Drug mills in peaceful coexistence with drug free project

Drugs

Drug mills in peaceful coexistence with drug free project

Opposite Chiangrai, in Monghsat, where the Yawngkha drug free village project initiated by Thailand has been in operation since 2002, at least 4 drug refineries have also been running side by side with it, reports Hawkeye from Chiangrai:
Despite the presence of 18 Burma Army infantry battalions that have for months been on a search and destroy mission against Col Yawdserk's Shan State Army "South" in the area, sources who are Lahu, Akha and Shan insist the factories that have been turning out both "dust" (heroin) and "pills" (methamphetamine a.k.a yaba) have not stopped functioning except during "dry periods" when they are running short of raw materials.

All of them are also enjoying the patronage of the local military units (see map):

• Punako, Mongtoom Tract, Monghsat Township

• Nampoong, Loi Tawkham Tract, Tachilek Township

• Hsarmpi, Loi Tawkham Tract, Tachilek Township

• Nayao, Mongkarn Tract, Monghsat Township

"Together, they have formed a sort of boundary around the Thai project at Yawngkha," remarked an Akha source to S.H.A.N..

In 2002, according to a report by the Chiangrai-based Doi Tung Development Project, headed by MR (Mom Rajawong) Disnadda Diskul, the project was given 20 million baht ($ 0.5 million) by the Thai government to supervise a sustainable alternative development project there. The project time frame for 100,000 targeted population is 12 years.

During the two ensuing years, the Project had built 6 weirs, a 500-student school and a 16-bed hospital. "Whereas we supplied the hardware, it is the Myanmar and the local government who supply the software - teachers, doctors and nurses," reads the report.

The Yawngkha Project, dubbed by MR Disnadda as Doi Tung II, however, is not without opposition. Among its critics is MC (Mom Chao) Bhisatej Rajani, who runs the royal crop substitution project at Doi Angkhang in Chiangmai's Fang district.

One reason, as reported by Bangkok Post, 19 February, was Yawngkha, unlike Doi Angkhang, was not a poppy cultivation area before the crop substitution started.
Another reason was that while those who benefited most from the Doi Angkhang project were the people who had lived in the areas for decades and had once earned a living from growing poppies, "those in Yongkha (Yawngkha) now are all newcomers after the local people were forced out."

From 1999-2001, Rangoon and Panghsang engineered a massive resettlement program that relocated 126,000 people (according to Lahu National Development Organization) and 56,000 people (according to the Wa leadership) from the Chinese border to the present area, where approximately 48,000 original inhabitants were displaced by the program. Out of them, 2,076 people are staying at the Center for Internally Displaced Persons at Piangfah, just across the border from Chiangrai's Mae Fa Luang district.