“We think this is being done deliberately by drug traffickers linked to the army, to get our young Kachin people addicted,” he claims.
Such claims are impossible to verify, but are an indication of the level of distrust of the Burmese authorities among Kachins, with the KIA and the Burmese army currently unable even to agree on a location for the next round of truce talks, eight months into a renewed conflict that began after the collapse of a 17-year-old ceasefire agreement last June.
And despite the KIA running its on “war on drugs,” drug use in its territory continues. In the men's section of the rehabilitation compound, Lahtaw Awng Se, 37, says “it is easy to get in Laiza,” referring to heroin. Standing behind the prison-style door, he says he was caught crossing the Jeyang River five days before, and has just finished the short methadone course given to him by the rehab center.
Though frail and haggard, he claims he is not a regular drug user. “My friends call me to take,” he says. He says he has been treated well at the center, adding that the lowest point for him after his arrest was when his mother visited him. “She was angry, she scolded me,” he says, half-laughing, eyes down to the floor. “I don't think I will take it again.”