Eastern Shan State Army (ESSA)
Mong Tai Army (MTA)
Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA)
United Wa State Army (UWSA)
The Wa, the primary fighting force of the Burmese Communist Party (BCP) until the BCP’s disintegration in 1988, took over the BCP’s drug operations and expanded them. The Wa became the UWSA, a well-equipped military force of approximately 20,000. The UWSA is the largest drug-producing and trafficking group in Southeast Asia, producing heroin, methamphetamine, and possibly MDMA.
It is believed that almost all of the opium produced in the Wa Region is processed in heroin refineries run by the Wa themselves, and in refineries run by independent entrepreneurs, from whom the Wa collect a tax. The Wa buy opium from the Kokang Chinese, the Shan United Revolutionary Army (SURA), and others to use in their increasing number of refineries, estimated at more than 50.
As a result of the Wa aligning themselves with the BA in its 1994-95 battles against the SUA, the Wa gained territory near Doi Laem and Mong Kyawt, close to the Thai border. Both the Wa and the SUA coveted these areas, which are gateways to strategic trade routes into Thailand. After the SUA surrendered and was driven from the region in hard-fought battles, the BA ordered the Wa to vacate the region. The Wa defied the order and, with eventual government acquiescence, occupied the area, referred to as their Southern Military Region (SMR) or Southern Military Command. The GOB tolerates the Wa, due to the UWSA’s significant military force and a standing cease-fire agreement. The GOB, however, takes action against all traffickers, including Wa traffickers outside UWSA-controlled areas. The pressure exerted by the GOB on trafficking and refining operations outside Wa-controlled areas is forcing various smaller drug insurgent groups to form alliances with the Wa. These alliances are enabling the smaller groups to produce heroin and methamphetamine in Wa-controlled territory unchecked by Burmese authorities.
The SMR is located in the Mong Yawn Valley near the Burma–Thailand border. Part of the Southern Command is under the control of Wei Hsueh-kang, and the Independent Regiment of the Southern Command is under the control of Wei Tsai-tang. Wei Hsueh-kang’s division receives logistical support from Thailand and the Kuomintang in Thailand and Taiwan. The Northern Command (Northern Military Region) is located at Panghsang, Burma, under the control of the over-all Commander-in-Chief of the UWSA, Pao Yu-hsiang. Panghsang is located near the Burma–China border and receives logistical support from China. The northern Wa is sometimes referred to as the Red Wa because of its affiliations with the former Burmese Communist Party and the Chinese Communists. Both the Northern and Southern Commands traffic in heroin and methamphetamine, which are processed in collocated refineries in Burma.
Reporting indicates that the UWSA has expanded its drug-producing operations into Laos, and is supporting the hill tribe peoples residing in Bokeo and Luang Namtha Provinces. The Wa supports the UWSA by providing advisors, training, seeds, necessary equipment, and money to grow opium poppies and cannabis. Additional reporting indicates that the UWSA also has set up mobile heroin refineries that are producing heroin #4 in these same two Laotian provinces. The Wa has pledged that their territory will be an opium-free zone by the year 2005.
For the past 2 years, the UWSA has been developing a self-sustaining new community in the Mong Yawn Valley. This community in Burma connects with Chiang Rai Province in northern Thailand. As the development proceeds, the USWA is expected to forcibly relocate more than 120,000 people to Mong Yawn from the northern and central parts of the Shan State. The UWSA explains the relocation will create better living conditions for the Shan people, and will provide them with an environment conducive to growing products other than the opium poppy. In reality, it appears the UWSA is consolidating some of its drug production facilities in this “drug manufacturing community.” Mong Yawn is located in the UWSA’s SMR. Pao Yu-hsiang’s brother, Pao Yu-i, is the designated commander of the SMR, over both Wei Hsueh-kang’s troops and Wei Tsai-tang’s Independent Regiment. Wei Tsai-tang, a rival and often in conflict with Wei Hsueh-kang, is believed to be the real power and the true commander of the SMR. The UWSA has representatives and brokers, who deal heroin and methamphetamine to independent traffickers as well. Wei Hsueh-kang is reported to have smuggled large quantities of heroin to the United States via containerized cargo.
