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From boom town to ghost town

Nakawngmu, 24 miles south of Mongton and 29 miles north of the Chiangmai border, became a thriving town bustling...

No.9 - 06/2006

13 June 2006

Drugs

From boom town to ghost town

Nakawngmu, 24 miles south of Mongton and 29 miles north of the Chiangmai border, became a thriving town bustling with a bullish drug market following the surrender of Khun Sa’s Mong Tai Army in 1996. But two weeks after a heroin refinery some 80 miles in the west was busted, of all people, by the Wa, it has become almost another empty town.

The crack-up came in the wake of a follow-up crackdown on more than 10 known associates of drug operators taken alive at the Hwe Zalawb refinery on 31 May in a bloody raid. The number of deaths is still in controversy: from 17 to more than 40. What no one meanwhile disagrees is that there were also Wa soldiers among those shot. “There is nothing we can do to save them,” “Yang Guo-jong, the Wa commander who was in charge of the raid was quoted to have said.

Four days later, two Dyna six-wheelers were dispatched to the killing ground to load up 30 kg of heroin and morphine, 400,000 methamphetamine pills, 17 assorted weapons and more than 30 barrels of liquid chemicals, according to a Thai security officer quoting Lahu sources. On 9 June, both the detained suspects and the seizure were delivered to Brig-Gen Way Lin, deputy commander of the Kengtung-based Triangle Region Command, he added.

The raid was a reminder of a similar operation undertaken by the Wa 3 years ago, said a veteran Burma watcher. On 30 March 2003, Wa troops from the 171^st Military Region of Wei Hsuehkang, himself a drug fugitive from Thailand, stormed a refinery under the protection of a pro-junta militia force, killing 9, injuring 3 and capturing 37 alive, according to a United Wa State Army bulletin. Among the haul were 13.5 kg of heroin, 67.7 kg of morphine and 208 kg of opium, according to Myanmar Information Committee.

“The Wa are trying to kill two birds with one stone,” one Nakawngmu resident commented. “First, it is their warning to rival business gangs and second, they are trying to please Burma’s angry neighbors, especially China and Thailand, who are at all not satisfied with the generals’ lukewarm drug efforts.”

Contrary to S.H.A.N’s previous reports, 4 instead 2 of those captured at Hwe Zalawb could still be alive albeit under custody:

Japao aka Lao Hsang aka Win Maung, 40
Yui Liang
Pawli aka Hpo Ni
Nang Myint, 35, Japao’s wife

Sources in the area, both Shan and Lahu, are not convinced by the Wa’s latest War on Drugs. “If they were really serious,” “said a Lahu militiaman, “what about their own refineries in Khailong, Mongjawd and other places? Everyone knows the one in Mongjawd is the biggest one and heavily guarded.”

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From boom town to ghost town