This is a remote area at
Myanmar bordering Thailand and Laos in the north
east of the country. Until a couple of years ago
most opium produced in the world was produced via
poppy cultivation and opium flower there, now most
is produced in Afghanistan. The golden triangle is a
very mountainous piece of land difficult to access
not even by a Myanmar tour.
Tachilek is the main
city of the area where opium poppies are raised.
Since a couple of years people moved a bit to cash
crops and synthetic drugs which are smuggled into
Thailand. Almost every month a shipment of
pill is seized on the way to Bangkok, usually the
police find 2-3 million of this pills per shipment.
This
remote area covering parts of Shan State in Myanmar
and smaller, adjacent areas in Laos
and
Thailand — conveys
mystery and intrigue.
The golden Triangle,
reputed to be a large opium producing area, is a
thickly forested and mountainous region beyond
government control.
Since the end of World
war 2 the golden triangle
has been a haven for various groups
including: the
Kuomintang or KMT, Nationalist
Chinese troops who escaped to Myanmar after their
defeat by the Chinese communists;
Shan and Kachin
insurgents and the Communist Party of Burma, CPB,
who established a base among the Wa people on the
golden Triangle Myanmar-Chinese
border.
Myanmar travel and
Thailand travel in
that area is very common vice versa.
These groups financed
their needs by raising poppies and opium production and
trafficking in the golden Triangle. The fear of spreading
communism even spurred American and French
involvement in the region’s nefarious and lucrative
business, in order to pay local mercenaries fighting
in Southeast Asia. Local hill tribes including the Wa, Kokang, Lahu, Lisu, Lu and Akha have also been
drawn into the trade. The drugs are mainly shipped
to
Thailand and
Malaysia. They have
on a average every month a major drug bust in the
northern Thailand
region.
and producing
opium armed ethnic insurgents used the money to fighting the
government and were supported by the US government,
independent opium
warlords with private armies held sway over much
of the golden Triangle.
Law Hsin Han and Kung
Sa, for example, are notorious for posed
difficulties to successive Myanmar regimes and
western countries in which their illicit drugs
are sold, read more.
After operating
for some two decades in the golden Triangle,
Law Hsin Han was arrested in
Thailand,
extradited to Myanmar and sentenced to death. His sentence was
commuted in 1980 and subsequently Law Hsin Han
took up residence in Taunggyi.
Kung Sa backed by
his own Muang Tai Army of some 20,000 fully
armed troops, carried on when Law Hsin Han was
arrested. His army even had the temerity to make
occasional forays into government controlled
territory.
golden
Triangle, Myanmar, Burma, Laos,
Thailand, World war 2, Kuomintang, Shan
State, Kaching, Communist Party of
Burma, Chinese communists, Wa, hill
tribes, Kokang, Lahu, Lisu, Lu, Akha,
drug production, trafficking, Law Hsin
Han, Kung Sa, Taunggyi, Muang Tai Army,
illicit drugs, drug problem, drugs, tea,
jade, teak, English colonists, poppy
cultivation, opium, Chinese market,
British East India Company, British
government, KMT, drug users, United
States, Europe, Narcotic Drug Law,
Tachilek, Thanlwin Shan State, Mae Sai,
Wanpon port, Mekong River.
Opium poppy raising
is actively prevented to get this
problem in the golden triangle
under control. Including a one million dollar
reward for Khun Sa’s capture put up by the
United States - Khun Sa has already died some
time ago in his bed in Yangon.
In 1996, the
Myanmar government was able to persuade Khun Sa
to give-up his army of more than 14,000 men and
almost 9,000 heavy and small arms. Khun Sa, once
variously known in the international and Myanmar
press as Prince of Death, Scourge of Mankind and
Drug Kingpin, is now on good terms with the
Myanmar government and is even accorded the
honorific prefix U or Uncle.
Myanmar has
refused to extradite him to the U.S. on
grounds that there is no extradition treaty
between the countries.
For hundreds of
years the main commodities traded in the
golden Triangle were tea, jade and teak. Drugs
were introduced by the English colonists
encouraged poppy cultivation in order to produce
opium for the Chinese market, the profits of
which enriched the British East India Company
and the British government.
The U.S. financed the KMT or Kuomintang
to pressure the Chinese communists under Mao.
After Nixon and Kissinger established stronger
relations with China under Mao, the U.S.
withdrew support from the KMT who then turned to
raising poppies to finance their activities.
Some argue that the United States Government
could have put a stop to poppy cultivation in
the golden Triangle years ago. In 1991, Khun Sa
welcomed a crop substitution plan proposed by
the United Nations.
Earlier, in 1989, Khun Sa
had indicated to President Bush that he would
cease planting poppies and in 1975 Law Hsin Han
offered to sell the complete opium crop of the
the golden Triangle Shan State to the United
States in exchange for another cash crop.
All
suggestions to stop raising opium poppies and
get something in return have been arrogantly
rejected by the United States who blame
Myanmar for not solving the problem
in the golden Triangle, Khun Sa "the king of the
golden Triangle died in October 2007 peacefully
in his house in Yangon.
The United States
government does not seem to understand the
demand and supply principles of the economic
system they have sought to introduce all over
the world ! Those who supply drugs are simply
responding to the demand of drug users in the
United States and Europe.