Wei was indicted in the Eastern District of New York in 1993 for violations of the Controlled Substance Act. Wei Hsueh-kang is currently a fugitive. He was tried in absentia in Thailand for drug trafficking, and the Government of Thailand issued a death warrant. The U.S. State Department has posted a reward (of up to US$2,000,000) for Wei’s arrest. Wei Hsueh-kang and his older brother, Wei Hsueh-lung, originally learned their drug trade from Chang Chi-fu (a.k.a. Khun Sa), leader of the SUA. After breaking away from Khun Sa and the SUA, the Wei brothers joined the UWSA in late 1984, which at that time was the Wa National Army/WNA, the hated rival of the SUA. The Wei brothers have already amassed great wealth, and still add to that wealth through continued drug trafficking. The Wei brothers are believed to have invested heavily in the infrastructure and development of Mong Yawn in Burma. They are also reported to have invested large sums of money throughout Southeast Asia.
Burma provides the bulk of the world's opium supply. It produces about 84 percent of the opium cultivated in Southeast Asia. Most of this supply of illicit opiates is produced in ethnic minority areas of Burma's Shan State, such as the Kokang and Wa territories over which Burmese authorities have minimal control. Since 1989, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) has negotiated cease-fire agreements with the drug trafficking groups that control these areas, offering them limited autonomy and developmental assistance in exchange for ending their insurgencies.
Because the SLORC's highest priority has been to end the fighting and the threat to its national security, counternarcotics efforts in these areas have been a secondary consideration, even though the groups are said to have agreed to the gradual phaseout of opium cultivation and drug trafficking within their areas. Nevertheless, there has been no discernible effort by these groups to reduce trafficking or production.
Following the surrender of Khun Sa, the Kokang, Wa and Essa areas in particular became drug trafficking havens where opium was produced and refined with relative impunity. As part of the SLORC's efforts to bring the ethnic groups under its control, it granted leaders of these drug trafficking armies significant political legitimacy, and several participate in the government's National Constitutional Convention. These leaders have exploited their relationship with Rangoon to expand their businesses -- legitimate and illegitimate -- although their prosperity has not filtered down to the ordinary people of the ethnic areas.
The State Law and Order Restoration Council negotiated the "surrender" of the notorious drug lord Khun Sa and his Mong Tai Army (MTA) in January 1996. According to the SLORC, the terms of the surrender stipulated that in return for ending his insurgency and surrendering his weaponry, Khun Sa would be allowed to live under close government supervision in Rangoon, where he could engage indirectly, via third-party investors, in legitimate business -- but not drug trafficking -- and would not be prosecuted for his trafficking activities or extradited to the US.
The MTA drug trafficking network has been disrupted, but reports suggest that Khun Sa and his MTA associates are still involved in the trade. Overall trafficking from Burma has not diminished, as other groups, particularly the Wa, took up the slack caused by the dissolution of Khun Sa's army. Moreover, Khun Sa has not been brought to justice in Burma, and the GOB has refused USG requests to turn him over for prosecution in the US. Indeed, the SLORC treats him with respect, addressing him with the traditional honorific. The "surrender" of Khun Sa allowed the Burma Army to project its authority into the former MTA area. The military disrupted, at least temporarily, trafficking routes and destroyed a number of heroin refineries in the area.
The ethnic drug trafficking armies with which the government has negotiated cease-fires, such as the United Wa State Army (UWSA) and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA-Kokang Chinese), remain armed and heavily involved in the heroin trade and have to some extent moved into territory vacated by Khun Sa's former MTA. The top leaders of these ethnic groups are: U Sai Lin (Lin Ming-Shing) of the Eastern Shan State Army (ESSA); Yang Mao-Liang, Peng Chia-Sheng and Liu Go-Shi of the MNDAA; Pao Yu-Chiang, Li Tzu-Ju and Wei Hsueh-Kang of the United Wa State Army; and U Mahtu Naw of the Kachin Defense Army (KDA).
