A Downward Spiral
covering burma and southeast asia
Thursday, March 28, 2024
Magazine

COVER STORY

A Downward Spiral


By Tom Kramer (TNI) OCTOBER, 2005 - VOLUME 13 NO.10


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(Page 2 of 4)

The main problem that I can foresee here is the stomach problem.”

 

In the Wa region the effect of the June 2005 opium ban may not really be felt until early 2006, after the next harvest season, as farmers still have opium from the previous season. However, some farmers have not been able to pay back the advances of the opium traders because of the poor 2004 drought-affected opium harvest. These loans are paid back by selling opium at a previously agreed price, usually lower than the market price. The rest of their opium is sold in the market in small portions whenever farmers need to buy something.

 

Bans on growing opium have been implemented primarily to appease the international community—particularly China, Thailand, and the US—who continue to exert significant drug-control pressure. UWSA leaders hope that in return for their anti-drug policy they will receive political recognition, humanitarian aid and support to develop their remote and impoverished region.

 

Wa officials claim that the ban will be strictly enforced. “Whether the villagers are happy or not, they have to obey the order,” said Wei Ai Jung, UWSA chairman of Nam Kham Oo Township in the Northern Wa region. “It is the same as the buffalo pulled by the string in its nose. It has to follow.”

 

There are serious questions about the sustainability of the opium ban. International agencies warn that “the significant gains that Myanmar [Burma] has made in reducing poppy growing [a more than 50 percent reduction in area over the past five years] might be compromised if alternative development assistance and access to food is not ensured for these populations.” Furthermore, it is unclear what the UWSA will do if the humanitarian aid and political capital it hopes to gain from the ban does not materialize. The ban is reportedly opposed by the population and has already caused resentment against the Wa leadership.

 

The UWSA has called for international support to prevent a humanitarian crisis following the 2005 opium ban. It has also ordered the relocation of tens of thousands of Wa villagers from their mountainous homelands in the northern Wa region to lower-lying areas. Many of them have been moved to the fertile valleys of southern Shan State, which is controlled by the UWSA’s Southern Command. UWSA leaders say the objective is to move poppy farmers and impoverished villagers to areas where they can grow other crops.



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