BurmaNet News, October 29-31, 2005

[Editor]

October 29-31, 2005 Issue # 2834


INSIDE BURMA
AP: Myanmar to resume convention to draft constitution, state media reports
Irrawaddy: NLD calls on UN Security Council to act on Havel-Tutu report
Irrawaddy: New Kachin Splinter group makes waves
DVB: Burmese whisper: veteran advises opposition to seek China’s sympathy
SHAN: SSA will attend National Convention

ON THE BORDER
Time Magazine: Medic in Exile: Cynthia Maung
Narinjara News: Bangladeshi government to make ID cards for its citizens
in border areas as Burmese Muslims increases

INTERNATIONAL
Inter Press Service: Myanmar works over UN labor body

OPINION / OTHER
Financial Times: Black reputation Beijing wrecks the regional environment,
not just its own
Nation: Meth in their madness?

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

October 29, Associated Press
Myanmar to resume convention to draft constitution, state media reports

Yangon: Myanmar's military government on Saturday said it would resume a
key meeting to draft a constitution, the first step on the country's
self-set path to democracy, state radio and television reported.

The national convention would resume on Dec. 5 after a hiatus of more than
eight months, it reported.

The government had adjourned the meeting on March 31, saying the 1,000
plus delegates - including farmers and businessmen - needed to return to
work.

Lt. Gen. Thein Sein, a leading junta leader who chairs the National
Convention Convening Commission, said the meeting would adopt guidelines
agreed upon at the previous session when delegates had closed-door
discussions on power-sharing involving the judicial and executive sectors.

The convention is the first step in the junta's seven-stage road map
toward democracy that is supposed to lead to free elections, but no
timetable has been set to complete the task.

Critics consider the proceeding a sham because the delegates were
hand-picked by the military, opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was not
allowed to participate and her party, the National League for Democracy,
was not taking part.

The NLD won a landslide victory in a 1990 general election but the
military refused to hand over power, claiming it had to first write a new
constitution.

The party and its members have faced constant harassment and Suu Kyi has
been in detention since May 2003. The junta's refusal to release her was
one reason the party boycotted the meeting.

The party also accuses the military of using the convention as a ploy to
deflect international criticism of its failure to turn over power to a
democratically-elected government.

The biggest party representing the Shan - Myanmar's second-largest ethnic
group after the Burmans- also boycotted the meeting, along with a smaller
minority organization

The conference first convened in May last year.

A similar convention was held several years ago, but its work was aborted
after the NLD walked out in protest that its procedures were not
democratic.

_____________________________________

October 31, Irrawaddy
NLD calls on UN Security Council to act on Havel-Tutu report - Yeni

Burma’s opposition National League for Democracy called on the UN Security
Council on Monday to consider urgently the human rights and political
situation in Burma and support the report prepared by former Czech
president Vaclav Havel and retired South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

The report, entitled “Threat to the Peace—A Call for the UN Security
Council to Act in Burma,” adopted a “peaceful approach” towards the Burma
issue, said NLD spokesperson Myint Thein. It was based on good will and
aimed to help solve the country’s problems peacefully, said Myint
Thein—adding: “So we strongly urge all members of UNSC should take the
report up seriously.”

The council currently has five permanent members with veto power—the US,
Britain, Russia, China and France—and 10 non-permanent members who serve
two-year terms and have no power to veto resolutions. The US has stated it
wants to push for Burma to be placed on the UN Security Council agenda.
China, however, has long opposed UN action because of its economic and
geopolitical ties with Burma. Russia is believed to object because it's
worried such talks could backfire and lead to the discussion of human
right in its Chechnya province.

Last Friday, the UN special human rights rapporteur for Myanmar [Burma],
Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, called on the world community, and particularly
Burma’s neighbors, to help find a constructive way out of the political
deadlock. Pinheiro, a Brazilian human right expert, addressed a committee
of the UN General Assembly for the last time, as his mandate expires next
April. "I urge the international community to step up its assistance and
not to retreat from supporting the people of Myanmar," he declared.

