May 12, 2004

Shan: Response to the Drug Report in Shan State


U.N. Wires Steve Hirsch interviewed U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime Myanmar Representative Jean-Luc Lemahieu on UNODCs Myanmar program and on Myanmar-related drug issues

Asian Tribune - Date : 2003-12-19 

Interview With UNODC Myanmar Representative Jean-Luc Lemahieu 

By Steve Hirsch

U.N. Wires Steve Hirsch interviewed U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime Myanmar Representative Jean-Luc Lemahieu on UNODCs Myanmar program and on Myanmar-related drug issues. This interview took place at UNODCs Yangon headquarters. 

U.N. Wire: How do you appraise the UNODC opium reduction program here, how good a job are you doing?

Jean-Luc Lemahieu: Well, I think that with the limited resources available to us, we are not doing badly at all. Having said that, put it in a mirror, I mean, we are totally failing to cover the overall problems of opium reduction in Myanmar as such. While the activities in our project area might be going on well and while success is definitely there, we only cover 2 percent of the total needs, so that means 2 percent of the total needs within the country. And UNODC's interventions are too small-scale at this moment. We get requests every day from Kachin, from Shan, from any direction for assistance, which we cannot provide because we don't have the resources available.

U.N. Wire: Do you mean 2 percent of the villages, 2 percent of the people?

Lemahieu: No, if you say that 350,000 households are involved in opium cultivation in the Shan state only, so perhaps 400,000 households nationwide, of that we cover 40,000 people. Each household has about four to five family members hence UNODC covers 40,000 of an estimated 2,000,000 people in need. If you see as well where the concentration of the opium cultivation is, then, obviously, we have already been successful in reducing a lot of that opium cultivation, at the same time. Actually, at this moment, while there is a huge humanitarian need, the intervention scale of UNODC is rather limited.

U.N. Wire: Is that because of Western reluctance, reluctance by the United States?

Lemahieu: It is definitely a lack of financial resources. The Wa project was initiated in 1996, 97, as a pilot activity, to illustrate what we can do, and then we would move up first to the northern Wa and finally to the Kokang, both areas with a high opium poppy concentration.

Due to the lack of financial resources, we were even up to 2001 not sure if we could continue the pilot project, much less to expand to the Kokang.

Today, because of the emergency situation in this part of the country, we are forced to again consider expansion. We have something to show with regard to our pilot activities the concept works. Moreover through the partnership agreements that we are setting up, we might increase the impact and move further up to the northern Wa and to the Kokang, but it's a huge battle for funding at this moment, and these funding constraints are the major problem which we have.

U.N. Wire: Do you feel, backing away from what the U.N. project does and looking at the overall drug problem in this country, how do you appraise your efforts' impact on opium production and export, and heroin?

Lemahieu: Again, the scale of the project is too limited to make a big difference nationwide, because the resources are not there.

Nonetheless we can be proud. Within the project area, we had last year a reduction of 19 percent, while the Wa-controlled area at large has gone up in acreage. Within the project area, our decline is 19 percent, which is not so far away from the national average of 25 percent. The big difference is, though, that what we are doing is far more sustainable than what nationwide has been done, because a fast reduction without alternative income for the opium farms is just not sustainable.

So if you reduce 19 percent, but at the same time we can provide for the basic human needs of the farmers and thus sustain those efforts, I think we're far more successful than what is being done at this moment nationwide.

So, in that sense, through our comprehensive approach, where we provide for basic human needs, we are successful within the project area. If you look at it from a wider scale, from a wider perspective, the difference which we make is rather limited, although important because we demonstrate that there is an alternative, there is a sustainable way to reduce fast, but in a manner which provides for the basic human needs of the people.

U.N. Wire: This is an obvious question, but it seems apparent from having visited your project area that the elimination of opium in the Wa state risks a severe humanitarian crisis up there. Is that a real risk in your mind?

Lemahieu: It's a very real risk, worse, it is more than a risk, it's becoming a reality. With the Kokang, who, during the last year, have reduced even beyond the 25 percent nationwide average, at this moment we're providing emergency assistance for opium farmers. So it's more than a risk, it's reality.

U.N. Wire: So it's going to happen?

Lemahieu: It is there already. It is not going to happen, it's already there.

Obviously we still have 62,000 hectares of opium nationwide, so not all are affected yet, but in the years to come and definitely by 2005, when the Wa have promised to get rid of their opium, that situation will only escalate. Whereas now it's still limited, and where we still know how to intervene with the limited resources available, and still we're falling short on that, the situation is only escalating and will escalate further, and we will not have the means and the resources in place to avoid that humanitarian crisis.

U.N. Wire: The Wa answer is, don't worry, all the new enterprises up there are Wa and Chinese investments, and everything will be fine. Are they whistling in the dark?

