AFP-Development aid best way to sto

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Subject: AFP-Development aid best way to stop Myanmar drugs: Thai army chief

Development aid best way to stop Myanmar drugs: Thai army chief
BANGKOK, Aug 16 (AFP) - Providing development aid to Myanmar's ethnic
insurgents is the best strategy to combat drug trafficking by the group,
Thailand's army chief said in an interview published Monday.
General Surayud Chulanond said Thailand and Myanmar agreed in talks that
giving alternative development opportunities to the United Wa State Army
(UWSA) and the Mong Yawn area where their southern command is headquartered
were key to stamping out the trade.

"Both our neighbour (Myanmar) and us agree that to provide alternative
development to the ethnic Wa was the best solution at this time to enable
the people to have other means of living," he told the Bangkok Post.

General Surayud's remarks follow a crackdown by the Thai military on
trafficking accross the border aimed mainly at the UWSA which is based in
Myanmar's Shan State.

Thai officials have said heroin and amphetamines were being produced by the
Wa, an ethnic group which signed a peace deal with the junta several years
ago in exchange for a sort of autonomy.

General Surayud, who has previously accused Myanmar of tolerating the Wa's
drug trafficking, said that the Thai government was exploring the idea of
approaching the United Nations or private organisations to come in to help
the Wa.

The United Wa State Party, the political arm of the UWSA which was formed a
decade ago after the breakup of the Burma Communist Party, had appealed
without success for aid in 1993, the Post said.

The appeal was mostly ignored because of the international boycott of
Myanmar's ruling military.

The Thai National Security Council earlier this month ordered the immediate
closure of the San Ton Du checkpoint in northern Chiang Mai province, which
borders parts of Myanmar under the control of the UWSA.

Thai officials have blamed the UWSA for trafficking an estimated 200 million
amphetamine tablets across the border post since it opened in September
1998.

The UWSA are allegedly using profits from the drug trade to develop their
rapidly expanding headquarters at Mong Yawn, just across the northern Thai
border.

Myanmar is repeatedly accused of being a major producer of heroin and
amphetamines and is a regular near the top of the US government lists of
"narco-states" along with Afghanistan.

Drug trafficking by some insurgent groups, along with refugee flows and
regular border incursions by both rebels and junta troops, have been an
ongoing source of tension between Bangkok and Yangon.