Pinheiro has visited Burma six times in his four years in office, but the
junta refused him entry to the country after his last visit, in November
2003.

The Burmese military government has condemned the Havel-Tutu report,
saying it was “based on misinformation by a few remaining insurgents and
foreign-funded expatriates,” and was an “attempt to discredit the
government.”

Meanwhile Rangoon has announced that the next session of the National
Convention will begin in December. The Convention, which is charged with
drawing up a constitution leading to a general election, adjourned on
March 31. It is being attended by more than 1,000 hand-picked delegates.
The NLD is boycotting the sessions.

Some sources say only three of the proposed 16 chapters of a draft
constitution have so far been approved. They point out that the regime’s
so-called “road map” to democracy has no time frame or scale.

Amyotheryei Win Naing, a veteran politician in Rangoon, told The Irrawaddy
by phone today: “No one knows when the first step of the roadmap will
finish.”

In a report last week on the National Convention, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro
said: “The loose mention of a referendum and political elections has not
yet been clarified. The political transition process has become a long and
winding road with no clear end in sight.”

Some Western governments and several human rights group have also
dismissed the National Convention as a “sham.”

_____________________________________

October 31, Irrawaddy
New Kachin Splinter group makes waves - Khun Sam

A new armed opposition group in Kachin State has created internal and
external divisions within the region as the currently unnamed fledgling
organization attempts to deal with Rangoon.

According to sources in the region, Rangoon has offered guarantees of
security in exchange for assurance that the new group would remain
unaffiliated with other ceasefire groups in Kachin State, in which case
they would be granted semi-autonomous rule and relocation to an
independent territory.

Col Lasang Awng Wa, leader of the new splinter group, confirmed to The
Irrawaddy by phone that the two sides have discussed these and other
issues since August, adding that the group has surveyed proposed territory
offered by the junta and approved of it.

The proposed land, according to Lasang Awng Wa, stretches from the town of
Ja Htu Pa, near Myitkyina, east to the Irrawaddy River. The area includes
some ten other villages. He added that the group will submit a final
report of the survey and propose a relocation date following confirmation
from Rangoon.

Despite Lasang Awng Wa’s efforts, some within the group remain divided
about breaking away from other opposition groups in the region. “[They
are] discussing these issues with other commanders, but not with me,” said
N’Hkum Doi La, a senior official in the new group and former vice general
secretary of the Kachin Solidarity Council. He added that other senior
leaders would find such a move to independent territory difficult to
accept.

N’Hkum Doi La also suggested that the decision to relocate would isolate
the group and threaten its ability to remain independent, as they would
ultimately fall under the control of the Burmese military’s Light Infantry
Battalion-58 and could eventually be pressured to disarm.

Lasang Awng Wa insists, however, that the splinter group will not
surrender its weapons and will not adopt a new name—preferring to identify
itself merely as a Kachin splinter group. According to the group’s leader,
the decision to relocate aims at increasing community development in the
region. He added that individual members are free to decide whether to
join the relocation or remain where they are.

Meanwhile, critics of the move say that Burma’s northern commander,
Maj-Gen Ohn Myint, is engaging in an intentional campaign to divide
opposition groups in the region. It is also widely believed that Burmese
troops played a role in the short-lived September 14 coup that ousted New
Democratic Army-Kachin Chairman Zahkung Ting Ying from power.

_____________________________________

October 27, Democratic Voice of Burma
Burmese whisper: veteran advises opposition to seek China’s sympathy

A veteran Burmese politician advised all opposition groups within, without
Burma including the National League for Democracy (NLD), to actively seek
the ‘sympathy’ of neighbouring government of China as soon as possible.

The veteran said that although Burma’s pro-democracy campaigns have gained
‘full’ supports of western countries, they still need to seek the sympathy
of other powerful nations, especially that of neighbouring China. He
insisted that Beijing, in particular, needs to be approached while the
opposition groups are trying to urge the UN Security Council to discuss
Burma’s situation.