Lemahieu: They definitely are. There are two elements here. There's one of pride and one of concept.

The pride of the Wa leadership is such that they might deny for too long the problems which will occur and which they will not escape. I mean, if you have informal talks with the leadership, they will admit as well that they are very much afraid to become leaders without people, because the people might starve or move away to other places looking for income somewhere else if they cannot find it within the Wa. So it is a very real issue, but obviously the formal speaking is, 'Hey where is the problem, no problem whatsoever.'

Now there is also a difference of concept. We have had our share of problems in conveying our concept of participatory approaches, community development, reaching out to the farmers directly, with the Wa leadership. The Wa leadership are very much Chinese-inspired, top-down. The Wa leadership, historically, are feudal warlords, working top-down, so they love those mega-projects, they love the big projects which consume a lot of investment to start with and which for us, the small UNODC, are too risky to engage in.

If you would have support from the World Bank, from the Asian Development Bank, you might wish to venture into development issues and mega-projects later on, but at this stage, with limited resources, it's definitely not the way to go for us. So there is, as well, a little confrontation with regard to concepts. They are not used to seeing people working from the bottom up. We go directly to the villages, we go directly to the opium farms and the families, we acknowledge that opium is being grown because of poverty in essence, what we talk about is a poverty issue. The opium is there because of the poverty issue. So if you can take on the poverty issue, we will deal directly with the roots of the opium cultivation.

So, for those two reasons, you see some, let's say, friction definitely in the past, the situation has drastically improved by the years, because we have been able to show and to illustrate that we can make a difference, that we can make an impact, but definitely when we came down in the Wa, for them it was as if we came from Mars, we came from Venus, we came from Jupiter, we were not from this Earth. I mean, the Wa, they didn't understand those glossy concepts of bottom-up and participatory approaches. Talking with the local communities, organizing them in structures where they could democratically say what they wanted to have, that was never seen before. And that obviously entailed certain risks, which now have been taken away because the Wa have understood the benefits of such approach. Others have come and left, made benefits and profits on the back of the Wa, but UNODC stayed throughout the difficult years and demonstrated a working concept. The Wa want to become a part of the civilized world but years of warfare and isolation, high adult illiteracy rates up to 95 percent, led to suspicion towards the foreign world. What we consider basic norms and values is in many ways foreign to them. Only already our presence opens total new worlds and concepts. It has been a slow process and we still have a long way to go but at least we give the Wa people a fair chance. Today we can talk about basic human needs for the poor farmers and their families and find an understanding interlocutor.

U.N. Wire: Is the international community aware of the humanitarian crisis?

Lemahieu: No. I think that at a technical level, people within the embassies, within the respective ministries, might be aware of the problems, but they have an amazing difficulty in translating this to the political decision-making level. That of course has its own momentum, its own mechanism, but it's not sufficiently known by the population at large, and it is definitely denied by many of the opposition groups, who think that any assistance to Myanmar comes too early, which from a political point of view might have its own justification, but from the humanitarian point, is very cynical and is basically unacceptable. So, in that sense, I think the international community is failing to really appreciate the extent of the problems we are facing here.

U.N. Wire: Will this humanitarian crisis that you see just be in the Wa area, or broader?

Lemahieu: I see the entire Shan state affected by this. Obviously the concentration of the opium itself is mainly in the Kokang and the Wa areas, but overall in the Shan we have opium cultivation, so to whatever extent, the entire Shan will be affected. You will see as well that in the Kachin, to a certain extent, the humanitarian situation will be affected by this sharp opium reduction. So we cannot only concentrate on the Wa and the Kokang.

Unfortunately for us, already finding it difficult to fund our pilot project in one particular area of the Wa, we have to be realistic if we talk about expansion. I mean, even talking about the KASH [Kachin and Shan state intervention] initiative, I get smiles on the faces of many people, saying you're too ambitious and just shooting too far, no way you'll get that done.

So what we are trying to do is to prioritize and refocus on KOWI [the Kokang and Wa Intervention]. But obviously the KASH intervention, the KASH partnership, which we still are pushing as a second priority, is a dire need. It's reality, it's more than the Kokang and the Wa. It is the entire Shan.

U.N. Wire: What will be the consequences of this crisis?

Lemahieu: What we already see in the Kokang is, for example, internally displaced people, people who just cannot make a living anymore and are looking for another place to make their income. In the first instance what is happening, and we have seen this in our intervention area as well, [is] that people from the outside start to relocate inside the area where poppy growing is still allowed, so what you see is basically an increase of opium cultivation in those areas where opium still can be grown. That is a traditional, normal reaction. So that is one thing, internally displaced people.

Secondly, you will see more human rights abuses because if you don't have alternative income sources to offer, you need to enforce your decision, to oblige the people not to deal with the opium any longer. Often this is hard-handed, this is not by talking. Actually what you tell them is, 'Listen guys, you won't have an income next year, you will not be able to send your children to the school anymore, you will not be able to have medical care anymore.' That needs to be enforced and that obviously opens the doors for infringement on your human rights.