As of 2000 the United Wa State Army (UWSA), across the border in Burma, was not a regional organization capable of reaching into Thailand with terrorist activities. The UWSA exists primarily as a separatist organization, seeking autonomy from the central government in Burma. It funds its separatist activities by being the major international drug trafficking organization in the region.
The Wa emerged as a major factor in Yangon's politics as the sword-arm of the now-defunct Communist Party of Burma (CPB). In 1968, Beijing-backed CPB forces crossed from China to carve out a 'liberated area' along the border east of the Salween River, several tribal chiefs in the remote Wa Hills rallied to the communist cause. In a reflection of hill-tribe resistance to lowland Burmese rather than any loyalty to Marxist ideology, Wa troops formed the backbone of CPB forces throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
In March 1989, Wa forces took over party headquarters at Panghsang on the Chinese border after the collapse of the CPB. That May, they agreed to a ceasefire with Yangon along the lines of the pact signed in March by the Kokang-based forces of the CPB's Northern Bureau, reborn as the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA). These deals, later extended to virtually all ethnic insurgent groups, guaranteed the rebels autonomy within their own regions, while the junta secured peace in the borderlands giving it breathing room to better deal with the democracy movement in the Myanmar heartland.
The Wa established the United Wa State Party and the UWSA in November 1989. The new group united the ex-communists in the northern Shan State with a small, southern nationalist faction, the Wa National Army (WNA), based near the Thai border. The Northern Command was headed by Wa commanders Chao Ngi-lai and Pao You-chang, with Li Zi-ru, an ethnic Chinese former Red Guard volunteer from Yunnan, serving as Pao's deputy. The southern group was dominated by three ethnic Chinese brothers Wei Xue-long, Wei Xue-gang and Wei Xue-yin, who were previously involved with Chinese Nationalist (KMT) forces that had operated in the Wa Hills in the 1950s and 1960s before finally settling in northern Thailand.
The truce and the coming together of the northern and southern Wa opened the way for a massive expansion of heroin production. In 1992 the eldest of the Wei brothers, Wei Xue-long, moved north to Panghsang and established a series of new heroin refineries in the Wa Hills. These complemented those in the north on Kokang District controlled by the MNDAA. The same year, the Wa also opened a commercial venture in Yangon, diversifying their activities into Myanmar's mainstream economy.
Sometime in 1993 or 94 the UWSA moved into methamphetamine production. Based on synthetic ephedrine or ephedrine naturally extracted from the ephedra plant, the chemical process involved in production is less complex than that of heroin refined from an opium and morphine base. Illicit laboratories are smaller and more mobile. At the same time, the logistics of smuggling drug consignments are far simpler. UWSA production of heroin has continued apace, but the diversification into methamphetamines has reaped the Wa huge profits. It is believed, that a single tablet that costs 3 Thai baht (8 US cents) to produce in Myanmar, sells across the border for around 25 baht (67 US cents). When it reaches Bangkok, the same tablet sells for around 120 baht (US$3.24).
A substantial proportion of UWSA narcotics profits have been ploughed back into expanding its military capabilities and areas of operation. Today, the UWSA fields a standing force estimated at between 15,000-20,000 troops. This force is backed by a large number of village militia, making it the most potent insurgent force in the Asian region. Given its pro-Beijing communist background it is no surprise that its forces are mostly equipped with Chinese-manufactured inventory that includes 12.7 mm and 14.5 mm heavy machine guns, and mortars of up 120 mm. It is believed that the Wa have acquired man-portable surface-to-air missile systems, probably from sources in Cambodia.