His suggestion was also supported by a diplomat based in Rangoon. The
diplomat said that Beijing has not been giving full support to and lost
faith in Burma’s military junta, State Peace and Development Council
(SPDC) since the ouster of its pro-China Prime Minister Gen Khin Nyunt in
October 2004.

The diplomat cited recent visit of the junta’s new Prime Minister Gen Soe
Win to China to attend a regional trade fair which was only attended by
vice-ministers of other countries, as an example of the desperate effort
of the junta to appease the Chinese leaders in order to maintain their
continuing support.

____________________________________

October 29, Shan Herald Agency for News
SSA will attend National Convention

A recent meeting of the Shan State Army ‘North’ leaders had resolved to
attend the constitutional convention to be held by Burma’s generals before
the end of the year, according to ceasefire sources.

The SSA ‘North’, one of the most prominent ceasefire groups, had not
attended the last round of the convention in February in protest of the
arrests of its leaders, Maj-Gen Hso Ten and Hkun Htun Oo, leader of the
Shan State’s largest winning party, Shan Nationalities League for
Democracy and Chairman of the Shan State Joint Action Committee which the
SSA ‘North’ is a member. Further pressure from Rangoon had also forced the
SSA’s ally Shan State National Army back to the armed struggle.

The 23 October meeting on Loi Khurh, a mountain fortress in Hsipaw
township, thought its attendance would ease off junta pressures on Hso Ten
and the SSA.

One source in northern Shan State however said the agreement to attend the
convention would have no effect on the continuing pressures for the SSA to
surrender. “The Palaung (State Liberation Army) had attended the last
session,” he pointed out. “Still it was forced to surrender.”

The Palaung State Liberation Army surrendered last April.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

October 31, Time Magazine
Medic in Exile: Cynthia Maung - Jeffrey Kluger, Bryan Walsh / Mae Sot

It's hard to feel good about a person described as an absconder, an
insurgent and an opium-smuggling terrorist--unless the group doing the
name calling is the military junta that runs Burma (Myanmar) and the
person being defamed is Dr. Cynthia Maung. Since 1988, Maung has been
building and running a thriving medical clinic on the treacherous
Thailand-Burma border, providing badly needed health care for 70,000
people a year and facing down one of the most oppressive dictatorships in
the world to do it.

If you're looking for a case study in how a government can fail the health
needs of its people, Burma is a good place to start. The seeds of the
country's problems were sown long ago, and Maung, 45, knows them well. A
member of Burma's Karen ethnic minority, which has fought a simmering
half-century war for independence, she grew up in a region that had never
been quite at peace. She kept her head down long enough to make it to the
capital, Yangon (then known as Rangoon), where she attended medical school
in the mid-1980s, then returned home to work in clinics in Karen villages.

But in 1988, the junta came to power, killing up to 3,000 pro-democracy
demonstrators. Later it turned its wrath on the Karen. Maung and 14 of her
colleagues fled to Thailand. "We didn't think we'd be gone long," she
says. "Maybe six months."

It didn't work out that way. Arriving in the Thai town of Mae Sot, she and
her fellow clinicians learned that their skills were sorely needed there.
Thousands of activists had also fled through the jungle, many staggering
into Thailand sick with malaria. To care for them, she set up a makeshift
clinic in a nearby barn. As the trickle of evacuees turned into a flood,
many of the expats arriving in Thailand headed straight for the clinic.

Maung, overwhelmed by patients, became equal parts caregiver and
administrator. She began raising funds from international refugee
organizations, Karen communities in Thailand, religious groups and other
Thai charities. She recruited volunteers, taught them front-line medical
care and expanded the clinic's services to include HIV testing, maternal
care, vaccinations, infectious-disease treatment and more. With the junta
tightening its hold, she settled in for a long stay.

Today that stay is in its 17th year. Her little facility, now known as the
Mae Tao clinic, has grown into a complex of buildings that includes
operating rooms, a pediatric and maternity ward, a laboratory, a blood
bank, an eye-care facility, a 100-bed hospital and a school. Built around
a central courtyard, it feels less like a clinic and more like a de facto
town-- one that treats up to 400 patients a day, educates 4,000 migrant
children and even issues birth certificates and marriage licenses.