You will see a dropout of schools, you will see a worsening of the medical situation, you will see social evils being replaced by other social evils. I mean, if you cannot derive your income for your family out of opium, you might as well ask your pretty daughter of 14 to move to Thailand and to make a job in one of the brothels there.

So, by lack of licit, legitimate job opportunities, you will see that social evils which you get rid of, such as opium cultivation, will be immediately replaced by other social evils, which, from the basic human needs perspective, are definitely not better at all.

U.N. Wire: Is there a link between stability in this country and the drug trade?

Lemahieu: Sure. There's a direct link between stability in this country and the drug trade. If you go to the recent past, you don't even have to go too far, the drug issue fueled, first of all, the ideological warfare between communist and anticommunist forces. After a while the profits of the drug trade were so interesting that, forget the ideology, I mean, if you were communist, anticommunist, it didn't matter anymore, as long as you could get profits out of the drug business. Criminal groups, the spread of HIV/AIDS through drug use, a lack of accountability, warfare, corruption, high addiction levels, you name it, all were directly related to the drug business. So now, today, trying to get away from the drug profits, and to get away from the drugs, as such, is indeed benefiting the domestic stability. It also benefits regional stability, since obviously the drug business did not stop at the borders. On the contrary, outside powers benefited from the lucrative trade and not only enjoyed but also continued the destabilization, creating a situation of perfect lawlessness for a business that normally cannot stand the daylight. The existing political problems, ideological or ethnic, were abused and further accelerated by the drug lords inside and outside the country.

Having said that, you can turn the question around. It works in two ways. The demand for stability benefits drug control as undoubtedly demonstrated since the Beijing Declaration of June 2001. However, which is more important, drug control or stability? Drugs have been an instrument of instability. Drugs have been an instrument to continue instability. But, paradoxically, if stability warrants the overlooking of one or two principles of drug control, that will be easily done as well. If [former drug trade figure] Khun Sa will never be extradited to the United States of America, despite all demands, it has everything to do with the domestic stability. Don't forget that Khun Sa had about 15,000 to 20,000 troops under his command and definitely had all the potential to become a very destabilizing force within Myanmar.

So part of the agreement with Khun Sa was very pragmatic. For Khun Sa it implied that he promised not to fight the Yangon government anymore, move out of the drug business, but in return was not [to] be extradited or even prosecuted. So stability here dominated the entire issue of the principle of extradition related to drug control. And that's something which is very common within Southeast Asia at large.

Stability in Southeast Asia became precondition No. 1, definitely in a period in which all other issues, ideological or ethnic, are superseded by the higher principle of socioeconomic growth. Remember the Chinese saying, "it does not matter if the cat is white or black, as long as it catches the mouse." A stable and continued socioeconomic growth throughout the region is the mouse. If there are continued earthquakes the cat might find it difficult to catch the mouse. Hence stability is required. Drug control is subject to that. Drug control will only follow as a second item. And as much as we might regret that as UNODC, obviously, because we stand to defend the drug control principles, it's part of the reality in which we work here.

U.N. Wire: We haven't talked about ATS [amphetamine-type stimulants]. The drug business here is shifting over to ATS, which may be why the opium production is dropping.

Lemahieu: I don't think it is the reason why opium is going down. Opium has its own incentive, which is poverty. The continued poverty of the opium farmer and his family justifies that opium is still being grown at this moment.

ATS does not replace the opium for the opium farmer. ATS benefits the midlevel man, the middleman, the trader. I mean, the guy who goes to the opium farmer and buys the opium from the opium farmer. If he sees indeed the big push to get away from the opium, the trader has two options, he says 'OK, this is it, let me start some other business,' or he can say, 'Hey, there is something better on the market, now at this moment I don't need the opium anyhow, let me go to ATS.'

So, at the farmers' level, ATS unfortunately or fortunately, perhaps, depending on what view you have doesn't do any good for the opium farmer or his family, if he's pushed out of the opium, that's it, he has no income and ATS is not an alternative for him. The poor farmer has no access to the chemicals, the water supply, the electricity which are prerequisites for ATS production.

At the criminal level, the middleman, traders' level, there, yes, ATS definitely is playing the role of an alternative. The point is that the problems are very different. Opium poverty; ATS greed. The middleman, the trader, is not poor to start with. UNODC is not working for the middleman, I don't want to provide an alternative income for the middleman as such.

The other differences are that you can pinpoint the opium cultivation, we have maps, we can say, 'OK, it's happening there and there and there,' and technically as well, we know what we have to do with it. In the Wa and in the Shan state in general, we're rather lucky in this part of the world, it is not necessarily expensive to get rid of the opium.

