Among the ShansShan army leaders deny newspaper reports

Among the Shans

Shan army leaders deny newspaper reports

Col. Yawdserk and his deputy flatly rejected Thai newspaper reports of his involvement in the recent disappearance of Thai loggers and drug activities. 

"We had nothing to do with their disappearance," he said on 17 June, when he was questioned by S.H.A.N. about the report that appeared in the Bangkok Post, 12 June, about two Thai workers from a logging firm being allegedly captured by the Shan State Army. 

One of his staff officers agreed, saying a Thai villager from the nearby village of Hualarng by the name of Singh (surname not identified), who was also dealing in cross-border timber business, disappeared in a neighboring area frequented by the besieging Wa units. "If the report of their disappearance was true, they must have met the same fate," he said. 

Col. Khurh-ngern, Chief of Staff, Shan State Army, also dismissed a report by the Nation, 7 May, that "a heroin lab in the Mae Kun area adjacent to Mae Hong Son's Pai district receives protection from a unit of the Shan State Army", when he was questioned on 22 June. (Both interviews took place at Loi Taileng, the SSA base, across from Maehongson's Pang Mapha District.) 

"That was totally untrue," he said. "We are not doing this (anti-drug campaign) just to please the world. On the contrary, we are doing it because we mean it." 

The one-armed fighter (he lost his right arm in 1983) succeeded Yawdserk as Chief of Staff when the latter became president of the Restoration Council of Shan State that was formed in May last year.