Its presence still galls the junta in Yangon. In 1997 soldiers destroyed a
handful of local facilities that Maung had set up in the hill country in
Burma. To replace them, she and her staff have assembled teams of
health-care workers who slip into Burma and deliver care, village by
village. The volunteers, known as backpack medics, face arrest if caught,
and Maung knows that if she steps back over the border, the junta will
pounce. So for now, she stays at Mae Tao, providing medical care for a
nation of the displaced and hoping to return to the land of her birth.
"We're building a community," she says, "so we can rebuild Burma one day."

____________________________________

October 28, Narinjara News
Bangladeshi government to make ID cards for its citizens in border areas
as Burmese Muslims increases

Dhaka: The Bangladeshi government is now thinking to provide identity (ID)
cards to Bangladeshi nationals in Teknaf and Ukhiya, the Burma-Bangladesh
area in the Cox's Bazar district in Bangladesh, with the view to make it
easier to identify locals, since Burmese Muslims are flowing
apprehensively into Bangladesh.

According to a local newspaper, the Dainik Cox's Bazar, it was reported in
the 27th October issue that the home ministry is contemplating the
possibility of providing such identity cards.

The home ministry of Bangladesh has already sent letters to the respective
police authorities in Ukhiya and Teknaf, bordering towns with Burma, to
take necessary steps regarding the issuing of ID card.

Bangladesh authority can't prevent the encroached Burmese Muslim at all
because of their appearance are familiar with local Bangladesh people. Due
to that reason, they managed to muddle up with those who are original
citizens of Bangladesh.

The Bangladeshi nationals said that the number of Muslim people coming
from Burma are increasing day by day, causing various negative impacts on
national security and the loss of national assets in Bangladesh.

Providing such ID cards to the locals will aid existing superficial
troubles rather than to solve any problems regarding the increase of
Burmese Muslims into Bangladesh unless effective actions against the
illegal Muslim from Burma are taken by using of the laws and rules
concerning refugees, said some people in Bangladesh.

These people said, "send the Burmese Muslims back to their homeland
immediately because they are spreading throughout the country." They also
urged that it was high time to take effective steps concerning the Burmese
Muslims; otherwise, the locals will have to prepare for ultimate
consequences that would be dangerous for every Bangladeshi national.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

October 31, Inter Press Service
Myanmar works over UN labor body - Larry Jagan

Bangkok: Ignoring warnings of "far-reaching and extremely serious
consequences", Myanmar's military rulers have told the International Labor
Organization (ILO) the country will be quitting the United Nations
organization.

Myanmar's Labor Ministry told Francis Maupain, special adviser to the ILO,
during a visit to Yangon earlier this month that the government had
decided to leave the ILO, and notice has been prepared and was waiting to
be sent.

"From the ILO viewpoint, the decision of any member to withdraw is always
to be regretted, irrespective of the circumstances," Maupain told Inter
Press Service in a weekend interview. "However, it has to be remembered
that such a decision only becomes irreversible when the two-year notice
period expires, assuming the authorities do not change their mind in the
meantime.

"During that period, the country remains a member with all rights and
obligations. This is why the most recent mission to Yangon expressed the
hope that cooperation could be maintained in an appropriate way during the
notice period, if the authorities remained committed, as they claim and
have always claimed, to the eradication of forced labor."

The notice period starts from when ILO Director General Juan Somavia
receives the letter, according to a spokesman. As yet, no formal
notification has been received at ILO headquarters in Geneva.

Nevertheless, the government's statement of intent does cast a shadow over
the future of the ILO in Myanmar and runs in the face of Somavia's
insistence that the ILO had no intentions of closing its office in Yangon.

"Much may now depend on whether the Burmese regime decides to leave the
door open to resolving the problems with the ILO during the two-year
notice period," said a source in the UN body.