The Thais had kept a wary eye on the movements of the CBP units in Shan State, and in the 1970s and 1980s the threat of a link-up between the Beijing-backed CPB and the pro-China insurgents of the Communist Party of Thailand (CPT) operating in northern Thailand was of perennial concern to Thai security planners. But it was not until 1994 that the ex-communist Wa (still referred to by the Thais as 'Wa Daeng' or Red Wa) finally arrived on the Thai border. In August that year, troops under Wa commander Wei Jia-tang -- popularly known as Ta Tang -- moved from the Northern Command to reinforce Southern Command forces in their battle with opium warlord Khun Sa.
The Myanmar military supported the move, eager to use the Wa as a proxy force against Khun Sa's increasingly powerful Mong Tai Army (MTA), then the dominant force on the Thai border. Under mounting pressure, Khun Sa abruptly surrendered to Yangon authorities in January 1996, whereupon the UWSA took over some areas including the Doi Lang area and the Mong Yawn Valley opposite Mae Ai district of Thailand's Chiang Mai province.
Wa forces began a major development program in the Mong Yawn Valley in 1998. The build-up has involved the construction of new roads, dams, an electricity generating plant, underground fuel storage facilities, telephone lines, military command posts, barracks, schools and a 40-bed hospital. Work has also begun at a second Wa base area at Wan Hong or 'Mong Mai' (New Village), set up by Wei Xue-gang and situated some 6 km inside Myanmar, opposite Thailand's Chiang Rai province.
Thai companies, some with military connections, eager to cash in on the new border boom, from mid-1998 onwards, undertook most of the spade work involved in the crash development of Mong Yawn. In July 1998 a new border check-point linking Thailand's excellent northern road network with Mong Yawn was opened at San Ton Du village. In a circumvention of normal procedures, the new crossing-point was apparently quietly approved by Thailand's then National Security Council secretary-general Boonsak Kamhaengrithirong, then Army Chief General Chetta Thanajaro and then Third Army commander Lieutenant General Sommai Wichaworn. The move was in keeping with an overall policy promoted by the Thai military aimed at increasing cross-border trade with Myanmar.
Recently, Thai military intelligence estimated Wa units along the border to number around 3,500. Some are grouped in the Mong Yawn- based 894 Brigade of northern Wa commander Ta Tang. Others are commanded by Wei Xue-gang, based at his 361 Brigade command headquarters (named after the feature on which it is situated, near Mong Yawn) and with the 46 Brigade at Wan Hong.
Thai concern has further been fuelled by a rapid increase in the number of civilians in the Wa border bases. Recently, truckloads of ethnic Wa and Chinese settlers have moved to the border from UWSA Northern Command areas. Some are even understood to have come from the border districts of China's Yunnan province that border the Wa Hills. The population of Mong Yawn, estimated in early 1999 at 10,000, had by the end of the year reached an estimated 30,000. Other settlers are moving into Wei Xuegang's 46 Brigade base at Wan Hong.
At least part of this population movement is the result of a grand plan aimed at ridding all Wa areas of narcotics production by 2005, according to a joint Yangon/UWSA public relations offensive. Given the difficulty of classic crop substitution strategies for opium poppy farmers in the Wa Hills, which account for the bulk of opium harvested in UWSA-controlled areas, up to 50,000 villagers will simply be relocated south to the Thai border.
The track record is not impressive: from 1991 onwards, 'deadlines' set for eradication of opium poppy cultivation by other major heroin traffickers (notably ethnic Chinese ex-CPB warlords in Kokang) have been invariably not been met. The UWSA's new crusade on drugs would carry greater credibility were the organization not stepping up its methamphetamine production at the same time that it is discussing an opium crackdown. It is also apparent that the numbers moving south are far larger than can be accommodated by fruit and livestock projects. This suggests either bad planning or other motives.
