Rangoon can help should it care to
Source : Editorial, Bangkok Post
The recent expansion of United Wa State Army influence over areas once controlled by the Shan State Army and its success in forging a loose alliance with the pro-Rangoon Democratic Karen Buddhist Army pose a direct, serious threat to Thai national security and the Thai people. As the biggest producer of methamphetamines in the Golden Triangle, which is responsible for flooding the Thai market with hundreds of millions of speed pills a year and, more recently, with a new type of ecstasy, the territorial expansion will enable the UWSA to expand or relocate its drug production. The collaboration with the Karens will open up new routes along which drugs can be smuggled across the border into Tak province or further south to feed the insatiable dependency of our ever-increasing drug-user population.
The Thai military and intelligence agencies are keeping a close watch on these developments and the security threat they pose. Troops have been redeployed from the Cambodian and Lao borders to the Burmese frontier directly opposite the bases of the UWSA and its sphere of influence. But with most of the border not yet demarcated and passing through rough terrain, it is almost impossible for the troops, despite their additional numbers, and police to stem the drug flow. Their efforts are doomed to failure unless Rangoon can be convinced to lend a serious helping hand.
But so far the Burmese junta has been indifferent to the drug menace suffered by its neighbour and fellow member of Asean. The junta claims, disingenuously, that it can do nothing to help because the areas in question are beyond its control. What rubbish. The generals in charge approve, at least implicitly, of the UWSA's drug trade and, for all intents and purposes, licensed the operation in a peace deal concluded in 1989 which allows the Wa to exercise control over areas bordering Thailand and China, and to protect this operation through their right to bear arms.
Thailand must do something. We cannot sit by idly and watch as our youth are destroyed through the use of methamphetamines. This is the human cost. There are others. There is also the expense, estimated at several billion baht a year, of people financing their drug habits and the hundreds of million baht more spent on drug suppression and rehabilitation efforts.
The Thai government cannot afford not to tell the intransigent Burmese junta in the most no-nonsense terms that its lack of co-operation with Thailand's efforts to combat the drug production activities on Burmese soil constitutes an act of hostility which cannot be tolerated any longer. The international community also must be told of Thailand's desperate plight and Burma's reluctance to help.
Thailand has its back to the wall. Enormous amounts of resources have been dumped into the failed effort to deal with the drug menace. So desperate is the situation that some Thai planners are contemplating a military option-conducting precise, decisive and limited cross-border sorties aimed at destroying the drug factories inside Burma. Fortunately, cooler heads prevail. The military option is the very last option, and has not gone ahead for fear of the international backlash it would excite.
We are in a difficult position. The crux of the problem, and its solution, lies across the border in Burma. If Rangoon can honestly do nothing to stamp out the drug trade because the areas of production are beyond its control, then it could invite Thailand, in the spirit of Asean co-operation, to do the job. This would not only be a wise gesture from a friendly neighbour but proof to the world that Burma is genuinely serious about getting tough with the drug barons and is doing something to bring an end to their contemptible operations.