Day Two. Sunday, 6 November 2016

Drugs take you to hell

Disguised as heaven.

Donald Lynn Frost, Chairman,

Sturgis Bancorp, Inc.

On my way to Mingladon, where the bus is waiting to pick up inbound drug experts. I drop in at the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD) office to pick the party leadership’s  brain for tomorrow’s gathering in Naypyitaw.

I’m not disappointed. A lot of them I’ve already read and written. But there are also two specifics I’ve never heard about:

• The government-owned Burma Pharmaceutical Industry (BPI) used to have poppy farms in Taunggyi and Lashio before 1988 to obtain opium for its product, opium tincture

(Opium tincture, about which I have only a rough idea, is an oral linquid medication used to control diarrhea and relieve pain. But it is also a controlled drug, because of its unwholesome side effects: sedation, constipation, itching, and physical and psychological dependence

• The UN also used to have poppy fields in Taunggyi, Lashio and Kengtung, 2 acres each, to estimate each year’s output in the Shan State. The source however doesn’t know if the fields are still around

At 10:30, I’m off to Mingaladon, where Tom Kramer of Transnational Institute (TNI) and his wife Nang Pann Ei Kham of Drug Policy Action Group (DPAG), with their hired bus, are waiting for the likes of us.

Among the passengers, when the bus starts, are people I know: Sai Long of Myanmar Opium Farmers Forum, John Buchanan of Institute for Strategy and Policy, Col Hkam Awng, former CCDAC Secretary General now working with Mae Fah Luang Foundation in northern Thailand. The Foundation, established by the late King’s Mother, has development projects in Yawng Kha and Mongtoom (Monghsat township) and Mae Jok and Loi Taw Kham (Tachilek township), townships across Chiangrai Province, plus in Yenangyauing. “If you think the people’s life on the Shan-Thai border are terrible, you should take a look at those in the central dry basin,” he tells me. “But after our 6-year project, they are noticeably better off.”

The distance from the old capital to the new capital is 327 km (203 miles). But it takes us 6 slow hours, including 1 ½ hour for lunch and snack, to get there. The bus is going as if  it is riding waves. But our driver is good. So I manage to catch some naps on the way.

At some point, someone is relating to us about the conversation among opium farmers, which goes something like this:

Farmer A:        We have to pay tax to 5 different armed groups.

Farmer B:        You’re lucky. I have to pay tax to 7 groups.

Farmer C:        I must be the luckiest. Because I have to pay only two armed groups.

Former A/B:    Which groups ?

Farmer C:        The MA (Myanmar Army) and the PMF (People’s Militia Force, the extended arm of the MA).

We also discuss future plans:

• Visiting Doi Tung, Mae Fa Luang district, Chiangrai Province.

*For readers unfamiliar with different English labels used by the two countries, the following should be the guide for them:

Burma                                                             Thailand

Village                                                             Village (Muban)

Village Tract                                                   Tambon

Sub-Township                                                  Sub-District (King-Ampher)

Township                                                         District (Ampher)

District                                                                        Province (Jangwat)

• Direct Myanmar Army/EAO consultations on drugs (“Government meeting CSOs are

  

  okay. But without open discussions between the MA and the EAOs, nothing is going to change,” a CCDAC official is quoted as saying.)

• Study mission to licit occultation in India and Australia (it appears legal production is not without problems either)

We are greeted and entertained at Naypyitaw’s Royal Ace Hotel by CCDAC officials among whom are Police Colonels Zaw Lin Tun and Myint Thein. The latter says he’s from Taunggyi.