Thai military authorities are now fully aware of developments that have major implications for both Thai society and Thai border security. Indeed, the narcotics threat has been defined as the pre-eminent threat to national security, and narcotics interdiction has become a major task of the military. This change of mood has been largely linked to the assumption of RTA command in 1998 by General Surayud. The 55-year-old Surayud has emerged as a determined reformist generally opposed to military involvement in commercial activities and in particular to 'business as usual' on the northern border.
Following a period of heightened cross-border tensions, in August 1999 the border crossing point at San Ton Du was abruptly closed on Gen Surayud's orders. In October all other border crossing points were closed as a result of Yangon's anger over Bangkok's defusing of the embassy hostage crisis, when students who had seized the embassy were helicoptered by Thai authorities back to the border and released. By December 1999, relations had thawed sufficiently for the main crossing points to be re-opened and trade resumed. Nevertheless, despite pressure from Thai commercial interests eager for Wa contracts, San Ton Du has remained firmly closed.
The August 1999 closure of San Ton Du was followed in October by a reshuffle in command and deployments in the northern Third Army region. Third Army command was taken over by Lieutenant General Wattanachai Chaimuengwong. Simultaneously, a troop rotation on the key border sector opposite the Wa in Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai provinces involved border security and interdiction duties being taken over by the Pamuang Task Force (TF), one of two northern border task forces., The Pamuang TF was deployed earlier on the northern Thai-Laotian border and is composed of elements of the Petchabun-based First Cavalry Division supported by the 17th Regiment of the Phitsanuloke-based 4th Infantry Division.
The Pamuang TF, headquartered on Chiang Mai and commanded by 1st Cavalry Divisional commander, Major General Somboonkiat Sitthidecha, has assumed tighter control of other forces on the border, specifically the Border Patrol Police (BPP), Rangers, provincial police and other police units. This shake-up has effectively disrupted numerous cozy relationships established along the border between the Wa and elements of the Thai security forces -- not least the Rangers who generally man forward positions. Lt Gen Wattanachai, the then Third Army commander, also urged the national Security Council to set up a powerful inter-provincial administrative body to co-ordinate all security issues, in particular narcotics, in the four northern provinces bordering Myanmar: Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai, Mae Hong Son and Tak. Such a body would, in effect, be modeled on the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Commission that oversees the sensitive Muslim-majority provinces on the Malaysian border.
The proposal was vetoed in favor of involving the already existing Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC) more closely in narcotics interdiction and suppression. The ISOC, originally tasked with coordinating anti-communist operations that have long since ceased, has both a budget and a cross-border mandate and is now the main policy coordinating agency in narcotics interdiction and suppression.
Following the border inspection by General Boonlert Kaewprasit, in early February 2000, the RTA Narcotics Suppression Committee chief, a proposal for the formation of an "elite force" to "deal firmly" with drug traffickers was put to RTA commander Gen Surayud. It was suggested in the local press that the force might be similar to that used to deal with Khun Sa -- a reference to a major 1982 assault by hundreds of Thai special forces on the village of Baan Hin Taek in Chiang Rai province that finally pushed the Sino-Shan warlord out of Thailand and back into Myanmar.
The presence in Mong Yawn, of engineers, teachers and what appear to be political advisers from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has not mitigated Thai concern over developments along the northern border. In RTA intelligence circles it is assumed that these personnel are working in UWSA areas with the knowledge and approval of either the central government or provincial authorities in Yunnan. Less clear, however, is what their presence portends. Benign interpretations suggest that Chinese authorities are anxious to assist with development aid for schemes aimed at weaning the UWSA away from its involvement in narcotics. Certainly, since the early 1990s, the PRC has suffered an explosion of heroin abuse (and AIDS) as a result of high-grade heroin smuggled from Kokang and the Wa Hills, through southwest China to Hong Kong, Taiwan and North America. In early 1994, UWSA Chief Pao You-chang was reportedly summoned to Kunming, Yunnan's provincial capital, for a stern warning from Chinese security officials on keeping narcotics out of the PRC.
