From: [c--l--r] at [pinyon.libre.com] (Don Collier)
Newsgroups: alt.drugs
Subject: Burma Heroin War Update
Date: 10 Jun 1994 07:03:23 -0700


Newsgroups: soc.culture.burma
From: [b--k--r] at [netcom.com] (Brian Beker)
Date: Tue, 7 Jun 1994 12:27:30 GMT

[s t rider] at [igc.apc.org] wrote:

: Earlier this week, the BKK Post ran an article in which a source claimed 
: that Khun Sa and the Karen National Union had struck a deal on military 
: cooperation.  I don't have the original of the article but if someone 
: else here does, please post it.

: Two things about the article struck me as odd when I read it.  First, it 
: claimed that according to the terms of the agreement, the KNU would 
: receive financial help in exchange for allowing safe passage of Khun Sa's 
: heroin through their territory.  There are at least a few reasons for 
: being suspicious of this claim.

: First, the geography doesn't make sense.  Why would Khun Sa want to move 
: heroin from Shan state across hundreds of kilometers of territory held by 
: various Karenni groups and the Burmese army, only to send it on from 
: Karen state.  

Mr. Strider:

First let me say that I have no direct evidence of opium or heroin 
traveling through Karen areas whatsoever.  I did, however, spend some 
time a few years ago with both General Khun Sa and with the Karens, as 
well as with the Karennis in many parts of their territory.

Let em get the Karennis out of the way first.  They'll do anything for a 
buck, especially certain influential members of their leadership.  And as 
small neighbors to Khun Sa, they have often had to things, whether they 
wanted to or not.

As to the Karens, there has always been fairly reliable word that transit 
through their area is something that can be arranged, and has been 
arranged for some time.  If it is done, I believe it's something like the 
new US policy concerning gays in the military:  "Don't ask -- don't 
tell."  I have it on good authority that this is and has been the case 
for some time.

You wonder why Khun Sa would want to move the heroin through Karenni 
territory and Kawthoolei.  A few points need to be made here:  First of 
all, remember that Khun Sa has always been relatively straightforward 
about his involvement in the heroin business.  I have reason to believe 
him, at least to a large extent, in his claims that he is not a heroin 
producer, just a taxer.  Of course, after a certain point this matter is 
rendered moot by the question of profit participation -- if he makes as 
much as the refiners, the case can easily be made that he is equal to any 
variable in the equation and just doesn't have to get his hands as dirty.

My point is, though, that if he is a taxer, any of several producers might
want to transship southward through Karenni turf and Kawthoolei for many
possible reasons.  Individual refiners can fall out of favor with their
Thai business counterparts.  Refineries often have to be moved, and their
placement as far south as Mon territory is not unheard of.  Refineries in
Thailand have been problematic for quite some time.  Then there is the
question of Thai greed, not a small matter at any time.  Routing through
Burma may result in an easier -- read less costly -- exfiltration of the
product from Burma to Thailand for sea shipment, or even for shipment from
a Burmese port in the south.  Perhaps there is a reason in the 
convenience of any given port in Burma warranting any extra effort 
required to get the No. 4 there.

I once met a Thai man, who I believe will become Thailand's Minister of 
the Interior one of these days, who described to me in detail a refinery 
ship in the Andaman Sea.  I met him at Khun Sa's Ho Mong camp, and I have 
strong reason to trust the veracity of his claims.  This nautical hint is 
fascinating.


: The present system of sending it directly through Thailand 
: has worked fine for more than twenty years.  (Despite massive shipments 
: of heroin through Thailand every year for the last two decades, there has 
: NEVER been a prosecution of a major trafficker.  

Irrelevant.  This is about money, not justice.  The lack of prosection 
just proves that.

: Second, the Karen won't allow alcohol in their territory much less 
: narcotics.  It is true that they are desperate right now, but I'm not 
: sure they would ever be desperate enough to allow heroin through.  It 
: just doesn't fit with their religious fundamentalism.  I could more 
: easily see them staging a Waco-style last stand than surrendering or 
: permitting heroin to pass through.

Here I really couldn't disagree with you more.

