The SLORC renamed its country Myanmar, supposedly in order to display inclusion of the country's many ethnic groups. The name, like the junta, is a bit questionable. The name of the national airline, Myanma, would be better, referring as it does to the majority lowland rice cultivators. Preferable should be "Bama," which gives inclusion to all the tribal groups.
Nationwide elections in 1990 showed overwhelming support (outside of Shan State, which voted for Shans) for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, now six years under house arrest. Her father was independence hero Aung San, who persuaded independent ethnic leaders to accept his negotiation for terms ending Britain's colonial rule. He promised choice for secession, after ten years, to the Shan and Kachin states, which had never submitted to authority from Rangoon. He was assassinated before independence, however, and his promises were made void. She is English educated, married to an Englishman, and her children are in England. This English influence is of deep concern to military leaders, the foremost of whom date from the country's colonial days.
Burma contains perhaps 135 ethnic groups (over twice as many as China). Besides the Myanmars or Burmans, there are the Kachin, Karenni (Kayan), Karen, Chin, Arakanese, Mon and Shan, for which states have been named, other tribes of some relation to one of them, and tribes of Mongoloid origin, including Mizo, Lahu, Palaung, Naga and Wa. Most of these have their own ethnic independence armies; additionally there are descendent remnants of the Kuomintang Chinese (KMT), the now mostly defunct Burmese Communist Party, an All-Burma Students Democratic Front, and totally mercantile opium-trade protection organizations and small groups of armed bandits, of which in the last few decades there have been several hundred. The total of ethnic or ideological rebel armies once exceeded 26, but 14 of the remaining have now agreed to a cease-fire with the government, in hopes of development help. Non-governmental armed, trained, organized and active forces are estimated from approximately 75,000 to above 125,000 (some merely boys); figures quoted for insurgent fighters are much lower as these do not include the opium armies. In the SLORC's army of almost 300,000, the Tatmadaw (pronounced Tah-mah- doe), moral is not high, especially as there is little if any civilian support (except from many families dependent on army money). If the insurgent armies would unite, overthrow of the SLORC could happen. Variant politics, however, along with lack of geographic commonalty, historic animosities, communication difficulties, religious differences, and conflicting financial support bases make this very unlikely. For example, in addition to entrenched and opposed Buddhists, Moslems, and Christians, there are animistic and charismatic cults, and many strong clan rivalries. Most Karen and Mon are decidedly anti-narcotic, but also competitive, even sometimes combative, with each other, and sometimes even internally, as seems to have been the case with the recent fall of the Karen headquarters at Mannerplaw, due at least in part to Buddhist soldiers' dissatisfaction with their Christian leadership.
The largest insurgent forces in Burma, the Mong Tai Army (MTA), also referred to as the Shan United Army (SUA) (since recent Khmer Rouge defections it is the largest insurgent army in Southeast Asia) is headed by Zao Khunsa (referred to in media usually as Khun Sa, originally named Chan Cheefu or Zhang Qifu, and heriditary Loimaw headman). He is on America's "Most Wanted" list, although he has never set foot on American soil. A Brooklyn, New York court indicted him on heroin trafficking (narcotics racketeering) charges. He is a charismatic leader and protector to millions in Shan State. For almost twenty years he has offered to eradicate Shan opium/heroin supply in return for such security and stability, for his people, that at present only narcotics trade efficiently supplies. The price for this is but a tiny fraction of the "street value" of the product, or American tax dollars spent in response to the narcotics problem (on surveillance, interdiction, incarceration, rehabilitation, hospitalization, etc). But such requests for help with crop substitution, schools, hospitals, and some infrastructuring have prompted little response.