Now, obviously, ATS is very different. I mean the labs are moving around, it's a criminal organization, which works very pragmatically and opportunistically in the sense that you have alliances built up now at this moment. We get into a business agreement, you order so many pills, I give you the pills, you walk away and I won't see you back again for the next three years. So it is very hard to get your fingers on it.

What I'm trying to say is that the techniques, which we know, the expenditure required, which is achievable, for alternative development, for opium, is not at all applicable to the ATS business.

So you need law enforcement cooperation, and moreover, since the precursor chemicals come within Myanmar from the outside, I dont want to have any of the neighboring countries complaining and crying out loud, because if the precursor chemicals are transported through the countries to Myanmar, then these countries should not complain that they get a return from the precursor chemicals in the form of pills.

So you need to work in a concerted effort, and that means cross-border cooperation, that means joint border patrols, that means confidence building, that means as well getting rid of all your corruption on both sides of the border. Otherwise how do you explain where the precursor chemicals come in and that your ATS from the border areas can be transported towards Bangkok or other big cities?

U.N. Wire: Some critics claim that the figures that both the UNODC and the U.S. government have released are misleading, that most of the eradication is because of weather or disease and that the fields are located in valleys that are difficult to spot by satellite and far from roads. Are those valid criticisms?

Lemahieu: We are open for any criticism. We can always improve our methodology. We have ourselves an internal process of monitoring and double checking, acknowledging some aspects which definitely need some improvement for the next methodology. We are trying out new aspects to improve that methodology. We are in the learning business, we're not the Lord himself, I mean, we just don't know everything. So I'm always open for criticism on that point.

On the other hand, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king and we definitely are the one-eyed man. So the criticism from the outside is always very easy, we are on the inside, we are doing it, we're walking around, we're seeing it, we have the pictures.

U.N. Wire: But what about the specifics? They say that weather or disease

Lemahieu: I have to smile because for years it was always said reduction is part of the weather conditions. And I acknowledge that. But the last year leading to this year's crop, the weather just went the other way around. We had more rain in December, we had less rain in the beginning of the planting season, meaning that the yields were much higher this year.

So all the arguments over the last years it's all because the weather was very bad let me tell you, the weather was very good last year, my friends, so weather plays a role, no doubt about it, but you have to put things in perspective, it goes in two ways and last year it went in the opposite way.

The yields estimated by the United Nations experts, and again, there is an entire scientific process going in that one it's not that I'm standing with my finger outside here on the roof and saying, 'OK this is what we have' are even higher than the estimations of the U.S. who are not exactly to be considered the friends of the junta. The U.S. has its own scientific methodology, but you see, the discrepancy between the two figures means that we always can improve and that we always can try to get the figures correct. But at the end of the day, the bottom line is we're here, we see it, we walk around, we go around, it's to the best of existing scientific knowledge. I stick to my figures.

U.N. Wire: What about the notion of UWSA [United Wa State Army] and the government involvement in the drug trade?

Lemahieu: There is something ongoing here in the sense that you cannot deny there is a close connection between Yangon and most of the leaderships of the ethnic minority groups, including the UWSA. After all, the cease-fire agreements of 1989 were based on a trust relationship. So you try to maintain that trust relationship.

At the same time, we have seen that after 1989, suddenly the opium cultivation inflated, it boomed up to 1996 when we had a peak and then it went down from there on again. To me, as an outsider and not having been here that moment of time and definitely not wanting to call myself an expert, but as an outsider, what has happened is that by giving autonomy to the cease-fire groups and by not implicating yourself in going within those areas, autonomous areas, the people within those areas did what they did best, planting even more opium, and since there was no warfare, they could, indeed, do this without disturbance, getting more and more and more out of it. At that moment of time it was obvious that national stability, giving up the fighting, preceded the drug control issue.

The important thing is that we have seen a decrease since 1996 and that is what really concerns me today. We have seen a decline from 163,000 hectares, a steady decline to 62,000 hectares. And that's spectacular, and that is a positive sign, that's what I want to see today. 

But that there are close connections between Yangon and the ethnic minority groups, no one will deny that. Putting that one step further and saying that Yangon is benefiting directly from the drug trade as such, no. We don't have any, any operational intelligence indications that this is happening.

Now, obviously, UNODC is not involved in operational intelligence, but we hear from our many trusted friends in foreign law enforcement agencies, even from the U.S. State Department annual publication on narcotics, that there is not such a thing as one drug kingpin masterminding the drug business within Myanmar and seated on a high throne in a Yangon office.

U.N. Wire: The economy in this country is in very bad shape and it's a very poor country, but the government has made major arms purchases in the last 10 years and high officials live fairly ostentatiously. One could speculate that drug money is probably the only way that those purchases could have been made. 

