Burma deconstructed! Opium and repression

Demonstrations 2007 against the Burmese junta

Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese pro-democracy leader,

will be released from house arrest in November, a

government minister has told a gathering of local

officials, according to two people who attended the

meeting. The information could not be verified

independently but three people who attended the meeting

said the comment was made to an audience of several

hundred people in Kyaukpadaung, a town about 565 km

(350 miles) north of the former capital, Yangon. The

three witnesses requested anonymity.

Suu Kyi, detained for 14 of the past 20 years, was

sentenced to a further 18 months of detention last

August for harboring an American who swam uninvited to

her lakeside home. That incident took place in

May 2009, just before an earlier period of house arrest

was due to end. Taking into account the three months

she spent in a prison guesthouse after the incident,

her 18-month sentence would end in November.

Planned election would be the first since 1990, when

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party

scored a landslide victory that the country's junta

refused to recognize.

Jailed opponents

Maung Oo also said detained NLD vice-chairman Tin Oo

would be released on February 13, and that the

government would pursue an international-style market

economy after holding "free and fair" elections,

including loosening restrictions on car imports. Tin

Oo, 82, a former defense minister and retired general,

has been in prison or under house arrest for more than

a decade.

A nightmare for Burmese monks and population, Asian

Gazette already reported about the situation of Burmese

refugees who escaped from Burma after demonstrations

mid- 2007 to neighboring countries.

Here is a report about the opium traffic from the

Irrawaddy newspaper

"Opium Addiction 'Poisoning' Palaung, Says Report"

Increased opium cultivation in ethnic Palaung areas of

northern Shan State is creating widespread addiction

and poisoning Palaung youths, according to a new report

by the Palaung Women's Organization (PWO). The report

titled “Poisoned Hills,” which was released on Tuesday,

said that opium fields are flourishing not only in

“insurgent and cease-fire areas,” as claimed by the UN,

but also in Burmese government-controlled areas.

The Palaung researchers said they conducted field

surveys in Namkham and Mantong townships in the Palaung

region between 2007 and 2009, and found that the total

area of cultivated opium had increased up to fivefold

over three years—from 963 hectares in 2006-07 to 4,545

hectares in 2008-09. Lway Nway Hnoung, one of the

researchers on the report, said she collected

information by conducting interviews with local

villagers, village heads, drug addicts and relatives of

drug addicts from about 100 villages in the region.

Several housewives said that drug addiction often led

to stealing and domestic violence within families and

that the youths in the region often lost interest in

studying, she said.

According to local villagers who were interviewed, the

widespread availability of the drug was responsible for

more and more men and boys becoming addicts. “The only

men who aren't using drugs are the monks who stay in

the monasteries,” one Palaung woman reportedly said.

In a village surveyed in Mantong, it was found that

that the percentage of men aged 15 and older who were

addicted to opium had increased from 57 percent in 2007

to 85 percent in 2009, according to the report.

The PWO report said that drug addicts “flock openly to

drug camps” in Namkham where dealers sell heroin and

amphetamines from their houses. Namkham and Mantong

are under the control of the Burmese government forces,

although they were previously administered by the

Palaung State Liberation Army until it surrendered to

the Burmese armed forces in 2005. The report said that

local Burmese authorities—the army, police and

pro-junta militia—were involved in the drug trade.

Police have reportedly formed "anti-drug teams" in the

regions. However, instead of eradicating poppy fields,

they are extorting large sums from local farmers and

then letting them grow the crop, the report said,

adding that during 2007 and 2008, in Mantong, at least

37 million kyat (US $37,000) in bribes was collected

from 28 villages. The report emphasized that “a

negotiated resolution to the political issues at the

root of Burma’s civil war and political reform are

needed to address the drug issue” which is impacting

the region.

“As long as this regime remains in power, drugs will

continue to poison people in Burma and the region,”

said Lway Nway Hnoung. According to the 2009 annual

survey of poppy cultivation in Southeast Asia by the

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the

total area under opium poppy cultivation in Burma in

2008 was estimated at 28,500 hectares, representing an

increase of 3 percent from the 27,700 hectares under

cultivation in 2007. The largest region for opium

cultivation was Shan State, the UNODC survey said,

where 89 percent of the total opium poppy in Burma was

grown. Southern and eastern Shan states accounted for

53.7 percent and 33 percent respectively. Northern

Shan State remained low with a cultivation area

representing only 3 percent of national cultivation,

even though it had increased by 105 percent from 2007

and by 233 percent from 2006. Neighboring Kachin and

Karenni states remained with low levels of

cultivation—5 percent and 6 percent respectively in

2008, according to the UNODC.

Newspaper sources http://tinyurl.com/yzbr4zz

UNODC Report on narcotics in Burma:

Opium cultivation in South East-Asia remains relatively

limited. Just under 34,000 hectares of opium was grown

in the region in 2009, a quarter of the amount grown in

Afghanistan. Worrisome is the situation in Myanmar

where cultivation is up for the third year in a row –

an 11% increase from 28,500 ha in 2008 to 31,700 ha in

2009. Most of this increase came in the Shan State

where 95% of Myanmar’s poppy is grown. More than a

million people (most of them in the Shan state) are now

involved in opium cultivation in Myanmar, an increase

of more than a quarter over 2008.

However, the overall value of the crop is falling since

yields were down 28% to 10.4 kg per hectare, production

fell 20% (to 330 metric tons), and prices are more or

less stable (at just over US$ 300/kg). In total, the

potential value of opium production in Myanmar fell by

15% from US$ 123 million in 2008 to US$ 104 million in

2009. Increased instability in north-eastern Myanmar

(where most of the opium is grown) seems to be

affecting the opium market. There are indications that

ceasefire groups – autonomous ethnic militias like the

Wa and Kachin – are selling drugs to buy weapons, and

moving stocks to avoid detection.

While South-East Asia’s once notorious opium problem

has been contained, there are worrying signs that the

situation in Myanmar is starting to unravel.

Governments and donors need to stay the course and

ensure sufficient duration of commitment and funding

for all aspects of the drug issue : security,

development, and health. In Lao PDR, cultivation was

up 19%, although the overall total is low at 1,900 ha,

as is the yield at 6 kg/ha. Nevertheless, with a kilo

of opium fetching US$ 1,327 per kilogram (due to stable

demand and scarce supply), this illicit crop remains

attractive to farmers, especially as the prices of

other locally produced commodities are falling. This

Report features a chapter on what is being done to

promote development in the remote northern province of

Phongsali, Lao PDR.

In order to consolidate recent gains, the country in

general needs more development assistance particularly

for remote communities, and greater access to drug

treatment. It also deserves support for the

implementation of its National Drug Control Master Plan

(2009-2013). While focusing on the opium problem

(mostly in rural communities), we should not lose sight

of rapidly increasing production and use of synthetic

drugs (mostly in cities) in the Greater Mekong region.

It would be a Pyrrhic victory for drug control if

South-East Asia’s appetite for opium was simply

replaced by a new craving for ampethamine-type

stimulants.

Opium Poppy Cultivation in South-East Asia

Source : United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control. Lao National

Commission for Drug Control and Supervision

Date : 14-Dec-2009

http://tinyurl.com/yztrtqv