Recent gains in respect from the majority of Shan people for the NTA's legitimacy as the representative army of all Shans has brought other ethnic guerrilla groups to discuss possibilities of realignments in opposition to the SLORC. But previous talks with their northern neighbor the Kachin Independence Organization dissolved when the Kachins acceded to agreement with the SLORC, as have ethnic militia of the Pa-0, Palaung, Kayah and Wa, each without surrendering arms. officers of the Karen Mational Union have come to Khun Sa for talks, and contacts have been improved with the Mon and Karenni guerilla armies. Khun Sals media aide Khernsai Jaiyen explains: Khun Sa gained the confidence and trust of other insurgent groups after declaring Shan State independent, late in 1993. "Declaring Shan State independent was the same as declaring war with Rangoon. After that we gained the trust of the Karen and other factions," he said last May. The MTA, well entrenched and locally popular, maintains heavy artillery and surface-to-air heat-seeking missiles, and ground sabotage; high troop morale also, especially due to a take-good-care-of-the- wounded policy. Traditionally the Shan, Kachin, Pa-0, Palaung and Lahu accepted cultural pluralism as a fact of life, despite some competition which occasionally led to armed clashes. Very rugged terrain, infrastructure insufficiencies (especially bulk- transportation facilities), and very strained political relationships, have kept economic potential limited, and feudalistic warlordism entrenched.
In Shan State's Mong T'ai capitol, Ho Mong, (not far from Khun sals previous base at Mong Mai, more readily identifiable on maps, 'though sometimes as Mong Mau), tens of thousands of Shan people are gathered, hoping for improved chances of liberty, justice and economic well-being. Several thousands pre-formed reed-mat houses form dozens of neighborhoods along the main road through the mountain valley, about a hundred miles north of Mae Hong Son, Thailand. The women mostly wear modern clothing; the men and boys are almost all in uniform.
Shan farmers not protected by a local army run high risk of being press-ganged into work as porters and/or land-mine detectors for the Tatmadaw, without pay even in food, usually going into field of battle without protective gear, against their own people. Even in Rangoon the SLORC has press-ganged people from the street; about half a million are forced to work on any given day, with over three million shanghaied so far. Women who care for them or otherwise feel they must do so, follow, in order to provide food. Many porters have died or become severely mutilated while engaged in this work, supposedly for the good of their nation.
Within Shan State Khun Sa faces problems from other dangerous but local enemies, including drug kingpins Lo Hsing-han and Yang Mo Lian, both from the Kokang region (and as with the vast majority of the people there, of Chinese ancestry). In 1973 Lo Hsing-han was the first to offer to sell the Shan opium crop to the U.S. government, two years prior to Khun Sals first such offer. Lo has an arrangement with the SLORC, as do some neighbors not far from his base-town of Lashio, the rather wild Wa guerrillas Some Wa can still remember ancestors who were headhunters, and lived inaccessibly in small villages surrounded by impenetrably thick thorn strands for two decades they were Communist Party members, but now are capitalistic poppy cultivators. The Wa fought against Khun Sals Mong Tai Army until two years ago and now vow to support the Yangon (SLORC's re-name of Rangoon) junta.
Complicating the picture is a proposal coming from international business consortiums and the Asian Development Bank, for new roads and infrastructure arrangements in a "growth quadrangle" to include the "Golden Triangle" of Burma, Thailand and Laos, along with Yunnan, China, where many people share a common ethnic background with the Shans, Thais and lowland, majority Lao people. The proposals would boost tourism, encourage economic imperialism, and facilitate repressive political control. "The formation of the Golden Rectangle is inevitable because of the geo-economic advance of China toward the south," said Thai political scientist Sukhumbhand Paribatra, quoted in the Bangkok Post. "One has to be very careful, because this advance will be linked to the region's powerful local Chinese communities.
Chinese trading and finance houses dominate financial activities in Southeast Asia, including the black-market economy of Burma. The families frequently have been expatriated for centuries, and are essentially apolitical. But their creed, "commerce is commerce", pays little heed to the legality or morality of the merchandise -- quite understandable given the historical facts of two wars brought by Westerners with the express purpose of imposing upon China the narcotic trade, and other more recent political absurdities (for instance demands for employment policies in China which are known to be poorly enforced in regards to Chinese people in America). Chinese family connections are a mainstay of the region's narcotics trade. Khun Sa is half Chinese, though he presents himself to be Shan nationalist. Mr. Jaiyen dismisses this as a problem,. "We had some propaganda attack by both the Burmese and the Thais because Khun Sa is not of pure Shan blood. The Burmese are plainly forgetting that their paramount leader Ne Win is half Chinese, while the Thais are also overlooking the fact that their country itself was freed from the Burmese yoke by the efforts of King Taksin who was of Chinese descent. That Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai and the Deputy Chamlong Srimong come from Chinese immigrants. But, they have been able to govern without any problems about their having alien blood, because they are not working for China but for Thailand. It's the same with the Shans. Do you think Khun Sa would have stayed long in power if the people believe he's not working in their interests?"
