Narcotics
On 17 April 1989, ethnic Wa soldiers established the United Wa State Army and ended the long-running Communist insurgency in Burma. On 9 May 1989, the Burmese government signed a cease-fire agreement with UWSA, formally ending the conflict. The cease-fire agreement has allowed the United Wa State Army to freely expand their logistical operations with the Burmese military, including the trafficking of drugs to neighboring Thailand and Laos.
The United States government labeled the UWSA as a narcotic trafficking organization on May 29, 2003. On November 3, 2005, The Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control listed 11 individuals and 16 companies that were "part of the financial and commercial network of designated significant foreign narcotics trafficker Wei Hsueh-kang and the United Wa State Army (UWSA)." The UWSA is said to be the largest drug-producing organization in Southeast Asia. The UWSP on its part blamed both the Ne Win military government and the CPB for using the Wa as "pawns in the violent destructive games" and encouraging them to grow the opium poppy.
The opium poppy harvest had increased since the former drug baron and warlord Lo Hsing Han managed to rebuild his drug empire after he became the intermediary for cease-fire agreements between the military intelligence chief Khin Nyunt and the Kokang and Wa insurgents who had rebelled against and toppled the Communist leadership in 1989. In addition to the traditional Golden Triangle export of opiates, production has diversified to methamphetamine, or yaa baa, which is not only much cheaper and easier to manufacture than heroin, but also more affordable. Thai authorities have denounced methamphetamine production, trafficking, and consumption as a threat to national security. It denied involvement in Mekong incident of 5 November 2011.
In recent years, poppy cultivation has declined in both northern Laos and the Wa region partly as a result of a ban imposed by the UWSP in 2005. In 1999, Bao You-Xiang ordered a forced relocation, away from the poppy fields, of six northern Wa districts south to mainly Shan and Lahu areas. The World Food Program (WFP) and China also provided emergency food assistance to former poppy farmers. Chinese criminal organisations in the area however may have simply switched the production line from heroin to amphetamine -type stimulants (ATS) such as yaa baa.
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Famous quotes containing the word narcotics:
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—Shirley Chisholm (b. 1924)