In recent times, only three countries have quit the ILO - South Africa,
under the apartheid regime, the United States in the late 1970s, and
Vietnam in 1985.

Maupain, a renowned French lawyer with long experience in ILO affairs,
visited Yangon in October with an open mind, according to ILO insiders.
The fact Myanmar's authorities agreed to the visit was seen as a good
sign, considering the persistent attacks on the ILO for most of this year
and restriction to the capital city of Yangon of the ILO representative.

This was the first ILO mission to Myanmar since the independent high-level
delegation's abortive trip to Yangon in February. The three members of the
team left Yangon empty-handed. The team included the former Australian
governor-general, Sir Ninian Stephen, the former Swiss president, Ruth
Dreifuss, and Chung Eui-yong, a former ILO governing body chairman and
former South Korean ambassador to Geneva now chairman of the ruling
party's Foreign Relations Committee.

They had hoped to get a concrete commitment from Myanmar's military
leaders that they would continue to cooperate with the ILO to stamp out
forced labor and the ILO representative would be allowed to travel freely
in the country. But, instead, the situation deteriorated.

Myanmar has found particularly unacceptable the creation of a mechanism by
the ILO to help victims of forced labor and regarded this as an invasion
of the country's jealously guarded sovereignty.

Maupain's lower-level mission was intended to clarify the situation before
the ILO governing body met in Geneva next month. The ILO was hoping to
secure a sincere commitment from the regime to make a concerted effort to
eliminate forced labor and to improve the situation of the ILO
representative in Yangon. Instead, the mission was told Myanmar intended
to leave the ILO.

For months there has been an active public campaign throughout the country
to throw out the ILO. The pro-government mass organizations - the Veteran
Soldiers Organization, the Union Solidarity and Development Association,
and the Women's Association - have held mass rallies condemning the ILO
and urging the authorities to kick out the ILO.

The ILO representative in Yangon recently has received more than 20 lurid
death threats, according to an ILO statement. "They threatened to cut off
his head and to poison him," an ILO spokesman said. These threats have
since ceased, but no action has been taken by the authorities to
investigate who was responsible.

Now that Myanmar's decision is on the record, the generals can continue to
cooperate with the ILO during the two-year notice period and possibly
withdraw their notice later if the current problems are resolved.

Or, as is more likely, they may decide to stop immediately all cooperation
with the ILO and close down the Yangon office. Whichever option Myanmar
decides on, the ILO governing body is likely to press for increased
international sanctions when it meets next month.

In recent months, the regime has also stepped up its crackdown on workers,
especially those who have had contact with the ILO. Earlier this year, the
labor minister said it was illegal for villagers and workers to report
cases of forced labor to the ILO.

Ten workers were arrested earlier this year because they sent evidence of
forced labor to the ILO, according to Ko Ko Naing, an activist with the
Federation of Trade Unions, Myanmar (FTUB). They were sentenced to several
years in jail earlier this month by a special court in Yangon's notorious
Insein prison.

A few days later, a young National League for Democracy leader, Su Su
Nway, was sentenced by a court in Insein prison to 18 months for allegedly
swearing at and threatening local authorities.

Earlier this year, Su Su Nway successfully sued the local authorities for
using forced labor. They were given prison sentences. But the authorities
counter-sued the activist. "Su Su Nway did not receive a fair trial and
was unjustly sentenced," said Ko Tate Naing, secretary of the Burmese
Association for Political Prisoners.

"The authorities clearly intended to punish Su Su Nway for her bravery,
and in doing so intimidate other villagers into not speaking out against
the practice of forced labor," he said.

In this growing atmosphere of intimidation and harassment, many labor
activists in Myanmar believe the presence of the ILO in Yangon is
essential if they are to have any measure of protection.

"There are already hundreds of labor activists and workers wrongfully
locked up in the military's prisons throughout the country," Ko Ko Naing
told IPS.

_____________________________________

October 29, Associated Press
Envoy laments west's approach with Myanmar - Nick Wadhams

United Nations: The outgoing U.N. envoy for Myanmar said Friday he is
pessimistic that a longtime diplomatic standoff with the military junta
will get any better if the West continues its tough approach.