According to Sombst Raksakul of the Bangkok Post, "Khun Sa... is cleaning up his drug image by making it appear that his income is from the gem trade... employing about 100 workers to cut raw gemstones and make jewelry... also selling valuable raw materials to Thai merchants". The recent discovery of a ruby stone source in Mong Hsu, Shan State, has gem miners and traders who operated along the Thai-Cambodian border moving to the Thai-Burmese border towns of Mae Sot and Mae Sai. Mae Saio the northernmost point in Thailand, is opposite Tachilek, where the MTA has recently been in ongoing armed confrontation with the Tatmadaw. In the fall of 194, the border there was open to tourists, although non-Thais could go no further than the town itself. The Burmese currency, kyat, was not in use there, but only Thai baht. It was rumored, then discounted in the Thai press that the Wa had opened a gambling casino there. Tachilek reportedly had as many as 14 heroin refineries in the past; now it has a Tatmadaw base and a busy market with a plethora of cheap Chinese goods, also a resort hotel under construction. Clearly Khun Sals threats against the city are an important card in his hand. While it is unclear whether he owns heroin refineries or merely taxes them, it has become clear that the bulk of Shan State heroin now comes from Kokang and areas under Wa control.
The Chinese government has sold the SLORC junta F-7 fighter- bombers (copies of the Soviet MiG21) and other military hardware, including two frigates likely to be fitted with surface-to- surface missiles. It has not sold helicopters, which could be used more effectively against insurgents. In return for any further assistance, they want from Rangoon a naval base, or at least refueling rights for submarine and aircraft carriers, in the Bay of Bengal, on Coco Island in the Indian ocean, and also Zedetkyi Kyun (St Matthew's Island) off Tenasserim, close to the northern entrance to the Straits of Malacca, which would lead to a much strengthened degree of influence for China in the area. The growing influence of large oil and gas companies could supply additional pressure in this direction.
Thailand has just opened it's first road-bridge with Laos, and also held talks with China on road links to Jinghong, Yunnan, through Sipsongpanna (the "twelve kingdoms" legendary birthplace of the Tai race). Two options were for passage through Laos and northern Burma; a longer third possible route bypasses Burma. So far most roads in Northern Burma and Laos are barely passable for 4-wheel drive vehicles. Coca-cola just opened a bottling plant in Kunming, Yunnan; serious commercialization of the region is not likely to lag far behind. However, so far, the SLORC's leader Ne Win's "Burmese Road to Socialism" has well preserved the independent uniqueness of Burmese culture, regardless of consequent material losses.
Burma's northernmost state, Kachin, bordering Tibet in the foothills of the Himalayas, is one of the world's most minerally rich areas, with much gold and high-quality jade. Their opium production was substandard, though, due to primitive extraction methods, and they no longer produce it. Kachin State remains poor and sparsely populated, with some of its rugged sub- Himalayan areas virtually uninhabited. Still, teak and other hardwoods are flowing from those mountainous areas through Thailand to Japan, alarming rainforest preservationists.
To the south, the Karen and Mon maintain insurgencies, with just a bit of international media attention and some outside aid. The possibility of their cultural survival seems very much in question. A natural-gas pipeline in progress to supply Thailand, Baptist and other Church organizations, non-governmental relief organizations, business interests and tourism are all having some impact. The Karen National Liberation Army until recently rivaled Khun Sals in size, but is short of supplies, transportation for which they still use a few war elephants.