Lemahieu: That's one of the questions which I often get, but unfortunately, it belongs to the fantasy world. Why is this? Because the major profits are made outside of the country. We in 2001 were very intrigued by this and said there might be something to it, so let's try to calculate to the best of our knowledge what the economic turnover would be with regard to opium and heroin and ATS and we came up with a figure of $540 million income, and that was for 2001. Now economic turnover does not equal profits, so that it does not mean this is pure profits. Now this, at that time, was nearly as much as the garment exports to the United States of America.

People are overestimating the drug profits made within the country to a large extent. Look at it from another angle don't forget that Myanmar thrives by an informal economy. Sixty/40 percent, as far as the United Nations can estimate, 60 percent informal, 40 percent being formal. Now the informal sector is far more than only the drug business. The informal sector goes with logging, gems, all the natural resources available here, to even people working outside of the country and sending some of the money back.

So, saying that the purchase price of the MiG planes, for example, which were bought by the government, are paid by drug money is to me very much wishful thinking. I mean, it's trying to prove something which just is not there. Where is the evidence? The huge profits are made by outsiders, not within Myanmar.

U.N. Wire: So you think that the other parts of the informal economy are enough to cover those?

Lemahieu: If you see how the military are paying for themselves, if you see, for example, that in most recent years the regional commands have to generate their own funding, now a lot of that is totally unaccounted for, but still they survive, and they survive to get a high number of troops marching around. So there's a lot of that unaccounted economy definitely around, which gives an income to those official organizations. 

U.N. Wire: So, one could speculate that the arms purchases and so forth could only have been paid for with drug money ...

Lemahieu: I deny that, so I say no. That's wishful thinking, according to all calculations with regards to economic turnover, we don't have sufficient money there to pay for it buying you MiGs with $540 million economic turnover, which includes what the farmers gain from it, mathematics do not match here.

U.N. Wire: It is said that there is active involvement by the UWSA and military intelligence and Myanmar's army in getting the drugs out of the country.

Lemahieu: On the microscale level, I think that's really happening. I think that we have a lot of rotten apples around. Again, the structural system of self-financing of the army makes it nearly necessary to provide many alternative sources of income. So some people within the army are not taking it too seriously with regard to whatever drug control directives they might get from Yangon with regard to opium or ATS.

Definitely, there's a lot of corruption around in Southeast Asia, that's for sure, it's obvious, it is there, it is happening.

Saying, though, that this is within the structural network where you have one brain, mastermind sitting and masterminding all of this, no. That would be too easy for us get the person, and the situation is solved. Myanmar is a very, very complex country with tons of different interest groups and agendas.

U.N. Wire: What about the suggestion that the opium has shifted westward?

Lemahieu: What we are trying to do now, this year, and this is one of the adjustments in our methodology with regard to the survey, is to go out especially in the Kachin, Chin and Sagaing to see what is happening there. So this year we will start to check on those areas not on a full scale yet, because we don't have the resources. We need $400,000 for the survey, so far we only have $220,000.

So, meaning that, indeed, if we have the resources available we definitely will check on that and that has not passed us either. The balloon effect is real, something which we have seen globally, worldwide if you press it down here, it pushes up somewhere else.

Logically, from a strategic intelligence point of view, it should go there where the buyers have best access, and that's close to the Chinese border since 60 percent of the opium enters China. So I'm far more afraid about the pressure the Kachin will feel in the coming months than, for example, in the Rakhine state. There's also a connection eventually between the Indian insurgent groups and the arms and drug issues, so there again that might be itself an incentive to grow some drugs. The similarities to what we have seen here in Myanmar in the past drugs as a destabilizing element can be easily repeated. So that's why we take in as well part of the Chin and the Sagaing zones, especially alongside the Indian borders to see what is happening there. 

U.N. Wire: But you don't know?

Lemahieu: At this stage no, we're not sure at all. We don't have any clear indications that it is happening so far, but we're not happy with others saying it's not happening. We want to see for ourselves.

U.N. Wire: Is the Myanmar government seriously interested in stopping the drug trade?

Lemahieu: Yes, yes, yes, they are. The government is very much pushed by the regional agenda. We have entered a new era, the era of infighting, the era of the anticommunist against communist forces, the era of the corrupted markets fueled by drug money and whatever, is slowly but steadily being replaced by a new era of social and economic growth throughout Southeast Asia, and those countries which have made a lot of headway, be it China, be it as well Thailand, want to move their economies up from the kitchen economies fueled by all the black-, gray-zone areas and the under-the-table dealings and the corruption, to a more competitive, transparent, accountable regional economy. So that means that the entire thinking has moved to another direction, has shifted.

If Myanmar wants to be part of the regional context, it will have to move forward. If Myanmar wants to come back from Beijing with a $200 million loan under its arm, it will have to move forward. If Myanmar wants to get the road construction from New Delhi, it needs to move forward. If Myanmar wants to deal with the axis of Yangon-Bangkok, it will have to move forward. So to me, that's the primary reason.

