Residents flee UN project areas

Drugs

Residents flee UN project areas

Reporter: Pegasus

Hundreds of people from the Wa Alternative Development Project (WADP) area, south of the Wa capital Panghsang, have been abandoning their homes and fields to resettle in regions further south, according to several sources from eastern Shan State, opposite Chiangrai.

The reason for the mass flight were put down to the imposition of a list of taxes on the local inhabitants of Mongpawk district, since 1998 designated as a WADP area under the custody of UN Drug Control Programme, now renamed UN Office on Drugs and Crimes.

Each living person was expected to pay on an annual basis:

• 40 yuan ($ 5 or 5,000 kyat)

• 3 old British coins ($ 7.5 or 7,500 kyat)

• 25 kg of rice

"The move was totally unexpected," said a resident of Mongka, one of the five townships in Mongpawk, "We thought they would have waited until the place could stand on its own feet without drugs."

Many have moved to Mongkhark, Kengtung, Monghpyak and Tachilek, opposite Maesai.

"Maybe that is the way they are going to deal with the poppy-free deadline coming up in June this year", a businessman from Kengtung ventured. "If there are no people living, there will also be no one left to grow poppies."

Bao Youxiang, the Wa supreme leader, is due to declare total ban on drugs on 26 June, the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking.

Sources also said UN offices were closed by the end of January. "I' don't have any idea whether their absence is going to be temporary or permanent," one of the sources said.

The UN project covers 5 townships: Mongpawk, Mongphen, Hotao, Mongka and Namphai that comprise some 260 villages and 6,250 households.