Paulo Sergio Pinheiro told reporters that ``megaphone diplomacy'' wasn't
working with the increasingly isolated regime in Myanmar, and said human
rights victims whom the West could help are being held hostage to
politics.

``I am frustrated, I am not happy with the approaches that the main
countries concerned with Myanmar are having,'' Pinheiro said. ``If this
course will continue, I don't see any reason for optimism.''

Pinheiro has not been allowed to visit Myanmar, also known as Burma, since
November 2003. Appointed in 2001, his term expires in April.

On Thursday, he told the U.N. General Assembly on Myanmar that the junta
was holding more than 1,100 political prisoners, spoke of abuses against
ethnic minorities and expressed concern about the house arrest of Nobel
Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi.

During Friday's news conference, he again faulted the regime but said it
was unlikely to change in the current climate. He said that required a
change in approach by the rest of the world.

Particularly frustrating, he said, was that Europe and others had not been
able to persuade the junta to allow the International Committee of the Red
Cross inside the country to see Suu Kyi privately.

``You engage and then you forget and then (there's) another crisis,''
Pinheiro said. ``They must be consistent, they must have continuity and
must be diplomatic. I am tired of strong statements of support to the
people of Myanmar and Aung San Suu Kyi.''

Myanmar's military junta took power in 1988 after brutally crushing a
pro-democracy movement. In 1990, it refused to hand over power when Suu
Kyi's party won a landslide victory in general elections.

Pinheiro said the international community was forgetting about the human
rights victims in Myanmar and had focused too much on isolating the junta.

``If you don't have diplomacy, you cannot reach the government,'' he said.

_____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

October 31, Financial Times
Black reputation Beijing wrecks the regional environment, not just its own

Hu Jintao, the Chinese president, and other Communist party leaders have
argued convincingly that they need to address China's severe environmental
and social challenges as well as simply promoting economic growth.
Desertification, water pollution and urban smog make the idea of greening
China both laudable and long overdue.

Beijing, however, must now accept that it has international as well as
domestic responsibilities when it comes to the environment. While China is
not uniquely selfish in environmental matters, it is so large and
populous, and its industrial economy so hungry for natural resources, that
its reckless abuse of land, sea and air is particularly damaging for other
countries.

Several environmental controversies show the need for a change in the
attitude of the Chinese government. In a compelling report recently
published, Global Witness, an independent pressure group, shows how
Chinese logging companies are plundering the northern forests of Burma in
collusion with the Burmese military junta and ethnic militias and with the
connivance of Chinese authorities.

About 98 per cent of those timber exports to China are illegal under
Burmese law, but the Burmese people are not the only victims of Chinese
greed and criminality. China also imports large quantities of illegal
timber from west Africa, Brazil, Russia, Indonesia, Malaysia and the
Solomon Islands. Much of the wood is made into furniture for re-export to
the US and other markets. Beijing banned the cutting of old-growth trees
on Chinese soil seven years ago, but has simply transferred the problems
of scarcity and over-exploitation to its neighbours.

Hence the unease in Indonesia over an Dollars 8bn deal with China for a
palm oil plantation in Borneo that would be two-thirds the size of
Belgium. Oil palms flourish in the lowlands, but the fact that most of the
land earmarked for the project is at higher altitudes has aroused
suspicions that the project is more about gaining access to valuable
timber than producing palm oil.

China's contribution to regional air pollution is another problem. The
autonomous territory of Hong Kong is blanketed with toxic smog from the
factories of Guangdong province with increasing frequency. Although
Guangdong has agreed on a plan to cut emissions by 2010, there is little
sign that the province or the central government is taking action to
ensure the targets are met. Acid rain, the result of Chinese air
pollution, damages buildings as far away as Japan.

The Chinese authorities have the audacity to boast of a "Green Olympics"
in Beijing in 2008. But until they enforce environmental laws with the
same vigour they now apply to political dissidents, their Asian neighbours
will continue to distrust China. Economic growth has rightly made China
more powerful. Now Beijing must learn that power requires responsibility.