Some will say it's public relations. Definitely. If you are considered evil by the outside and you can score somewhere on the public relations level, you will take that. But that's not a real incentive. The real incentive for me is that the regional era has moved to another direction and Myanmar cannot stay alone here.

U.N. Wire: How important is it that the United States keeps refusing to certify the drug efforts by the government?

Lemahieu: This is more a political question than a technical question. As the U.N., we do not express ourselves about internal decisions of our member states. From a technical perspective I think that most of us will agree that Myanmar passes one or another exam, but obviously needs to do a lot more to get the final university degree.

You have to put the yardsticks gradually and gradually higher, but if you can show reductions of 24 percent, 25 percent, according to the United Nations, or 39 percent according to the U.S. administration, those are things you cannot deny. Those are tangible, concrete results.

U.N. Wire: What do you say to critics who say that the United Nations should not be here, that any involvement by the United Nations is a de facto act of support for the government?

Lemahieu: From the international dimension, first of all, we are working here in the Golden Triangle, which in 2001, for a short while, was the No. 1 opium and heroin producer. Still is a very respectable No. 2 producer, and the main emphasis is in Myanmar. So the problems created here go far beyond the borders of Myanmar, it's an international issue, recognized by the international community as such. And we have a golden opportunity to make the Golden Triangle something of the past as things are moving in this way.

From the regional level, the regional dimension, we are talking about the geostrategic stability, so it's a measure of conflict prevention and management. The warfare within this region has been fueled by the drug business and opium has been taken over by ATS with regard to creating social instability, health care instability, criminal instability, the social evils across the border. Think about HIV/AIDS and injected drug use, which was one of the direct outcomes of the drug trade and which has not stopped at the borders.

So that definitely is the second reason why we need to do something, as a conflict prevention and management element.

The third element is indeed because we think that we are part of the political progress here. We are doing many elements which might help the political reform, including exposing the ethnic minority groups to norms and values accepted by the international community, taking them away from the uncivil society in which many of them were for many years. Making the entire country more accountable and transparent by getting rid of the drug profits. Creating initiatives such as the civil society initiative and promoting people to think for themselves without the government, promoting concepts such as participatory and bottom-up community development at a grassroots level, working directly with those communities, getting the money directly to the people themselves without going through the government, all this helps in exposing and creating a new thinking, which definitely will help the political reform at the domestic level.

And finally, and most importantly, even the actual context, not denied by anybody you could even politically argue that the international dimension, the regional dimension, the domestic dimension are superficial however, no one should have questions with regard to the humanitarian dimension. What we're trying to do is provide basic human needs of people who are already damn poor. And if you're damn poor, what you're thinking about is how do I survive tomorrow. Now, opium for many of those people was the way to survive. Now opium, seemingly, for the other reasons we have just mentioned, might not be the instrument for you any longer to survive. What do you do? What do you do? It's a major question for a lot of those people, which is very, very real, which has nothing to do with thinking in Paris, London, Bangkok or wherever. I mean, it's real for them here and now in the Shan state.

The humanitarian dimension is also related to HIV/AIDS and injected drug use. The HIV/AIDS epidemic is still fueled up to 30 percent by the injected drug use. So, again, on that level, there should not be any doubt that our presence is making a difference. So, for those reasons, I think it's extremely important that we are here.

U.N. Wire: Thank you.

- Asian Tribune : UN Wire - 

http://www.asiantribune.com/show_article.php?id=1193


Asian Tribune - Date : 2003-12-19 

Officials, Critics Clash Over Myanmar Opium Questions

By Steve Hirsch 

There may be no more hotly contested aspect of the debate about Myanmar than the convoluted arguments over its opium production and U.N. efforts to deal with that production. 

Both the United Nations and United States say Myanmar has decreased its opium production, but critics say the figures are misleading.

Meanwhile, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime has a program that includes efforts to help farmers deal with the impending ban of opium in the Wa region, a remote area governed by the Wa people, one of the insurgent groups that has signed a cease-fire with the government. Critics of that program, however, claim it distracts from Myanmar's real problems, which stem from the country's continuing rule by a dictatorial junta.

Moreover, they say official claims that Myanmar is interested in ending the drug trade are a smokescreen and that the government and some of the ethnic groups are involved in the drug business.

UNODC, U.S. State Department Figures

Both the UNODC and the U.S. State Department cite decreases in Myanmar's opium production.

The UNODC's June Myanmar Opium Survey 2003 reports "an encouraging decline of illicit opium poppy cultivation since the mid-1990s," and a one-year decline of 24 percent since 2002. According to the U.N. report, cultivation has dropped by more than 100,000 hectares since 1996 and is now down to 62,200 hectares. At the same time, though, it says that cultivation increased by 21 percent in the Wa region.