Khun Sals efforts in Ho Mong have led to recently established mushroom and silkworm farms, pineapple plantations, textile and garment production, a hydroelectric dam, a Jewelry factory and booming gem emporium. In the pleasant Market and well-stocked stores, dry-goods are mostly Thai, and only Thai money is used. Schools and medical facilities are readily in evidence, as are two small hotels. There is hardly any need to lock doors, as there is virtually no crime.
Meanwhile along the Thai border with Karen state, many international tourists trek to "undeveloped" Karen villages to photograph the occasional "long-necked woman" (perhaps from the small Padaung tribe, perhaps one born under a full moon, but however, one with many brass rings covering the neck and depressing the collar-bone). Such tourism seldom benefits the ethnic people, especially financially. What little they might gain they are soon destined to lose. Exploitation and manipulation by the rich and influential in the area typically involves little governmental interference.
For over 20 years refineries in Shan State have produced most of the world's supply of the 90% pure heroin (known as "Number 411); this is the area's primary hard currency earner. The product travels through China and/or Thailand, according to Alfred McCoy in "The Politics of Heroin," often in the care of tChiu chaul dialect speakers (originally Swatowese, that is, from the seaport of Kwantung in SE China, arrived in Hong Kong via Shanghai and now somewhat scattered abroad). Ethnic Yunnanese Muslims called Panthays, or "Huill in Chinese, and the Thai "Haw" are also blamed (but poorly identified, except as expatriate Yunnanese), and it is easy to run across mention of "triads," the legendary Chinese secret societies. However supplied, illegal heroin is available virtually worldwide, also flowing from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Laos, Lebanon, Mexico, Sudan, and recently in most, if not all, of the southern ex-Soviet states. Even Columbia recently has begun to produce the high grade #4. It is thus questionable why American law enforcement would think capture of Khun Sa might have any impact on narcotic's street availability or price. It is also questionable why crop substitution or eradication is deemed necessary, as there is important medical utility, and internationally sanctioned narcotic production in India, Iran, Turkey, and more recently, Tasmania, Australia.
Early in this century, the Shan were already selling opium to the Yunnanese, who transported it down the Yangtze and sold it to the French. The Shan were then divided into 34 small principalities, and had no concept of rigid border demarcation. Frequent forced 'taxation' by roving warlords has discouraged most other forms of farming for market. Trade has been ruined to the point where salt is expensive and goiter is a widespread problem. Indeed, without opium, the entire consumer economy of Burma might grind to a halt, as most of what is available for sale has been brought in on the backs of returning opium-caravan mules.
Clearly the Shan people wish to enter the modern world with the respect and the dignity merited by capable and industrious people, which they indeed are. The commerce in narcotics doesn't generate much profit for them, except insofar as it keeps at bay a powerful external threat. The SLORC is a powerful threat, though it has done little so far except to keep out the big business concerns that eventually may present a more real and disruptive danger to the peoples and cultures of Northern Burma. Modern infrastructure can be doubly dangerous in this area, tending as it does to bring governmental repression and corporate exploitation. A direct relationship clearly exists between poverty and the narcotics problem, but Khun Sals aide Khernsai Jaiyen expresses no interest in the parallels with problems in South America, or in contacts there. Shan State may never be able to have more impact on the world beyond its confines than it does now, through its narcotics, and it is unclear how much outside people should feel obliged to become involved in internal Shan State affairs. But with drug addiction a problem of the magnitude it has become, it can easily seem to be a problem of either influencing the situation, or being influenced by it.
The following exerptions provide meaningful insight:
From The Shan of Burma, Memoirs of a Shan Exile, by Chao Tzang Yawnghwe (alias Eugene Thaike, a Shan noble and son of Burma's first President) Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1984, pgs 48 - 50:
The... struggle for control in Burma involves the question of
autonomy or the degree of autonomy to be given to other ethnic
groups. This struggle which has taken the form of open warfare
between Rangoon and the Shan, Karen, Karenni, Mon, and so forth,
has unfortunately been branded by the West in general as nothing
more than a tribal uprising. This is due perhaps to the
inability of the West to grasp the fact that the concept of a
bureaucratic nation-state is relatively new. In Asia, the
traditional form of governance is one based on the loyalty of a
person to the nearest overlord, and so on up the ladder, and
finally, to the person of the king. Hence, it is not easy, even
among one people who share a common language and culture to bring
about a national loyalty focused on an alien and impersonal
bureaucratic arrangement. The difficulties are further
compounded when a nation-state is composed of different ethno-
linguistic groups.
