UN food programme hangs on

Drugs

UN food programme hangs on

Either despite or because of Rangoon’s refusal to budge from its restrictive agricultural policies that have driven millions into further poverty, malnutrition and starvation, the UN World Food Programme has decided to continue with its emergency food assistance operations in the troubled Shan State, according to its newly released paper.

The project, the third of its kind since 2003, aims to give food assistance to 347,600 ex-poppy growing people in 4 target areas in Shan State, for a period of one year, 1 June 2005- 31 May 2006:

· 100,000 in Wa
· 60,000 in Kokang “poppy free since 2003”
· 150,000 in Lashio area, which include

- Kachin Defense Army (Kutkhai)
- Mong-Koe “poppy eradicated since 2002”
- Man Pang “poppy eradicated since 2002”
- Tangyan “poppy eradicated since 2002”

· 37,600 in PaO National Organization “banned since 2002”

Planned activities include
· Food for Work as a means to support recovery from crisis
· Food for Training as a means to develop human capital
· Food for Education as a means to encourage school attendance

SHAN sources form both the ceasefire and business sectors however point out that except for Mantong (under PSLA) which has never been a poppy growing township of significance, it is “downright incorrect” to say the said target areas are poppy-free, especially the Special Region No. 6 of the PNO, the newly targeted area for this year.
Sectors under its control, i.e.

• Kyauktalong, Taungni, Hpameun, Loitok and Loi Sappi in Taunggyi township

• Namkhok, Chakalo and Loihon in Hopong township

• Tamhpak, Loimaw, Pangkarn, Loihsao and Loitang in Hsihseng township

• Faikhun(Pekon) and Panglawng township
  they say are “far from free”.

“In the past, one can never talk about us PaOs without talking about cheroot-leaf plantations,” wrote a woman writer in Moe-Naga (Mother Serpent) journal last year. “Now, no one can talk about us without talking about poppy fields.”

One ceasefire leader from southern Shan State has put it this way: “The people of Shan State need international assistance, but not on account of false assumption based on false information.”

Critics point out that political reform and better economic management, not donations, are the keys.

Amsterdam-based Transnational Institute that has since 1996 working on the Drugs and Democracy Programme also reminded on 25 June that despite the agreement made at the 1998 UN General Assembly Special Session “to involve local communities, this principle seems to have been forgotten.”

Even the WFP itself had not pulled its punches when its deputy executive director Sheila Sisulu said on 14 September 2004: The policies of the government are impoverishing these people.