Why doesn’t
the United States government focus on educating
people not to use drugs instead of blaming poor
Asian countries from the golden Triangle for
causing the problem' Is it because there are too
many powerful groups in the United States who
profit from the drug trade' The drug problem is
a problem on the consumer side not on the
supplier side.
golden Triangle
Opium Poppies
Incisions are made in the
walls of the green opium poppy seed pods, and
the milky exudation is visible, collected and
dried
Opium Poppy field in the
golden triangle area in Myanmar Asia,
golden
triangle,
golden
triangle Myanmar,
opium poppy. A latex containing several
important alkaloids is obtained from immature
opium poppy seed capsules one to three weeks
after flowering.
Opium flower,
Myanmar tour,
golden triangle,
Tachilek,
opium poppies,
Laos,
Thailand,
Kuomintang.
Americans living in fine homes and driving
beautiful cars in “God’s own country,” are
demanding that hill tribes in the golden
Triangle who can hardly afford one full meal a
day, give up a key source of income to solve an
American problem, when US people don't consume
drugs people elsewhere wont raise drugs because
the US are the biggest market for drugs.
Currently the US government
do the same nonsense
with Mexico and Mexicans suffer because of a US
problem.
The
government of Myanmar enacted a Narcotic
Drug Law in 1974 and the Narcotic Drugs and
Psychotropic Substances Law in 1993 to combat
drug trafficking. The Central Committee for Drug
Abuse Control (CCDAC) is charged with the
responsibility of enforcing the laws and
of encouraging crop substitution and
livestock farming. The government also
provides treatment as well as conducting
information and education programs.
Rehabilitation, information and
education have been undertaken in the
golden Triangle . Myanmar is also
actively co-operating with countries in
the region as well as with UN agencies in drug control
work in the golden Triangle. From 1990
to 1997, seized narcotics valued at over
$52 million were publicly destroyed at
11 exhibitions before state,
diplomatic and UN officials. During the
same period 32,777 persons were jailed
for drug abuse offences including 20
sentenced to death and 48 to life
imprisonment.
A typical story of a golden triangle “Drug
Baron”
is the story of Wei
Hsueh-Kang, a ethnic Chinese of the United Wa
State Army which is primarily involved in drug
producing, processing and selling. Since a
couple of years they moved away from opium
production and opium poppy cultivation to
produce synthetic drugs, amphetamine, ice etc.
Synthetic drugs have a big market in Thailand,
around once a month Thai police catch a major
shipment from that area into Thailand, its
estimated that they only catch around 5% of the
drugs, each shipment usually has around 3
million pills.
The irony is and it tells practically everything
about the mind boggling behavior of the US
administration is, that parallel to this they
have been a good allay to the United Wa State
Army (UWSA) for destabilizing the Myanmar
government since they don’t do what Washington
commands.
The US Americans put
a $2 million reward on his head and hoped that
in this money oriented society they might get a
hit. The guy was caught in Thailand on drug
trafficking charges. Some court processing was
done; he was relayed on bail and “evaporated”.
The thing is the US helped them
to come there and that leads to the question why
the US government don’t educated the US
population not to tale drugs, because when there
is no market there is no production, this is
basic market economy, has the US government
every heard about market economy?
As an example, in
2008-2009 poppy harvesting in an area around 15
villages in Shan State was done at 617 hectares,
at 2010-2011 the area was expanded to 1,109
hectares. The army and politicians are heavily
involved into production and transport. In
Myanmar’s Shan State are 55 townships. At almost
all of them is some growing and refining of
opium going on, actually for the local people
poppies are a simple cash crop they have no
local problems with it, it’s a means of
agriculture production if some people maybe
thousands of kilometers away don’t like this,
its their problem, they should educated their
people not to consume drugs after production
will be stopped automatically, but blaming some
poor Asian people who have hardly enough to eat
is the most easy way out instead of solving the
problem. The only 11 township which are somehow
poppy free are along the Chinese border and
Chinese authorities put a lot of pressure on the
locals not to grow them.
Refineries are, among other, at Punako, opposite
Thailand's Chiang Rai.
Opium farmers of the golden triangle
To grow poppies it
needs reasonable soil, no watering needed, there
is enough mist with sufficient moisture in it,
in the area are also tea plantations. They grow
the poppies almost everywhere in the hills of
north eastern Shan state, even just cross the
Thai border. Why do the local farmers raise
them? If they grow vegetables, how to get them
to market, there are no roads and no market,
when they grow poppies some uniformed people
will come and buy the latex. It looks as with
some help on infrastructure building and crop
substitution a lot could be done to make the
farmer not raising poppies, but the relevant
authorities only talk and blame the other,
nobody really ever helps the locals, for them
it's a cash crop which can be substituted.
Tachilek - the Golden Triangle Capital.
Tachilek, located
in the golden Triangle on the Myanmar-Thai
border in the eastern sector of Thanlwin Shan
State, is being
upgraded as a
gateway to the heart of the golden Triangle. The
Friendship Bridge across the small Mae Sai
stream links Tachilek with the northern Thai
border town of Mae Sai. The area is currently
being developed for tourism and cross-border
trade with Laos, Thailand and China.
A Myanmar tour could
be done by flying direct from
Yangon to
Tachilek in an hour or drive 450 kilometers into
the golden Triangle, east from Taunggyi to
Kentung, then 163 kilometers south to Tachilek.
There is a ferry landing site at Wanpon port,
Mekong River,
Myanmar-Laos border.
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