_____________________________________

October 31, Nation
Meth in their madness?

It will take more than the arrest of one drug lord to convince the world
that Burma has kicked its habit Something is cooking in the Burmese sector
of the Golden Triangle, but the verdict is still out on what any of it
means for the future of the country’s opium politics and insurgencies.

The latest development was the arrest of Ta Pan, a relative of Bao
Yu-xiang, supreme leader of one of Burma’s ceasefire groups, the United Wa
State Army (UWSA), who was caught transporting 496 kilograms of heroin.

The fact that the Burmese authorities arrested Ta Pan is significant in
itself, given that he is the powerful commander of the Mong Yawn-based
2518th Independent Regiment.

In Burma’s scheme of things, such an act could easily be translated as an
act of war. For most of the last half century, gun-toting opium warlords,
ethnic armies and the Burmese military have roamed the north of the
country at will, carving out territories and spheres of influence where
everybody plays for keeps.

While it is unlikely that the military government of Burma will hold the
UWSA responsible for Ta Pan’s alleged crimes, security officials along the
border are suggesting that the junta is drifting into a territory that
could mean confrontation.

It is an open secret that the Wa and the Burmese junta dislike each other
intensely. Ever since the two sides entered a ceasefire agreement in 1989,
analysts have warned that the foundation for their cooperation rests on
shaky ground. It is a marriage of convenience and sooner or later, it has
always been assumed, the Wa’s criminal activities will catch up with them.
This is not to say that the record of the Burmese is all that clean
either. The generals in Rangoon have been accused of turning a blind eye
to the Wa’s illicit activities in return for kickbacks.

The real question Thai observers want answered is, why now? Why is Rangoon
suddenly willing to play hardball with the UWSA?

Is Rangoon trying to please the international community, or perhaps win
some brownie points from Washington, its No. 1 critic? Earlier this year,
a US Federal Court charged Bao and seven of his lieutenants in the UWSA
with drug trafficking. One of the Wa commanders, Wei Hsueh-kang, has a
US$25 million reward on his head.

While Rangoon should be complimented for taking legal action against Ta
Pan, it would be premature to think that this in any way marks a turning
point in Burma’s responsibility to its people and the world community to
stem the flow of illicit drugs across its borders.

However, this is not to say that responsible states should be complacent
in their efforts to tackle the demand side of the equation. Thailand, one
of the major consumers of the Wa’s methamphetamines, should place more
emphasis on education, poverty and other social aspects of the issue
rather then simply looking at the drug problem as a criminal matter.

China, meanwhile, is said to be tightening controls on chemicals used for
producing illegal drugs. The communist giant has finally acknowledged that
Chinese-made raw materials are flooding into Southeast Asia.

“The amount of precursor chemicals smuggled into the Golden Triangle area
is startling,” said a report issued by China’s National Narcotics Control
Commission. New regulations, due to take effect next month, will strictly
regulate the production, purchase and transportation of chemicals used to
make illicit drugs.

Rangoon has for years given the world the cold shoulder whenever it has
been accused of not doing enough to curb the production of drugs within
its borders.

True, opium output has declined significantly, but the boom in
methamphetamines and other laboratory-produced drugs is making up for the
losses. Surely the Wa and the Rangoon junta can’t expect the world to
praise them for giving up poppy cultivation and fail to say anything about
the other illicit drugs replacing opium.

The arrest of Ta Pan should be understood in the context of Burma’s
politics of opium and insurgencies. For the past decade, since the fall of
Khun Sa and his Mong Tai Army, Rangoon has never hesitated to pit the UWSA
against the Shan nationalists or Thai security forces along the border. It
has been like a proxy war, being played out by two neighbours whose
history is painted with mistrust.

Some observers think that as long as the Shan rebels are still active,
Rangoon will always see a need for the Wa, so plucking Ta Pan out of the
picture will not create a lasting vacuum in the UWSA leadership.