Wa Build

Wa Build-Up On the Border Continues 

Reporter: Maihoong 

The buildup along The Thai border by the United Wa State Army is continuing despite the monsoons, according to S.H.A.N. reporter, Maihoong.

Namyoom, 7 miles from BP-1 (the border pass between Shan State's Mongton and Thailand's Chiangdao in Chiangmai province), along the road to Mongton, the township seat, has become a supply depot. It used to be a 30-household Lahu village until June this year. But since then over a hundred new houses and buildings have been springing up from the main village to Nawng Talang in the southeast.

Nawng Talang (Talang Lake) is also known as Nawnghaeng (Dry Lake), because it is usually almost waterless during the dry season. It together with Loi Kangti, the mountain in the west, was the scene of fierce fighting between Khun Sa and the Wa in 1989.

"It is a hilly country with a stream flowing all year covered by the thick teak forest," sources told S.H.A.N. "It is therefore ideal for setting up dry refineries."

Materials for its buildings, numbering about 30, are being brought in from Nawng Ook, Chiangdao District, Chiangmai Province, across the border. 

Sources also told S.H.A.N. a motor road from Hopang (the Was' main drug center, northeast of Mongton) to Mongkhid, Namhukhoon, Namyoom and Nawng Talang, to be constructed in the coming dry season, is reported to have already been surveyed and marked.

But being nearer to Thailand (only half a mile from the border), the question has cropped up about the rationality of establishing a drug factory there, However, the Wa soldiers that the sources met appeared to be confident about their military prowess, the natural defenses and the powers-that-be behind them, reported Maihoong.