The following are concerns related to this program:

Concerns related to project context and rationale

The WFP program is providing international legitimacy to the dictatorship's insincere "War on Drugs"

The regime in Burma has long sought to use the issue of drug eradication to legitimize itself internationally. However, Shan stakeholders have repeatedly provided evidence exposing that the regime's drug eradication campaigns are simply a charade, and that the drug industry remains integral to the regime's political strategy to pacify and control Shan State. For example, the recent Shan report Show Business (at www.shanland.org) contains detailed documentation showing that:

The regime is continuing to allow numerous ethnic militia and ceasefire organisations to produce drugs in exchange for cooperation with the state. The regime's drug eradication campaigns have therefore been deliberately selective and have avoided targeting its main allies.
The regime is condoning involvement of its own personnel in the drug business as a means of subsidizing its army costs at the field level, as well as providing personal financial incentives. (The Burmese army has tripled its military presence in Shan State since 1988). Burmese military personnel are involved at all levels of opium production and trafficking, from providing loans to farmers to grow opium, providing security for refineries, to storage and transportation of heroin. Diversification of drug syndicates into methamphetamine production during recent years has also been with the collusion of Burmese military units.

In spite of evidence of the regime's complicity in the drug trade, international agencies are continuing to collaborate with the regime's token drug eradication programs. The regime takes every opportunity to publicize such support, including that of the WFP, as an endorsement of its rule. The regime's international allies have also publicized the WFP support in this way. The Japanese government issued a press release on 28 April 2004 on its provision of US$300,000 to the WFP program in Shan State, stating: "The provision of the assistance to WFP will support further improvement of the political situation through assisting in the Myanmar government's effort to achieve drug eradication which is a global problem."

The WFP program is endorsing and subsidizing drug eradication policies which are inhumane and unsustainable

In order to be successful, drug eradication programs must provide sustainable alternative livelihoods for poppy growers. The fact that poppy farmers are now starving as a result of current drug eradication policies in Burma means that the policies are failing and should be immediately re-evaluated. Providing food to these farmers without re-evaluating and amending the policies amounts to subsidizing and promoting a failed program.

WFP is promoting expansion of existing development programs in Shan State without critically assessing their effectiveness.

The WFP project document claims that greater food security will promote the success of development projects in the target areas, and urges international NGOs to expand their work in these areas. For example, the WFP refers uncritically to the existing JICA buckwheat project in Kokang. Yet, it is common knowledge that the buckwheat program is extremely unpopular with local farmers, as the yield is poor and transport to the Japanese market problematic. Further development programs should not be promoted without a transparent assessment of existing development programs,

Concerns related to project implementation

Selection of areas targeted for assistance

The main area targeted for assistance is the northern Wa region between Namtit and Pang Yan, where 90,000 people will be assisted. Yet, according to local sources, villagers in this area (namely in Ai Cheung, Yin Pang and Ling Haw) were not only allowed to grow poppies during the last 2003-2004 growing season, but were encouraged to do so by the Wa authorities.

- If the aim of the program is to assist ex-poppy farmers who are facing rice deficits as a result of being forced to give up opium, why has the WFP chosen to prioritize areas where farmers are still growing poppy?

Reliability of population data

The program targets 60,000 people in Kokang, out of a claimed total rural population of 110,000. Yet, according to Kokang leaders in 1993 the total population of Kokang was only 24,000. It is highly unlikely that the population has increased almost fivefold in only ten years.

- How did the WFP arrive at the population figures of the local populations upon which to base its planned food distribution?

Sources of rice for distribution

- Since 2002, as part of its New Destiny crop subsitution program, the SPDC has been forcing farmers in Shan State to grow the Hsin Shweli strain of rice, imported from China. The program is aimed at poppy farmers, and during the 2003 monsoon season, 160,000 acres were earmarked to grow Hsin Shweli, affecting an estimated 80,000 farmers (a total of about 400,000 people including the farmers' families). However, the majority of farmers forced to grow Hsin Shweli rice were not actually poppy farmers but rice farmers. Problems associated with the crop have included: the need for high investment to purchase seed and fertilizer; more workhours as the crop is difficult to grow; much lower yield compared to indigenous Shan rice strains; the rice is hard so people don't want to either eat it or buy it. The result of the forced Hsin Shweli policy is that self-sufficient rice farmers have become destitute, and, ironically, some have now turned to poppy growing to support themselves.

- Since April 2003, the SPDC has claimed that it has stopped forced paddy purchase from farmers throughout Burma. However, in reality, the SPDC has continued to coerce farmers into selling at deflated prices to officially mandated rice dealers, causing severe hardship for millions of rice growers all over Burma.

- Where and from whom will the WFP purchase the rice which it plans to distribute?
- Can the WFP guarantee that the rice will not be Hsin Shweli rice which no one wants to either eat or buy?
- Can the WFP guarantee that the rice has not been forcibly purchased at deflated prices from farmers?
- Is it possible that some of the impoverished farmers who will be targeted for assistance by the WFP may actually be rice farmers destituted by the Hsin Shweli program?

Transparency and accountability

Shan State groups have repeatedly called for independent transparent evaluations of the internationally funded drug eradication programs in Burma.

- How was the former WFP program in Shan State evaluated and what were the results of the evaluation?

- Will the WFP ensure that an independent transparent evaluation is conducted of its current program in Shan State, and that this evaluation will be made publicly available?

Endorsed by: Lahu National Development Organisation (LNDO)
Shan Democratic Union (SDU)
Shan Human Rights Foundation (SHRF)
Shan State Organisation (SSO)
Shan Women's Action Network (SWAN)
Shan Youth Network Group (SYNG)

(Editor's Note: The Rise and Fall of the Communist Party of Burma (1990) by Bertil Lintner, says the population of Kokang in 1986 was 70,239.)