OPIUM, KHUN SA & THE GOLDEN TRIANGLE

The opium poppy, papaver somniferum has been cultivated and its resin extracted for use as a narcotic at least since the time of the early Greek Empire. The Chinese were introduced to he drug by Arab traders during the time of Kublai Khan (1279-94). It was so highly valued for its medicinal properties that hill-tribe minorities in Southern-China began cultivating the opium poppy in order to raise money to pay taxes to their Han Chinese rulers. Easy to grow, opium became a way for the nomadic hill tribes to raise what cash they needed in transactions- willing and unwilling- with the lowland lords. Many of the hill tribes that migrated to Myanmar in the post WWII era in order to avoid persecution in China took with them their one cash crop, the poppy. The poppy is well suited to hillside cultivation as it flourishes on steep slopes and in nutrient-poor-soils. Large tracts of land are needed for the crop, however; it takes the sap of 3000 poppies to produce one joi (1.6 kg), the standard unit of weight in the opium trade. For many hill tribes opium plays an important role in traditional medicine. Among some ethnic groups, such as the Lolo, raw opium sap (which in small amounts is non-intoxicating) is also a significant element of their daily food intake. In the lowlands, opium poppy seeds are the main flavoring in bei mok- opium cake. Because of all the money earned via opium trafficking in the region where Myanmar, Laos and Thailand meet, the area has been dubbed the 'Golden Triangle'. The term might more accurately be expanded to 'Golden Quadrangle' in order to include South-Western China, a major location for the refining and smuggling of illicite opiates. One of the region most colorful figure is Khun Sa (also known as Chang Chi-Fu, or Sao Mong Khawn) a half-Chinese, half-Shan opium warlord. Born in Lashio district in 1934, Khun Sa started out in the 1950s and '60s working for the Kuomintang (KMT)- Chiang Kai Shek's Nationalist Chinese troops who had fled to Myanmar. The KMT were continuing military operations against the Chinese communists along the Myanmar-China border, financed by the smuggling of opium (with CIA protection). They employed Khun Sa as one of their prime local supporters/advisors. Khun Sa broke with the KMT in the early 1960s after establishing his own opium-smuggling business, with heroin refineries in Northern Thailand. From that time on, the story of heroin smuggling in the Golden Triangle has been interwined with the exploits of Khun Sa. In 1966, the Burmese government deputised Khun Sa as head of 'village defense forces' against the Burmese Communist Party (BCP), which was at maximum strength at this time and fully involved in opium trade. Khun Sa cleverly used his government backing to consolidate power and build up his own militia by developing the Shan United Army (SUA), and anti-government insurgent group heavily involved in opium throughout the Golden Triangle in competition with the BCP and KMT. When the KMT attempted an 'embargo' on SUA opium trade by blocking caravan routes into Thailand and Laos, Khun Sa initiated what has come to be known as the opium war of 1967 and thwarted the embargo. However, the KMT managed to chase Khun Sa, along with a contigent of SUA troops running an opium caravan routed for Thailand, into Laos where Burmese officials arrested Khun Sa and the Laotian government seized the opium. Khun Sa escaped Burmese custody by means of a carefully planned combination of extortion and bribery in 1975 and returned to take command of the SUA. About the same time, the Burmese government broke KMT control of opium trafficking and Khun Sa stepped in to become the prime opium warlord in the Triangle, working from its headquarters in Ban Hin Taek, Chiang Rai Province, Thailand. Coincidentally, US forces pulled out of Indo-China at this time so there was no longer any competition from CIA conduits in Laos. Since the late 1970s, Khun Sa's armies have continued to buy opium from the Shan, Kokang, Wa and hill-tribe cultivators in Myanmar, Laos and Thailand, transporting and selling the product to Yunnanese-operated heroin refineries in China, Laos and Thailand, who in turn sell to ethnic Chinese syndicates who control access to world markets via Thailand and Yunnan. A turning point in Khun Sa's fortunes occured in 1982 and 1983 when the Thais launched a full-scale attack on his Ban Hin Taek stronghold, forcing him to flee to the mountains of the Kok River valley across the border in Ho Mong, Myanmar, where he now directs his independent empire from a fortified network of underground tunnels. This move led to the breaking up of opium and heroin production in much of north-western Thailand. The SUA has since merged with several other Shan armies to form the Mong Tai Army (MTA), led by the Shan State Restoration Council; in 1992 Khun Sa declared the Shan State and independent nation. Recent MTA strength has been estimated at 250,000, the largest and best-equipped ethnic army in Myanmar- well beyond that of the Karen National Union, the country's second-largest insurgent group(among the 30-odd different groups operating since the 1940s). From time to time Khun Sa announces his 'retirement' but like his Yangon nemesis Ne Win, Khun Sa has outwitted many international players before and will probably maintain de facto control until his death or capture. Khun Sa is now a 'marked' man (with a price of US$200,000 on his head, roughly the wholesale value of one hundred kilos of pure heroin) who may soon be sacrificed by corrrupt Burmese and Thai generals in order to appease the US government.