First of all, let me say that I am now a staunch Khun Sa supporter.  He 
is kicking more Slorc butt than anyone, and I don't give a damn if the 
money comes from heroin.  He once told me that heroin is "poor man's 
nuclear weapon."  I side with him in the belief that he and his would all 
be dead if he didn't profit from it.

As for the Karen religious fundamentalism, well, that's one thing that
makes them less, not more, predictable.  Slorc poses threats that range so
far into deadly arena that good old Christian utilitarian principles may
not preclude their flirting with some necessary sins as opposed to dying
at the hands of the enemy.

Khun Sa has changed sides more times than any one else in Burma, but now 
that he is truly engaged in a fight with the Slorc, I am with him.  I 
don't care about the heroin, and I don't see why I should.  He 
continually offers the US government a first look deal at all the smack 
in his part of the Triangle, and we are too goodie-goodie to talk to 
him.  It is the hypocrisy of the United States that keeps Khun Sa in 
business, because it is US policy that forces him to continue to favor 
opium/heroin production.

And, by the way, the one thing I am more sure about concerning Khun Sa 
than anything else is that he would prefer to rule a land where opium is 
eradicated.  Not for ideological reasons, but for personal ones.  He is 
something of a megalomaniac, and he knows that a.) his personal prestige 
in the international community can never amount to anything unless he 
gets rid of opium, and b.) he knows damn well that the Shan State would 
be richer if a sound infrastructure and agricultural economy could be 
created.  As I said before, we keep the Shan State carpeted with poppies, 
not Khun Sa.  Let's not forget that all of the history of mass opium 
production is rooted in Western avarice and control politics. 

: There is a certain logic to a Khun Sa-KNU cooperation, but it isn't to 
: move heroin.  Khun Sa wants legitimacy and he doesn't want to fight it 
: out with SLORC alone.  The KNU wants money to pay for their revolution.  
: A KNU-Khun Sa alliance gives both sides what they want; Khun Sa gains a 
: measure of respectability and keeps 4000-5000 KNU soldiers in the war.  
: The KNU gets the money to keep fighting (they have lost most of their 
: sources of revenue in the last few years).

And more to the point:  the enemy of the KNU's enemy is their friend.  
And in a Burma where all the major armed opposition has quit the good 
fight, how much of an ideological noose do you expect the Karens to 
tighten around their necks?

: The American government has been quick to warn Karens that cooperation 
: with Khun Sa would not be in their interest, but given that 
: the Americans have never given any help to the KNU, their warnings don't 
: carry much weight.

Fits in with what I said above.  The United States of America and the 
United Kingdom will never live down the shame of ignoring some of the 
people who fought most loyally for them in World War II.  I have old OSS 
films showing our guys teaching the barefooted natives what to do with 
blasting caps and sniper rifles. Once they went and did their jobs, we 
abandoned them.  I am ashamed for my country on this point, and have said 
so to my friends fighting in the jungles.  I have said so to every one in 
our government who has ever listened to me.

: My suspicion that the article was dodgy was heightened when it claimed 
: that the supposed route for getting the heroin from Shan state down to 
: Karen-held areas was the Salween River.  You can't navigate the Salween 
: between the Karen and Shan areas.  Can not, c'aint, no way no how.  

So what.  It's not the only way.  And whoever told that reporter anything 
surely wouldn't tell them how they really ship the stuff.  

A separate discussion is of course warranted for the question of 
opium/heroin eradication, but I do want to say that I believe that 
nothing would be easier if we in the United States, unilaterally, wanted 
to do it.  I don't want to get into too much detail here, but all it 
would take is an infrastructure that would make bringing produce to 
market viable, and the education necessary to teach farmers how to plant 
new crops.  As has been shown in Thailand, opium farmers always switch to 
other crops when they have the means to sell them.  They make more money 
from strawberries than they do from opium.

It would require yet another thread to discuss why we in the west seem, if
we are to be judged by our actions, not to want to eradicate opium. 

So if we don't want to, why should the Karens worry about it now that 
their backs are harder up against the wall than ever before?  For their 
sake, I hope they form a strong alliance with Khun Sa and beat the hell 
out of the Slorc.  No one is toughter than a Karen knuckledragger.  Give 
him something to fight with, and watch Rangoon troops fry.

Yours,
Brian Beker