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Bkk Post-Wa army tries to build an



Subject: Bkk Post-Wa army tries to build an empire with drug money

March 1, 1999
Wa army tries to build an empire with drug money
Up to 6,000 Thai workers are employed

The rugged hills of Mong Yawn opposite Thailand's Ban Santondu, Mae Ai
district of Chiang Mai, are undergoing a vast transformation.
A dam, roads, water and electricity supplies, fuel storage, a new military
school, a new hospital, new fortified houses for leaders and wooden houses
for soldiers and their dependents, experimental rice fields and fruit
orchards - everywhere one looks, there are signs of construction, the entire
cost of which is estimated at a minimum of one billion baht.
It is clear the United Wa State Army, accused by Thai and US anti-narcotics
authorities as the biggest drug trafficker in the Golden Triangle, is ready
and willing to dig into its deep pockets to settle down in Mong Yawn.
At present up to 6,000 Thai workers are employed in the whole of the UWSA's
southern military command which stretches from Mong Yawn to Mong Hsat (see
map). There are also hundreds of Burmese and other ethnic minority workers,
and a few Chinese engineers.
In Mong Yawn alone, there are up to 500 Thai workers, including daily
labourers, foremen and operators of earth-moving machines who are paid 800
baht an hour; the UWSA pays them between 5-6 million baht each month in
salaries alone.
"We've earned it," said Ta Kap, deputy commander of the UWSA's 894th
Brigade, headquartered in Mong Yawn. "We've lost over 1,000 soldiers in the
battle for this land with Khun Sa (the former opium warlord)."
"We're here to stay. For the first time in years we are able to settle down.
I don't want to hear even one more gun shot," he told the Bangkok Post.
Under an agreement with the Burmese government following the 1989 breakup of
the Burmese Communist Party of which the UWSA was part, the 894th Brigade
was relocated south from the UWSA headquarters in Pang Hsan, northeastern
Shan State near the Chinese border, to help bring down Khun Sa.
The UWSA's 361st Brigade under Wei Hsueh-kang, who is wanted by the US for
drug trafficking, was already based near Mong Yawn and was competing with
Khun Sa in the heroin trade. In the 1970s, Wei and his two brothers worked
for Khun Sa. Wei, who was in charge of Khun Sa's finances, was jailed in the
opium warlord's former headquarters in Ban Hin Taek, Chiang Rai, for
embezzlement. He managed to escape only to return to join his brothers in
their own drugs trade.
The battle for Mong Yawn was fierce and long for both sides.
Khuensai Jaiyen, then Khun Sa's spokesman, said Khun Sa's Mong Tai Army lost
more than 500 soldiers and spent over 300 million baht defending Mong Yawn,
an area which the charismatic opium warlord called his "back door to
Thailand".
Senior Thai officials responsible for national security, including Army
chief Gen Surayud Chulanont, have expressed concern over on-going
developments in Mong Yawn. "We're keeping a close watch," Gen Surayud told
the Post.
But it is clear that the speed of Mong Yawn's development over the past four
months has caught Thai officials off guard.
Interior Minister Sanan Kachornprasart and his team of national security
advisers were not aware that a temporary border checkpoint had been opened
between Mong Yawn and Ban Santondu. Since he took office, he has not
approved the opening of any temporary checkpoints with neighbouring
countries.
They found out that the checkpoint had been approved quietly last July by
former National Security Council (NSC) secretary-general Boonsak
Kamhaengrithirong, former Army chief Chettha Thanajaro and Third Army
commander Sommai Wichaworn, bypassing normal channels by using the Customs
Act.
Normally requests to open a temporary border checkpoint, which usually come
from local business interests, goes through the provincial governor to the
Interior Ministry. Key issues taken into consideration are national
security, bilateral ties between Bangkok and Rangoon, and economic gain.
Maj-Gen Sanan told the Post that a meeting of the NSC would have to be
called to assess the situation and formulate measures to be taken.
The UWSA's southern military command is well armed and though certain
sections within the UWSA are trying to give up trafficking in drugs - Mong
Yawn was declared drugs-free and the United Nations International Drug
Control Programme has begun implementing a development project in Ho Tao in
the southern portion of the northern Wa area - the UWSA remains the dominant
drug trafficking organisation in the Golden Triangle.
It has not only diversified from heroin to amphetamine, but persistent
reports from the Shan-Thai border indicate that they are investing on the
development of a local version of the European synthetic drug ecstasy.
Last June, the US announced a US$2 million (74 million baht) reward for
information leading to the arrest or conviction of 361st Brigade commander
Wei Hsueh-kang.
Thai anti-narcotics officials have expressed their frustration at their
inability to stop the influx of amphetamines from refineries on the Burmese
side of the border, and have repeatedly asked Rangoon to return the UWSA to
their original home in northeastern Shan State near the Chinese border.
It is clear that Rangoon, which concluded a ceasefire deal with the UWSA in
1989, is unable to do so. And now with the massive development of Mong Yawn
which is strengthening the UWSA's position, it is unlikely to decamp.
Ta Kap, deputy commander of the UWSA's 894th Brigade said the UWSA would
never give in to the Burmese government, which had promised them Mong Yawn
and surrounding areas in exchange for helping them bring down Khun Sa.
"The Burmese tried to back down after we won, but after eight years of
battle and 1,000 lives lost, we're determined to stay," he said.
Both the UWSA's 361st and 894th brigades have kept their own arsenals and
Burmese soldiers coming into Mong Yawn have to disarm.
"The Burmese say we're part of Burma but our Wa state is not marked on the
map and we've not been issued identity cards. As long as the Burmese do not
treat us as equals, we'll be keeping our weapons," Ta Kap said.
More than 10 years have gone by since the conclusion of the ceasefire
agreement with Rangoon, and relations remain uneasy.
Ta Kap said the most important thing for the UWSA now was to maintain as
smooth a relationship as possible with Rangoon and that is why the UWSA
cannot join other ethnic minority groups, such as the Shan State Army, which
are seeking UWSA support in their continued struggle against Rangoon.
"We must strengthen unity among the Wa ourselves first," he said.
There are eight branches of ethnic Wa, and 16 Wa dialects. In addition to
the UWSA, which was part of the Burmese Communist Party, another group has
been closely aligned with the former Kuomintang and received support from
the Taiwanese government during the Cold War.
Ta Kap and other 894th Brigade commanders have expressed the hope that
relations with Thailand could be established to cooperate on border security
and to apprehend drug fugitives or criminals who take refuge in
UWSA-controlled areas. But so far only business interests have come into
contact with them.
In addition to the estimated 6,000 Thai workers in the southern military
command, businessmen with close links to certain military figures are making
fortunes supplying the UWSA with rice and other basic food supplies,
consumer products, clothes, gasoline and construction material.
The hottest items are four-wheel trucks and satellite phones. At the home of
894th Brigade commander Ta Tang, there are at least 10 such trucks.
Ta Kap has opened a gas station bearing the logo "MP" of Deputy Interior
Minister Vatana Asavahame's MP petroleum company.
Dubbed by the Thai and the US narcotics authorities as the biggest drug
trafficker in the Golden Triangle, the United Wa State Army (UWSA) is the
current target of the US expanded anti-drug squads in Thailand, according to
the latest US drugs report issued over the weekend. Bangkok Post reporters
Nussara Thaitawat and Subin Khuenkaew visited the UWSA's southern military
command headquarters in Shan State last week for a first-hand look at the
drug empire. Sermsuk Kasitipradit and Wassana Nanuam talked with Thai
authorities on their views of the developments on the other side of the
border.