U.S. State Department figures show an even larger drop, a 39 percent drop in area under cultivation, down to 47,130 hectares, and a 23 percent drop in opium production. The department's International Narcotics Control Strategy Report for 2002 said opium production was down 27 percent for that year and that land area under poppy cultivation was 26 percent down from 2001, citing "a sustained drought in opium-producing areas and limited eradication efforts."

Western officials in the region say Myanmar is moving in the right direction on opium and that, on balance, the news is good. Moreover, they say the UNODC efforts, aimed at ameliorating the loss of income to farmers who are to be barred in coming years from growing opium, is generally positive. This program, financed by the United States, Germany, Japan and Italy, includes health initiatives, humanitarian assistance, infrastructure construction and education initiatives.

Controversy Over UNODC Program

Supporters of the UNODC program portray it as an effort that, among other things, is aimed at helping the already poor village farmers at the bottom rung of the drug business who will face starvation without the income from opium sales. Critics say outside officials have been duped and misled on opium figures and that the U.N. program may be well-meaning, but, by ignoring the real problem in this country rule by a dictatorial military junta it does little to help solve that problem and serves to legitimize the junta.

They also claim the program does little about what they see as a key aspect of the drug business here alleged official participation in the drug business.

They raise concerns that a potential humanitarian crisis that might be brought on by phasing out opium will be used by aid organizations to justify new cooperation with the junta, further distracting the outside world from what they believe is the most important goal, democratization and political reform.

The UNODC program, headquartered in Mong Pawk, in the Wa region, is said to be having some success, although alternative development takes a long time. UNODC Myanmar Representative Jean-Luc Lemahieu defended the UNODC efforts in an interview appearing in today's U.N. Wire, saying they can help eliminate the Golden Triangle as an opium source, increase regional stability, further political reform in Myanmar and help people who have been dependent on opium income and who now face a catastrophic loss of income.

Nevertheless, Lemahieu said that although the program is not doing badly given its limited resources, it does not cover the overall problem of opium reduction in this country.

Many critics of Myanmar's government and U.N. efforts, however, say heroin production has dropped because of a shift away from opiates toward amphetamine-type stimulants and that movement of opium production to new areas indicates that production may increase in coming years despite UNODC efforts.

Critics Skeptical Of Figures

Moreover, these critics are skeptical about UNODC figures, citing the 21 percent increase in the Wa region as ominous. They also say opium plantations have been shifted to avoid satellite and aerial detection and away from roads used by authorities and international observers.

One critic, interviewed in northern Thailand, said "no one" knows how much opium is being grown in Myanmar and said the U.N. and U.S. surveys have no validity. In a comment that is frequently made by government critics, another observer said the Myanmar government periodically burns opium for visiting reporters, but it is all for show.

A new report by the Shan Herald Agency for News, Show Business: Rangoon's War on Drugs in Shan State is critical of Myanmar's "war on drugs," which it calls "a charade," and is particularly critical of UNODC figures.

Data collected by SHAN, the report says, in part of the Shan state bordering Laos indicates "that the actual amount of land under opium cultivation in the township during the 2002-2003 growing season was at least four times higher than that listed in the UNODC survey."

UNODC teams, the report said, "surveyed only along the main roads, collecting data from villagers who were too intimidated to reveal the truth about the extent of poppy growing in the area."

Lemahieu responded at some length to criticism of his agency in his interview, saying that criticism is easy to make from outside, but that UNODC is actually operating inside the country. In addition, though, he responded to SHAN report allegations in an email to U.N. Wire this week.

He said he did not want to get into the details of the allegations, but suggested that, following the report's logic, the margin of error in the U.S. figures would have to be worse and asked why the new report criticized the U.N. figures claiming a 24 percent reduction but not the U.S. claim of a 39 percent reduction.

"If the obvious answer is because of politics, then I stop there," he wrote.

"We are working for the people, directly with the people, at the same time trying to be as objective as feasible within a complex framework," he wrote.

Farmers Report Myanmar Army Involvement

Interviews with four Myanmar farmers who crossed into northern Thailand in recent months would seem to verify, at least to some extent, allegations that local Myanmar army units are involved in the opium trade.

The farmers claimed in interviews with U.N. Wire that Myanmar army units encourage locals to grow opium and tax it, and, in fact, the taxation forces locals to comply and grow opium.

The army, according to some of those interviews, has bought the opium at bargain prices, presumably to sell it at a profit.

These farmers, all interviewed through the same translator, came from within Myanmar's Shan state, which borders Thailand, Laos and China. They were interviewed in Thailand, not far from the Myanmar border. They describe the encouragement of opium as part of army "taxation" of local farmers, whether they grow rice or opium.

