Junta seeks to bloody US hands in its racist war: SSA PDF  | Print |  E-mail
News - Shan Herald Agency for News
Friday, 13 November 2009 14:15

An article in the anti-Naypyitaw Shan State Army (SSA) ‘South’ website www.taifreedom.com yesterday said Burma’s military leaders are lobbying Washington to aid its war against the opposition.

“Its ‘War on Drugs’ is only a front for its underlying efforts to eliminate the ethnic peoples and whoever else stands in its way,” wrote Loizang.

Naypyitaw’s plan, according to the writer, is to attach full blame on the ethnic armies resisting its Border Guard Force (BGF) scheme:
  • To seek assistance from the United States
  • To destroy the ethnic movements
  • To also destroy the democratic opposition
Besides, drugs appear to be serving a ‘divide and rule’ purpose, according to a ceasefire officer. “The generals are using drugs to divide us,” he said. “To the outside world, all of us may have become drug pushers. But among us, the generals are urging the rest of us to steer clear of the Wa, as its drug stigma is hopelessly irremovable.”

There has been an increase in the frequency of drug seizures along the Thai-Burma border recently. Interviewed by the Irrawaddy on the haul of almost three million meth pills on September 11, the Burmese police in Tachilek said the drugs originated in Panghsang. “That’s the damnedest thing I’ve heard in 20 years,” said a veteran Thai security officer in Maesai, opposite Tachilek. “In the past, the Burmese officials always immediately came to the Wa’s defence, whenever we leveled accusations at them.”

These days, according to a businessman in Kengtung, 160 km north of Maesai, the only way to survive and get ahead as a drug entrepreneur is to be “politically correct,” that is, to support the military junta. “From now on, the Wa are not going to be allowed to sell drugs and buy weapons to be used against Naypyitaw.”

According to a Palaung leader, Naypyitaw accusing ceasefire groups as drug lords is a case of “the pot calling the kettle black.” “Everyone who has a gun is involved,” Bangkok Post quoted him as saying a few years back.

The late Aung Bala, in the New Era Journal, July 2002 issue, dubbed the Burmese military regime’s War on Drugs as “a prostitute eradication programme run by pimps.”

A Shan State-based businessman agrees. “There is no money making enterprise, either legal or illegal, that the junta’s people are not involved in,” he recently told S.H.A.N. “There is no business that runs smoothly without their participation.”

Naypyitaw, since last year, has been waging a campaign against drugs. The 2008-09 poppy season saw a drop in the output due to heavy monsoon, frost and destruction, according to sources interviewed by SHAN.


< Prev   Next >