Such being the realities of history, the stand taken by most
Western scholars and historians that the Burmese power centre
equals an "egalitarian, modern state", while Shan nationalism is
"reactionary feudal tribalism" is untenable. Such an attitude is
certainly not scholarly since it ignores the historical and
qualitative factors governing the status and development of the
various ethnic groups in Burma, especially the major ones.
It must also be remembered that before the impact of the west,
there was no such concept as national unity in Burma or elsewhere
in Asia. There was the king and his court in the golden capital,
and there were vassal lords and princes who may, or may not have
been of the same ethnic group as the king. When a king was
strong and dynamic, vassal lords and princes enjoyed less
freedom, and more often than not, such a king would invade
neighboring kingdoms. The aim of engaging in foreign wars was
not for country or nation, but for reasons of personal glory.
The Burmese, like the Cambodian, the Siamese, the Shan, the
Indian, even the Chinese, were not, prior to the nineteenth
century, conscious of nationalism or nationhood in the sense it
is understood today.
From True Love and Bartholomew, Rebels on the Burmese Border by Jonathan Falla, Cambridge University Press, 1991, pgs 360-361:
In 1827 Dr John Crawford... was sent on an embassy from the
Governor-General of India to the Burmese Court of Ava. He
reported:
The conduct of the Burmans on their predatory excursions is
cruel and ferocious to the last degree... 'You see us here', said
some of the Chiefs to Mr Judson, la mild people living under
regular laws. Such is not the case when we invade foreign
countries. We are then under no restraints, we give way to all
or passions, we plunder and murder without compunction or
control. Foreigners should beware how they provoke us when they
know these things.'
In 1988 Amnesty International published a report on the treatment of the Karen and Kachin in Burma which showed that little had changed. It is full of accounts of the destruction and viciousness brought by Burmese soldiers to Karen villages - of people shot in the back as they unsuspectingly worked the fields, of daughters seeing their fathers buried and burnt alive, and young men having the flesh stripped off their shins with bamboo rollers to make them talk...
"You dare not say anything, your friends are taken away in the night, never seen again.
Perhaps the above is best tempered with an excerpt on pg 366:
Marshall's 1922 (p. 157) description of Karen war parties: The organiser of the foray did not go in person with his men, lest he be killed and thus unable to dispense the spoils, but remained at home to receive and reward the valiant fighters on their return with the booty.
Historical Facts about the Shan State (Condensed and Revised Edition), Shan State National Congress, 1994
Burma's Golden Triangle, On the Trail of the Opium Warlords, by Andre' and Louis Boucaud, Asia Books, 1992
The Lands of Charm and Cruelty, Travels in Southeast Asia, by Stan Stresser, Vintage Books, Random House, 1994
Land of Jade, A Journey Through Insurgent Burma by Bertil Lintner, published by Kiscadale in Scotland and White Lotus in Bangkok, 1990
Burma in Revolt, Opium and Insurgency Since 1948, by Bertil Lintner, Westview Press and White Lotus, 1994
Burmese Looking Glass, A Human Rights Adventure and a Jungle Revolution, by Edith Mirante, Atlantic Monthly Press, 1993
The Politics of Heroin, CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade by Alfred W. McCoy, Lawrence Hill Books 1991
True Love and Bartholomew, Rebels on the Burmese Border by Jonathan Falla, Cambridge University Press 1991
The Shan of Burma, Memoirs of a Shan Exile by Chao Tzang Yawnghwe, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1987
A History of Modern Burma, by John F. Cady, Cornell University Press, 1958
Burman in the Back Row, Autobiography of a Burmese Rebel, by Aye Saung, Asia 2000 Ltd., 1989
Constructive Engagement in the Burmese Contest, by Kanbawza Win, CPDSK (Institute of), Federal Republic of the Union of Burma (Liberated area), March 1995.