Junta tenets obstacle to making headway

Junta tenets obstacle to making headway

Drugs

A three-decade long watcher of Burma recently told S.H.A.N. Rangoon's main obstruction to winning the war on drugs was its own cynical philosophy. 

Speaking on the resolution of the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control on 7 October that called for significant reduction and termination of opium output in the present growing season and effective punishment for officials who failed in their tasks, the officer said it meant nothing in practice. "Perhaps more TV coverage and more inflation of figures," said the 54-year old 'spook'. 

He pointed to a copy of a dispatch from Military Intelligence Detachment #2 based in Taunggyi to its branch office in Hsihseng, 34 miles south, on 9 October, two days after the resolution was reached. 

The commander of the Military Intelligence Battalion #4, it said, had found out that their office was in a shambles: no update report for the visiting commander, no receipt or issue register of its correspondence, no systematic records of its radio and telephone communications and no maps to show the latest situation in the area. 

According to the letter, the branch officers were neglecting their principal duties due to their 'cherished interest in illegal business activities' and demanded a prompt explanation. 

"Hsihseng is a township known for extensive poppy cultivation and for the existence of at least 3 heroin refineries, one of which was raided as a result of complaints from foreign sources," he explained. "But these officers were only reprimanded for not keeping their office in ship-shape rather than explicitly forbidding them from continuing their involvement in illegal businesses." 

This latest incident, only one of several similar events in the past, served to illustrate the existing system's basic operating philosophy: Do what is necessary to support oneself but always maintain a correct form at all times, he said. 

He gave another example reported by S.H.A.N. earlier (License to raise poppies, S.H.A.N., 9 October 2003): 

A Burmese commander, Captain Maung Maung Nyo of Infantry Battalion #277, at a meeting with villagers of Hpakhay in Mongton township, had encouraged his audience to grow poppies "away from the public thoroughfare", offering those that did not have capital 15,000 kyat per family. When the villagers expressed their concern about the annual destruction of poppy fields, he comforted them by saying they needed to set up a common poppy field for the purpose. "When the slashing team comes, I'll just direct them to this field," he was reported to have said, "and everyone will go home happy." 

"The reason," he reasoned, "is the junta is caught between maintaining a good image and running an army it can barely manage to provide for." 

He was optimistic. "In the end, one way or the other, Rangoon is going to make a big slip that will show everyone for what it really is."