Burma is among those countries in which opium is still being produced. The curse of narcotics is contributing to the international isolation of this Southeast Asian land. Its government is willing to gradually cut back the cultivation of opium poppies. But the success of that policy will depend on cooperation from former rebel leaders who are traditionally rooted in the drug trade.
At this time of year, the poppy fields cling to the slopes like small brown patches and only a few farmers bother to hoe the clumped soil. After the end of the rainy season, which runs from June to September, most Burmese devote themselves to harvesting the rice which has sprouted in endless tones of green from the monsoon-drenched earth. It will not only provide Burma with the most important basic foodstuff without which this isolated country could not survive, a good deal of it will also find its way abroad, where about half a million tons of Burmese rice is generally sold each year.
Packed in Vegetable Leaves
But just a few weeks later, in November, many farmers in the Shan Mountains dig the seeds of "papaver somniferum" out of sacks and plant their often tiny fields with opium poppies. Because of its high altitude and climate, Burma's plateau on the border with Laos and Thailand offers ideal conditions for growing the poppies. In March, a harvest of about 12 kilograms per hectare (2.47 acres) of raw opium can be expected. The sticky mass, which is produced in laborious manual work by slicing open the tulip-shaped seed pods and provides the raw material for the production of heroin, can be easily stored and then, wrapped in vegetable leaves and plastic, turns up on local weekly markets.
In Mong Pawk, a hamlet in the Wa district, where only an overgrown airstrip indicates that anyone was ever interested in past harvests, colorfully dressed market women keep the dark brown substance veiled in pieces of cloth. The large, much-worn Indian rupee coins that serve as currency here point back to the colonial past, and their years of issue (the oldest are dated 1904) show that time moves more slowly in Burma's mountain region than elsewhere. Opium is traded in small quantities here, since it is a substance found in every household, if only for medicinal purposes. Given the lack of proper medical care, opium is often the only "miracle drug" that can be used against all manner of illness and pain, and as a tranquilizer.
Medium of Exchange and Rice Substitute
The fact that the drug is part of everyday life here is also linked to the climate and composition of the soil. Those factors permit only one rice harvest per year, so that three quarters of the mountain people have to buy rice during the summer months. Since opium can be harvested precisely during that dry season, it can serve as the ideal medium of exchange on local markets. In one UN survey, 95 percent of the farmers here said that they planted opium poppies more or less as a substitute for rice. The government in Rangoon estimates that some 300,000 farmers are now economically dependent on growing opium poppies. And since there are always traders, dealers and consumers willing to buy opium and its derivatives both within Burma and beyond its borders, all the way to major Western cities, the drug has established itself in the course of decades as a commercial supplement to farm incomes.
The extent of poppy farming can be seen from the air. With the aid of satellite photographs it has been calculated that the poppy fields in Burma cover an area of 78,000 hectares (nearly 193,000 acres), which means a yearly harvest of between 800 and 900 tons. By this measure, Burma last year accounted for more than 60 percent of opium production worldwide and 90 percent of Southeast Asian production. The main area of cultivation is in the Shan State, an area half the size of Germany situated in the northeastern part of Burma.
Thanks to extensive autonomy agreements with local rulers and warlords, the Shan State is a kind of "lawless zone" largely free of outside control. Its feudal power structures, the financial needs of its many rebel armies, and the lax controls along its "green borders" with Laos, Thailand and China, have been major factors in helping the so-called Golden Triangle to achieve global importance as a production site for opium and heroin.
Signs of Change
But there are unmistakable signs that a kind of twilight has begun settling over Burma's poppy fields. According to statistics from international sources and from the government of Myanmar, the area under cultivation and the sales of opium poppies have declined. The staff of the UN Drug Control Program (UNDCP) are predicting that the 2002 harvest will be down to 670 tons, and the Burmese government's anti-narcotics authority (CCDAC) is projecting 630 tons.By next year, the CCDAC believes the poppy harvest will drop to about 400 tons.
That is still quite enough to keep addicts and their miseries going worldwide. But Burma's production is down to well below the record levels achieved in 1995-96, when it is believed that more than 2,000 tons were marketed. Back then, the now-defunct Mong Tai Army headed by the notorious druglord Khun Sa, as well as other former rebel chiefs, unscrupulously kept the market flooded with opium.
Among the factors apparently contributing to the decline of opium production in Burma are a rigorous anti-narcotics policy in neighboring China, the return of Afghanistan to the ranks of major opium-producing countries after the fall of the Taliban, and the rapid spread of synthetic "designer drugs" which have become fashionable worldwide, and production of which can be kept hidden from the probing eyes of satellites.
The two officers at Rangoon's Interior Ministry who explain the Burmese government's drug policy to us do not fit the stereotypical image of the notorious military junta which has ruled the country with an iron fist for the past four decades. Eloquently, in perfect English and with the aid of modern computer technology, they describe a strategy which, greatly compressed, might be described as follows: After years of fighting with rebels, which brought suffering and destruction to the entire country but especially to the opium-producing border regions, and after the uncontrolled expansion of poppy growing during the 1990s, emphasis is finally being put on other agricultural projects and economic alternatives.
Burma, the officers declare, does not expect the West to lift its economic sanctions right away; all it expects at present is support in its anti-narcotics efforts by way of such things as exchange and advanced training of experts, better border controls and aid projects, all of which would help the country move away from the old scourge. In the Burmese view, the center of production of the new scourge - synthetic drugs - is located on Thai territory; this is quite in keeping with the usual exchange of blame between these two traditionally hostile countries.
A Strategy of Expulsion
While the rapid spread of synthetic drug production in China, India and Thailand requires totally new antidrug methods and border controls, there are signs in Burma of a broad consensus in the battle against poppy farming. Aid organizations, the largely autonomous local rulers in the poppy-producing parts of the country, and the government in Rangoon, are all agreed that alternative forms of livelihood must be made available to the rural populace and that the country must be gradually guided out of the league of major opium-producing nations. The moves being taken in that direction are not always gentle.
For example, with the support of the Rangoon government the administration of Wa Special Region 2 has begun to expel whole village communities from the classic opium-growing regions in the mountains. The people thus displaced are assigned new valleys at lower altitudes, where year-round rice growing is possible. The image of confused, uprooted people trying to gain a foothold in malaria-infested lower locations contrasts cruelly with that of idyllic mountain villages whose only flaw, at first glance, is their accursed poppy fields.
The UN Drug Control Program, the only aid organization operating in Wa Special Region 2, which borders on China, is pursuing a different path in its effort to combat opium production. In the pilot effort known as the Wa Alternative Development Project, launched in 1998, an attempt is being made to familiarize the local populace with new farming and irrigation methods.
The idea is to show them that safe crops - such as summer rice, maize and vegetables - can be grown in the dry season too. The resulting decline in the acreage dedicated to opium poppies is encouraging. But only the future will show whether this pilot project can serve as a successful model.
According to those involved in the effort, its future development will depend in good measure on whether local rulers, still rooted in feudal social structures, will follow the path leading away from opium or will content themselves with mere lip service.