been convicted of heroin trafficking in the United States and Thailand.
It seems that the 18 groups at the Myitkyina meeting would be satisfied with some sort of federal system for Myanmar. But the UWSA is demanding full autonomy for the territory under its control.
This is a bold demand. And it could spell more headaches for Thailand, since no Myanmar government has ever done much to curb the flow of narcotics from Wa-controlled territory into Thailand and around the world.