Some observers subsequently questioned the validity of these accounts. The specifics of the interviews could not be independently confirmed, but a well-informed source said the accounts were plausible given their level of detail and because the farmers claimed to be from parts of the Shan state far enough from the Thai border to be under Myanmar government, not insurgent, control.

All of the farmers interviewed said the military had encouraged them to grow opium, with one saying that although the higher authorities at the army garrison told farmers not to grow opium, the local patrols encouraged farmers to do so.

Not only have army officers encouraged farmers to grow opium, but they have encouraged them to do it in such a way that it will escape detection, according to a second farmer. He described how his village headman had said an army officer had told local officials that farmers were to grow poppies this year not "on the forehead" but on the "nape" of the neck which he said was an admonition to grow poppies where outsiders would not see them.

The army told village officials that if villagers refused to grow opium, to be sold to buyers sent by the army and at a low price set by the army, the army would not be able to protect them, according to this farmer.

In addition, he said, the army sent an order saying that a tax would be levied on farmers' land, whether they grew opium or rice, which brings in less money. The result of the order, this farmer said, would be to increase opium cultivation.

He said that in the past, buyers were ethnic Burmans in civilian clothes. He said that in his experience, buyers would come to the village headman, who arranged the purchase, and then transport would be provided by Myanmar army members in uniform. This farmer added that villagers would not have dared to grow the opium without army permission.

This farmer and others interviewed suspected the army sold the opium at a profit the army is not smoking it all, one said.

One of the farmers said he left Myanmar several months ago because of the army's orders that farmers grow opium and pay a tax. He said he was concerned that he might be hit by bad weather and, with a poor opium crop, he might not be able to afford the tax.

This farmer said he witnessed a military officer purchasing opium and said he sold his 2000 opium crop to an artillery unit and to Chinese buyers.

This farmer also said he and other villagers were told to grow poppies away from roads and seemed to confirm the suggestion that opium destruction is conducted to impress foreigners. He said that the military brought television crews in as it slashed the fields, but only did so after harvesting was completed. He said he also saw a field destroyed for television cameras, but that was a poor field, producing no opium sap. He said he had heard about similar instances from others.

A fourth farmer told a similar story, saying he had arrived in Thailand about two weeks before he was interviewed because authorities had told villagers to grow opium and pay taxes, but that he was afraid that if the harvest was bad he would not be able to grow enough opium to pay the taxes.

This farmer said that during the 2001-02 crop year, he sold opium at his village headman's house to buyers that included Wa people, an infantry battalion and ethnic Chinese.

Charges Not New

Charges of lower-level army involvement in the drug business are not new, however. The U.S. State Department report says that although there is "no direct evidence that senior officials" in the government are directly involved in the drug business, "lower-level officials, particularly army and police personnel posted in outlying areas, have been prosecuted for drug abuse and/or narcotics-related corruption."

Myanmar, the State Department said, has said that more than 200 police officials and 48 army personnel were punished for drug-related corruption or drug abuse from 1995 through May 2002, but the State Department said that to its knowledge, "no Burma army officer over the rank of full colonel has ever been prosecuted for drug offenses in Burma."

"This fact, the prominent role in Burma of the family of notorious narcotics traffickers ... and the continuance of large-scale narcotics trafficking over years of intrusive military rule have given rise to speculation that some senior military leaders protect or are otherwise involved with narcotics traffickers," the report said.

Show Business, the SHAN report, claims to offer evidence the drug industry is "integral to the regime's political strategy to pacify and control Shan State." Only political reform, the report says, can solve this country's drug problems.

The report claims that the government has avoided targeting areas under control of its cease-fire group and militia allies. Opium is being grown in almost all townships in the Shan state, the report says, "with Burmese military personnel involved at all levels of opium production and trafficking, from providing loans to farmers to grow opium, taxation of opium, providing security for refineries, to storage and transportation of heroin."

Diversification by syndicates into methamphetamines has also been with collusion by Myanmar's military units, the report says.

UNODC's Lemahieu conceded by email this week that "rotten apples exist" within the army, ethnic armies, in Thailand and China.

"Without this," he said, "the drug business would not happen."

What is important, he said, is the political will to confront these criminal groups and how it is translated in concrete action.

"Declarations and statements, even reports tell only so much and cannot be considered evidence. Hard data collected by an objective agency, within scientifically accepted parameters and margins of error, are the best measuring stick," he said.

Lemahieu said that if the UNODC figure of a 24 percent reduction or the U.S. figure of a 39 percent reduction is accepted, "then the theory of large-scale collusion and demonizing weakens dramatically."

UNODC, he said, "will accept constructive technical criticism" and incorporate it as "no methodology is perfect, and no human application of a technology is perfect."

"Nevertheless, within the scientific parameters and margins of error, we stick to our nationwide 2003 figures of 24 percent reduction in opium surface," he said.

- Asian Tribune: UN Wire -